Pilgrim's

Progress

Study Guide by Course Hero

What's Inside

relating the dream. The characters speak to each other in the present tense, as they would in a drama.

ABOUT THE TITLE

j Book Basics ................................................................................................. 1

Christian, the main character of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Part 1, is a pilgrim in the original sense: a person who d In Context ..................................................................................................... 1

undertakes a journey for religious purposes. His outward progress to the Celestial City is matched by inward growth in a Author Biography ..................................................................................... 4

wisdom and spiritual strength. Part 2 concerns the effect his h Characters .................................................................................................. 6

efforts have on his wife and children, who follow his example.

k Plot Summary ........................................................................................... 15

c Chapter Summaries .............................................................................. 21

d In Context

g Quotes ........................................................................................................ 40

l Symbols ..................................................................................................... 42

The Pilgrim's Progress and

m Themes ...................................................................................................... 44

Christian Allegory

The Pilgrim's Progress is perhaps one of the best-known j Book Basics

English allegories—and certainly the most widely read and translated. The term allegory, whose Greek root roughly translates as "to speak in a different way," refers to any literary AUTHOR

work whose characters, setting, and incidents point John Bunyan

symbolically to a reality outside the text. Although even an YEAR PUBLISHED

individual object or character can be described as an allegory if Part 1, 1678; Part 2, 1684

it has a clear real-world meaning, the term is typically used for larger-scale stories or poems in which many metaphors or GENRE

symbols fit together to express a broader point. Populated by Allegory, Religion

hundreds of symbolically named characters and places, the world of The Pilgrim's Progress fully exemplifies this stricter PERSPECTIVE AND NARRATOR

definition.

The Pilgrim's Progress is narrated as a dream witnessed in the first person by the author himself—though most of the action, John Bunyan was far from the first storyteller to use allegory narrated in the third person, concerns characters within the and dream vision as a way of expressing religious ideas. As in dream.

other allegorical works, The Pilgrim's Progress is presented through personification, or the literary device by which "human TENSE

characteristics are attributed to an abstract quality, animal, or The Pilgrim's Progress is told in the past tense by the narrator

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide In Context 2

inanimate object." Ancient literature such as the epic poems of referencing biblical text, as he deliberately and pointedly the Iliad (c. 750–650 BCE) and the Odyssey (c. 725–675 BCE) includes chapter-and-verse citations throughout by way of by Greek poet Homer (c. 8th century BCE) included inviting the reader to look them up in their own Bibles for personification. More significant to Bunyan's story is the verification. Instead of relying upon a Catholic priest to provide philosophical writing of the Roman Christian Anicius Manlius biblical context in Latin to be passively accepted by the Severinus Boethius (c. 470/75–524 CE), a scholar and faithful, Protestant congregants took some pride in reading for philosopher whose Consolation of Philosophy (c. 524 CE) is themselves a vulgate (that is, written in a modern language like presented as a dream in which the ladies Philosophy and English, German, or Spanish instead of Latin) translation. This Fortune appear to guide the prisoner. The 15th-century English practice encouraged not only the education of boys in state-morality play Everyman presents Everyman's soul in an attempt funded schools but also of girls, who were usually educated at to come to terms with the inevitable approach of Death. In the home. This meant that a true Christian must take personal dramatization, Everyman has been abandoned by companions responsibility for understanding the Word of God, knowing the Wealth, Beauty, and Strength, and only Good Deeds is brave difference between right and wrong, and acting accordingly.

enough to enter the grave with him on the promise to vouch for Protestant congregants of Bunyan's time read and studied him at his final judgment. The playlet has proved popular over biblical text alone and in groups in order to find meaning for the years and is still produced even today.

their own lives. In this way, The Pilgrim's Progress is very much like a sermon supported by self-study in the Bible. The author It is clear from the many references to biblical text in The tells Christian's story as if it were a parable based upon his Pilgrim's Progress that Bunyan was thoroughly conversant with expansion of the Bible and supporting his statements by its the books of both the New and Old Testaments. The Book of passages, as if he were preaching to a congregation.

