concept
Tower of Babel
also: Babels, vavilonov
The Biblical monument of Genesis 11, whose builders' hubris is God-thwarted -- used proverbially for any overreaching, grandiose construction, invoked here comically for a stack of soap bars.
Reading notes
- Proper Measures §26 Towers of Babel
A mock-Biblical exaggeration -- the doctor likens the shopkeeper's neatly stacked pyramids of soap bars to the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), Chekhov's stock device of inflating a trivial provincial detail with grandiose language.