Revelation, the final book of the New Testament in most versions of the Bible, is attributed to St. John the Apostle. This supernatural allegory describes his vision of Christ and the The Religious Climate of 17th-coming of the end times through an elaborate pageant of vivid, violent imagery. It is likely that Bunyan drew heavily upon these Century England

dramatic elements to enliven his story .

Bunyan is often said to have read at least Book 1 of English Given its extreme popularity, it is easy to forget that The poet Edmund Spenser's (c. 1552–99) great allegorical poem Pilgrim's Progress was written by a member of a persecuted The Faerie Queene (1590). Close parallels can be drawn religious minority. Bunyan's Separatist beliefs were not between the quests of the holy knights of this work and endorsed—or even officially tolerated—in England during much Christian's journey in The Pilgrim's Progress. It should also be of the time he lived and wrote. Rather, Bunyan's adult life can noted that The Pilgrim's Progress draws from many sources be thought of as bookended by two periods of relative outside the literary and philosophical allegorical tradition.

tolerance for Puritanism, Separatism, and other forms of Among these, perhaps surprisingly, are the adventure stories religious nonconformism. Before, between, and after these Bunyan enjoyed in childhood. Sold in cheap editions called periods, those who dissented from established Church of chapbooks, these tales were a little like the comic books or England doctrines and practices did so at their own peril.

dime novels of their day. They often featured the same sort of About a century before Bunyan was born, the Protestant exciting escapades seen in The Pilgrim's Progress: chivalric Reformation reached England. On the European continent, (and sometimes gory) combat, narrow escapes, and heroic German religious leader Martin Luther (1483–1546) had openly quests. Read in the context of such works, The Pilgrim's criticized contemporary Catholic practices with the 95 Theses Progress can be construed as an attempt to take images both in 1517, leading to an official denunciation of Luther (the Edict from serious religious and philosophical writings and popular of Worms) in 1521. In the early 1530s King Henry VIII secular fiction and put them to a pious use.

(1491–1547) seized upon the growing momentum of The extent and directness of these influences are still a matter Reformation ideas in England to break with Rome and of critical debate. The Bible is frequently paraphrased in The accomplish his divorce from Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536).

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide In Context 3

established with the king as its head. Initially quite close to government and Church leadership with quite different goals.

Catholic teachings, the Church of England became more Many of his noblemen and ranking clergy wished to eradicate decidedly Protestant in doctrine and worship during the reigns Puritanism, suppress Separatism, and enforce conformity to of King Edward VI (1537–53) and Queen Elizabeth I the sort of mainline Anglicanism officially recognized before (1533–1603), the latter having been raised Protestant the war. Thus, in 1661 the first of a series of repressive laws according to the wishes of her mother, Anne Boleyn (c.

were passed, relegating religious nonconformists to the status 1507–36). Catholicism was displaced and effectively outlawed of second-class citizens. Under one such law prohibiting public as the Anglican faith consolidated its principles and preaching in a nonconformist faith, the Bunyan was sentenced established its own hierarchy.

to a 12-year prison term.

Those who participated in these religious reforms were, The Penal Laws were relaxed in 1672 under the Declaration of however, never as perfectly uniform as the royal decrees might Indulgence by King Charles II but were renewed a year later as suggest. Some sought to retain the essentially Catholic flavor the king, who was Anglican by faith, buckled under pressure of the early Church of England, and indeed some remained from the nobility. Charles II died in 1685 without ever having actual Catholics, albeit often covertly. Others felt that the so-achieved the officially sanctioned tolerance he wished for. His called Elizabethan Religious Settlement did not go far enough brother and successor, King James II (1633–1701), was a in distancing Anglicanism from Catholicism. Among the latter Catholic convert and had a more directly personal stake in the were Puritans, who sought to "purify" the Church of England, issue. During his brief reign (1685–88) some progress was and their offshoot, the Separatists, who sought to break from made toward tolerance for Catholics and nonconformists; thus it. The two groups were, and are still, often confused with one Bunyan, who died in 1688, spent his last years in what might be another because they were extremely close in their beliefs and called a climate of optimism. The Glorious Revolution practices, differing mainly in how they chose to express their (1688–89), which saw James II deposed and his policies dissent with mainstream Anglicanism.

reversed, broke out in November 1688, mere months after Bunyan's death.

In the early 17th century, Puritans comprised a significant minority of English Christians. Though they were seldom physically attacked by mainstream Anglicans, literary works of Personal Awakening

the time show that the predominant attitude was one of disapproval, even mockery. The popular plays of English writer Bunyan's writings were not just the result of changes in Ben Jonson (1572–1637), for example, contain anti-Puritan England's religious politics. They were also the product of a caricatures in the form of Zeal-of-the-land Busy. This personal religious conversion. Though he was exposed to hypocritical preacher, who appears in Bartholomew Fair (1614), Puritan ideas in the mid-1640s during his time as a embodies the already prevalent stereotype of Puritans as fun-Parliamentarian conscript, Bunyan was decisively converted to hating killjoys obsessed with finding the faults of others. By the religious Separatism following his first marriage in 1649. His time Bunyan came of age, however, the English Civil Wars wife, poor as Bunyan himself was, had brought as her dowry (1642–51) were gathering momentum, with Puritans and their only two Puritan tracts: The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven and allies finding first tolerance and then later support under the The Practice of Piety. Reading these sparked in Bunyan a crisis Parliamentarian faction. The interregnum—the decade of faith that ultimately led to his embracing Puritan theology, immediately following the reign of the deposed King Charles I joining a Separatist congregation in his hometown of Bedford, (1600–49)—saw Puritans essentially put in charge of the and becoming a preacher and religious author himself.

English government.

In his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of This period of Puritan legitimation gave the young Bunyan the Sinners (1666), Bunyan speaks of his life before Puritanism in freedom first to discover, then to embrace and express, terms familiar from religious conversion narratives. He nonconformist religious ideas. With the restoration of the describes himself as living, unawares, on a dunghill of filth and English monarchy in 1660, however, the situation reversed.

iniquity, from which only God's grace could lift him. This is not Charles II (1630–85), the new king, privately wished for to say that Bunyan was irreligious before his conversion. He religious tolerance but found himself commanding a conformed to standard practices of the time, such as going to Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Author Biography 4

church twice a day. Once he began hearing voices, however, likewise, a reimagining of Bunyan's own struggles with his Bunyan no longer found it adequate to be a regular churchgoer sense of guilt and unworthiness. His description of a while continuing to sin in other areas of his life.

dangerous journey no doubt resonated with those nonconformists—specifically Puritans—who left the comforts The Puritanical nature of his conversion experience is evident and persecutions of England for the New World.

in the specific behaviors that he shuns, such as dancing and playing games on the Sabbath. Neither of these was broadly Bunyan is not the first writer to refer to allegorical locations.

considered to be sinful in Bunyan's time, except among The Celestial City was described in detail, along with directions nonconformists. Many of his neighbors considered themselves on how to reach it by shunning unbelief and embracing faith by upright Christians and used the Sabbath as, in part, a day of St. Augustine (354–430), who described in detail the City of recreation. Bunyan shows this to be true in his God (413–426) as belonging to the elect, while the damned autobiographical book, Grace Abounding. In it he says that were confined to The City of Man. Based upon this widely read dancing and playing outdoor games on the Sabbath are religious book, the Medieval Italian French author Christine de popular pastimes among his neighbors, and Bunyan is Pizan (1364–1430) penned The Book of the City of Ladies in considered the odd one out for his strict refusal to take part.

1405. Instantly popular with readers in French, the book was The same people who go to church twice a day don't translated into English in 1521, and it is unlikely that Bunyan understand why Bunyan won't play tip-cat with them on would have been unaware of it. De Pizan not only presents Sundays. For him, however, the Sabbath is a day for reflection, herself as the main character who dreams the vision of how Bible study, rest, and prayer. Amusing oneself is considered a the City of Ladies is to be constructed but also relates to the waste of time; a break from useful work should be used only reader how she is guided by the allegorically symbolic Ladies for self-edification, not enjoyment.

Reason (Part 1), Rectitude (Part 2), and Justice (Part 3).

Bunyan's rejection of seemingly innocuous activities out of fear for his soul is reminiscent of Mr. Fearing, who appears in The a Author Biography

Pilgrim's Progress, Part 2 and is, like the young Bunyan, afraid of offending God even by accident. That Bunyan later moderated his views can be seen in episodes from The Pilgrim's Progress where godly characters, such as Christiana, Early Years

indulge in dancing and music during times of celebration.

John Bunyan was born in the English village of Elstow, Broadly, however, the convert's zeal Bunyan describes in Bedfordshire, in 1628. His exact birth date is unknown, but he Grace Abounding carries over to The Pilgrim's Progress and to was baptized on November 30, almost certainly within a few the many nonfiction tracts that Bunyan wrote. In The Pilgrim's weeks of his birth. His father was a traveling metalworker, Progress, glimpses of Bunyan's own conversion process are variously described by biographers as a tinker (traveling visible from the beginning as Christian becomes suddenly, repairer of pots and pans) or brazier (brass worker). Whatever overwhelmingly, convinced he is in danger.

the exact nature of the elder Bunyan's work, he passed down This distressed man turns out to be Christian, who has been his craft—and not much else—to his son John. The younger living in the City of Destruction. He vainly attempts to persuade Bunyan received a rudimentary education at his local grammar his family and friends to leave with him before all is consumed school, which, at that time in England, would have included by fire and to seek refuge in the Celestial City. But the way to such subjects as rhetoric, arithmetic, and Latin classics by rote refuge is long and perilous, so he sets out alone. These memorization. Even after taking up his trade as a metalsmith, allegorical cities are, like all other locations in the book, Bunyan read avidly from both popular fiction and religious symbolic. What is really at stake is Christian's soul. His position literature.

in a society unaware of its own damnation is reminiscent of Bunyan and his contemporaries lived during a period of bitter what Bunyan must have felt when, in his early adulthood, he strife between adherents of the Anglican, or Church of came to the conclusion that he must break with his "godly"

England, faith and Protestant groups, which included Quakers, neighbors. His struggles in the Slough of Despond are, Puritans, and Separatists. These groups conjoined politically to Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Author Biography 5

enforce their agenda of ethical behavior through Parliament in Gifford" and converted in 1653. Soon Bunyan was preaching in opposition to the English monarchy, which was primarily his own right and attracting a considerable following. He often Anglican. Frustrated by the inflexible attitude of King Charles I shared the pulpit with another Calvinist Baptist preacher, (1600–49) and his Royalists, Parliamentarian Separatists William Kiffin (1616–1701). This part of Bunyan's life is detailed sought to remove the institution of the monarchy by force.

further in his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666).

Bunyan's autobiography states that his youth was spent in enthusiastic pursuit of every vice available. He claims he Often called a Puritan himself, Bunyan can more accurately be ceased to read and write. In 1644 the now teenaged Bunyan described as a Puritan Separatist. The Puritan sect—and its was drafted or volunteered into the Parliamentary militia as Separatist offshoot—was composed of nonconformist English part of the ongoing English Civil Wars (1642–51). The wars took Protestants who rejected what they regarded as the excesses place between the Royalists, who defended the monarchy, and of the established Church of England. They particularly Parliamentarians, who sought to overthrow the monarchy and shunned the Anglican Church's ceremonial pomp and install their own system of rule. This objective was decisively centralized hierarchy—both of which they viewed as holdovers obtained in 1649 with the trial and execution of Charles I.

from Catholicism. Social reform prohibited drunkenness, laces Though he saw little combat from his post in northern or colorful attire for men and women, and leisurely pastimes Buckinghamshire, Bunyan was caught up in the spirit of like dancing, attending plays (especially comedies), or playing religious diversity and dissent that had accompanied the war's card games (gambling). These prohibitions were especially outbreak. He was strongly influenced by Puritan thought, with enforced on the Sabbath (Sunday), which was a day devoted its exhortations to self-denial and its condemnation of even to rest, prayer, biblical studies, and church attendance.

seemingly innocuous pleasures.

Separatists like Bunyan took this idea even further and believed the conscientious thing to do was to break off from the Church of England entirely, whereas Puritans sought to Religious Awakening

purify it from within. The nature of the social reforms based on religious ethical behavior proposed by the two groups is similar Bunyan's true religious conversion, however, came after his enough, however, that The Pilgrim's Progress can be, and has first marriage in 1649. His first wife, whose name is been, analyzed as a window into Puritan thought.

speculatively thought to have been Mary (d. 1658), came, according to Bunyan's autobiography, from a poor but pious family. Together John and Mary had two daughters, Mary and Prisoner and Author

Elizabeth; Mary was born blind. Although of the Anglican faith, Mrs. Bunyan brought two Puritan tracts as her dowry (the Separatists, Puritans, and others who lay beyond the pale of property traditionally bestowed on a husband by his wife or her the established Church enjoyed relative religious freedom family at the time of their wedding). These writings were The during the Civil Wars and the interregnum. The interregnum Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven and The Practice of Piety.

was the period between monarchs (1649–60) after the well-Reading these books and being influenced by his wife's attended public beheading of Charles I for treason and before compassionate patience seems to have continued a process his son, Charles II (1630–85), was brought from exile to be that had begun in 1651 when Bunyan met John Gifford (d.

crowned in London. Political, religious, and social control was 1655), who adhered to the teachings of Protestant reformer held by their dominance in Parliament and supported by and French theologian John Calvin (1509–64), the minister of a military force. Transgressions such as drunkenness or nonconformist Baptist congregation in Bedford. The two men prostitution were severely punished by incarceration or had much in common. Gifford had also served in the military humiliating public display, during which the offender was (although in the Royalist Army as a physician). He had been a ridiculed and pelted with rotten food (or worse) by passersby.

"repulsive man of bad habits" until 1650, when Gifford Public executions by beheading or hanging for the most encountered "the simple truths" expressed in Mr. Bolton's Last serious crimes were common. Reenactments of the beheading and Learned Works of the Four Last Things—Death, Judgment, of Charles I were also frequently staged for the populace to Hell and Heaven. Bunyan revered Gifford as the "Holy Mr.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Characters 6

support for Royalists who might attempt to restore the Dissenters banned from holding any government office or monarchy.

sitting in Parliament.

This situation was virtually reversed when Charles II assumed Bunyan, who died on August 31, 1688, did not live to see that the throne in 1660, ushering in a period known as the English devastating reversal. A few years after his death, Bunyan's Restoration, referring to the restoration of the monarchy.

known works were republished in folio. This paved the way for Religious nonconformists of all kinds under the Restoration numerous translations, modernizations, and retellings—not to were prohibited from preaching publicly by a series of mention a few frauds and forgeries, such as the spurious "Part repressive acts known as the Clarendon Code, the first of 3," which was included in editions of Bunyan's famous allegory which was passed in 1661. Bunyan, who refused to stop for many years. The Pilgrim's Progress is his lasting preaching, was arrested early that year and sent to the county contribution to English literature. Through the 19th century, it jail, where he remained until 1672, when he was granted a royal was found, next to the Bible, in every English home. Many pardon as part of a broad but temporary relaxation of the American frontier households also contained a copy of Penal Laws. He returned to his congregation and continued to Bunyan's book alongside the Bible and the works of English preach and publish but was arrested again in 1675 following a playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616). Children reversal of royal policy toward nonconformists. Bunyan spent a memorized and recited passages from these books for guests further six months (December 1676–June 1677) in jail at and family members well into the early 1900s.

Bedford before he was released through the help of patrons (notably the well-connected William Kiffin) in the English nobility, having spent 12 years altogether in prison. During this h Characters

long imprisonment, he penned several religious works, of which The Pilgrim's Progress is by far the best known today.

The publication of Part 1 of The Pilgrim's Progress in 1678 was Christian

an instant success, sparking various imitators and unofficial sequels before the release of Part 2 in 1684. The Pilgrim's Christian, originally known as Graceless, is an inhabitant of the Progress is not the only religious commentary of Bunyan's time City of Destruction who leaves behind his wife and children in to gain popularity. Contemporary Englishman John Milton order to seek the Celestial City. He encounters many obstacles (1608–74) published his epic poem Paradise Lost in 1667, on his way to his destination, mirroring the temptations and followed by Paradise Regained and Sampson Agonistes, which trials faced by a Christian believer.

were published together in one book in 1671. These later works were more didactic than the vivid description of Satan's rebellion against God in Paradise Lost. Nonetheless, Milton, an John Bunyan

outspoken Presbyterian and well-educated critic of "state sanctioned religion," is credited with managing to convey "a John Bunyan includes himself in The Pilgrim's Progress, not Christian idea of heroism."

only as the strong-voiced narrator but also appearing in the beginnings of Parts 1 and 2, both of which he frames in the With the accession of the Catholic James II (1633–1701) to the context of his dreams.

British throne in 1685, the country seemed poised for a revival and expansion of the religious tolerance briefly tested in the 1670s. James's initiatives—which benefited nonconformists as Christiana

well as Catholics—were ultimately thwarted by the Glorious Revolution (1688–89). This transition was brought about by the deposition of James II and the installation of his daughter Mary Christiana, Christian's wife, initially questions her husband's II (1662–94), who ruled from 1689 to 1694 with her husband, desire to go on a pilgrimage to the Celestial City and tries to the Dutch Prince of Orange, William III (1650–1702). Although stop him. When he sets out on his own, she remains in the City Protestants, the joint monarchs attempted a unification of Destruction with their four sons. In Part 2 she receives a between Catholics and Protestants, but the compromise left summons from the king of the Celestial City (i.e., Christ) and Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Characters 7

sets out to answer it, accompanied by her sons and her neighbor Mercy.

Mercy

The aptly named Mercy is a pious and kindhearted young woman who cares for the poor. Despite not receiving a summons herself, she joins Christiana on a pilgrimage to the Celestial City, partly out of love for her friend and partly out of concern for her own soul. A maiden of marriageable age, she rejects worldly suitors before eventually wedding Christiana's son, Matthew.

Great-heart

Great-heart first appears early in Part 2 as a guide assigned to accompany Christiana and Mercy to the Celestial City. He is a knight-like figure who defends the other pilgrims against the assaults of thieves, bandits, and evil giants. These acts of physical bravery symbolize spiritual strength and the ability to resist temptation.

Faithful

Faithful is a fellow pilgrim who, in Part 1, sets out to escape the City of Destruction. He and Christian, his former neighbor, are reunited just after the Valley of the Shadow of Death and travel together awhile. They journey as far as the town of Vanity, where both are imprisoned and Faithful dies a martyr's death.

Hopeful

Hopeful, a former resident of Vanity, becomes a companion to Christian after being inspired by Faithful's pious example. He accompanies Christian all the way to the Celestial City.

Hopeful is not an especially well-defined character apart from the trait that gives him his name; he seems to serve mainly as someone for Christian to talk to.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Characters 8

Character Map

Guide

Christiana

Belated but sincere

spiritual pilgrim

Friends

Guide

Mercy

Great-heart

Spouses

Kindhearted young woman

Courageous knightlike figure

Christian

Pilgrim to the Celestial City

Friends

Guide

Evangelist

Faithful

Fellow

Imposing summoner

Devout Christian witness

pilgrims

of pilgrims

Hopeful

Celestial City seeker

Main Character

Other Major Character

Minor Character

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Characters 9

Full Character List

Adam the First is modeled after the

biblical Adam, but he represents his predecessor's worst qualities. He

Adam the First

seeks to live—and encourages

Character

Description

others—a comfortable life in this world, but there are hints that he enslaves Christian is the protagonist of The those who come to visit him.

Pilgrim's Progress, Part 1. His journey from the City of Destruction to the

Christian

Angels appear occasionally in The Celestial City allegorically represents Pilgrim's Progress, but they are most the Christian believer's rejection of Angels

prominent at the end of Part 1, where earthly things in pursuit of heaven.

they welcome Christian into the

Celestial City.

John Bunyan (1628–88) is the author

and narrator of The Pilgrim's Progress.

John Bunyan

Apollyon is a demon whom Christian

He maintains a strong authorial

fights in the Valley of Humiliation. After presence throughout the text.

Apollyon

a long and grueling combat, Christian wounds Apollyon and drives him off.

Christiana is the wife of Christian and the protagonist of The Pilgrim's Atheist encounters Christian and

Progress, Part 2. Initially unwilling to Hopeful near the end of the pilgrimage.

Christiana

leave her home in the City of

Atheist

He almost made it to the Celestial City Destruction, she eventually sets out in himself but turned back just before the her husband's footsteps to seek the

city came into view.

Celestial City.

Beelzebub, one of the many biblical

Mercy is a young neighbor of

names for the devil, is one of the main Christiana who accompanies her and

adversaries of the king and an enemy Mercy

her family on their journey to the

Beelzebub

of pilgrims. His archers attempt to kill Celestial City. She eventually marries pilgrims on their way to the Wicket-Matthew, Christiana's oldest son.

Gate, and his servants also attempt to trap them at Vanity Fair.

Great-heart is the guide appointed to lead Christiana and Mercy on their

Brisk is one of the worldly suitors

Great-heart

pilgrimage. He is brave and chivalrous attracted to the young and beautiful in a manner reminiscent of a medieval Mercy. He breaks off his wooing when knight.

Brisk

he finds that she is devoted to caring for the poor rather than amassing

Faithful is Christian's friend and former wealth for herself.

neighbor who sets forth on his own

pilgrimage from the City of

An old but wealthy woman, Madam

Faithful

Destruction. The two meet up about

Bubble represents the pleasures and

halfway through the pilgrimage route, allurements of this world. She

but Faithful is killed in the town of Madam Bubble

attempts to distract Standfast from his Vanity.

pilgrimage as he crosses the

Enchanted Ground.

Hopeful is Christian's companion for the latter leg of his pilgrimage in Part 1.

Hopeful

By-ends is an example of a fair-

He joins Christian just after the latter's By-ends

weather Christian: one who is religious escape from the town of Vanity.

only when it is not inconvenient.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Characters 10

Charity is one of the four maidens who Envy is one of the Vanity Fair

live in Palace Beautiful and entertain townsfolk called to testify against

Charity

pilgrims there. She asks Christian

Envy

Christian and Faithful. He accuses the questions about the family he left

two pilgrims of scorning the customs behind.

and laws of Vanity Fair.

A chorus of saints sings the hymn of The Ethiopian appears in a scene in

Chorus of

praise from the book of Revelation in the Delectable Mountains (Part 2) as Saints

Part 1, Chapter 10.

part of an allegorical lesson on

Ethiopian

reputation and appearances. To

Englishmen of Bunyan's time,

Civility, son of Legality, lives in the Ethiopians were proverbially dark-village of Morality and assists his

skinned.

father in helping pilgrims get rid of Civility

their burdens. He is mentioned but

never met in the course of Bunyan's

Evangelist, whose name is also the title dream narrative.

of the Gospel writers, is the man who visits Christian to persuade him to

leave the City of Destruction and go on Demas runs a silver mine on the aptly a pilgrimage. He is a stern but caring named Hill Lucre. He lures pilgrims to Demas

guide throughout Christian's journey.

abandon their quest and turn to the

Evangelist appears at the beginning of dangerous pursuit of wealth.

Part 1 to warn Christian of the doom Evangelist

that will shortly befall the City of Despair, also called Giant Despair,

Destruction. He reappears at intervals appears in both Parts 1 and 2,

to guide, encourage, and admonish

capturing pilgrims who venture too

Christian and his companions. Like the Despair

close to his castle. Christian escapes writers of the Gospels, who are also him in Part 1, and Great-heart slays him known as evangelists, he serves as a in Part 2.

messenger who reveals the workings

of God's will.

Mr. Despondency (whose name

literally means "hopelessness") is one Mr. Fearing is a pilgrim who is

Despondency

of the captives of Giant Despair. He is mentioned rather than seen by the

liberated by Great-heart and joins the other characters. He makes it to the Mr. Fearing

pilgrims late in Part 2.

Celestial City despite being hindered by constant and unnecessary fears

about his salvation.

Diffidence is the wife of Giant Despair and an enemy of the pilgrims. She

Diffidence

urges her husband to abuse the

Feeble-mind is a pilgrim who follows pilgrims until they give up the will to the Way as best he can despite his

live.

frailty of both mind and body. Bunyan Feeble-mind

includes him to indicate that being a true Christian does not require any

Discontent tries to convince Faithful to special physical or mental gifts.

Discontent

leave the Valley of Humiliation because humility is "altogether without honor."

Flatterer manages to catch Christian and Hopeful in a net, thereby

Flatterer

Discretion is one of the four maidens delaying—but not preventing—their

Discretion

who live in Palace Beautiful and

journey to the Celestial City.

welcome pilgrims there.

Fool, whom the pilgrims see in the

The doomed miners appear in Part 1,

Delectable Mountains, is busy trying to Doomed

Chapter 8. They do not make it to the whiten the skin of an Ethiopian. His miners

Fool

Celestial City.

actions, Bunyan says, are as futile as trying to whiten the reputation of

someone "darkened" by sin.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Characters 11

Formalist is one of two men who

Help makes an extremely brief

attempt to climb over the wall rather appearance early in Part 1, where he Help

than go through the Wicket-Gate. He helps Christian extricate himself from Formalist

argues that how one gets to the the Slough of Despond.

Celestial City is unimportant, as long as one gets there.

Honest is a plainspoken and somewhat cantankerous pilgrim whom Christiana Honest

Gaius is an innkeeper who looks after and company meet late in their

the pilgrims when they grow tired and journey.

Gaius

faint. He is the father of Phebe and thus the eventual father-in-law of Christiana's son James.

Mr. Hold-the-world is a friend of Mr.

Mr. Hold-the-

By-ends. Worldly and cunning, he tries world

to accommodate his religion to his

The gatekeeper lets Christiana, her

desire for earthly goods and pleasure.

Gatekeeper

sons, and Mercy through the Wicket-

Gate.

Hypocrisy, together with Formalist,

climbs over the wall to get to the

In Part 2 Godly-man appears in a

Hypocrisy

Celestial City because it is more

symbolic scene on Mount Innocence,

convenient than going through the

one of the Delectable Mountains.

Wicket-Gate.

Godly-man

There, two men (Prejudice and Ill-will) throw dirt at him, but his garments

remain clean.

Ignorance comes to the Celestial City via a "crooked" way rather than going through the Wicket-Gate. He is

Ignorance

Good-will is the keeper of the Wicket-rejected by the king when he attempts Good-will

Gate, through which pilgrims must

to enter the City and is subsequently pass on their way to the Celestial City.

cast into hell.

Grace is the obedient daughter of

Ill-will is one of the two men who

Mnason and lives with him in the town Ill-will

attempt, unsuccessfully, to sully the Grace

of Vanity. She marries Christiana's son garments of Godly-man with dirt.

Samuel before the pilgrims resume

their journey.

Inconsiderate is one of the three

thieves who assault Valiant-for-truth Inconsiderate

Described as "the King's champion,"

before running off as the other pilgrims Great-Grace comes to the rescue of

approach.

Great-Grace

Little-Faith. He fights against the various thieves who attempt to prey on pilgrims.

The Interpreter keeps a museum-like house just inside the Wicket-Gate. He appears in both parts of The Pilgrim's Interpreter

Also known as Bloody-man, Grim is a Progress, showing and explaining his giant who accosts the pilgrims on their house's symbolic contents to the

Grim

way to Palace Beautiful. He is killed by pilgrims.

Great-heart after a brief sword fight.

James is the youngest of Christiana's Lord Hate-good is the presiding judge James

four sons. Late in Part 2 he marries in the town of Vanity. He hears the

Gaius's daughter Phebe.

testimony against Faithful and

Hate-good

Christian and quickly condemns the

two to death, ordering the former to be executed immediately.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Characters 12

Although he is mentioned many times

Mnason is the leader of a small group in the text, Jesus is spoken of as a of pious people who live in the town of Mnason

character only in two places. In Part 1, Vanity. He welcomes Christiana and

Chapter 6 Jesus is said to have once her group as they pass through.

Jesus

passed through the town of Vanity,

and in Part 2, Chapter 5 he is said to have had a country house in the Valley Moses, here caricatured as a violent of Humiliation during his earthly life.

and unforgiving man, attacks Faithful Moses

as punishment for his failure to adhere to God's laws.

Joseph is the second-youngest of

Joseph

Christiana's sons. Late in Part 2 he marries Martha, daughter of Mnason.

Much-Afraid is the daughter of

Despondency and a captive of Giant

Much-Afraid

Despair. She is freed by the pilgrims The king repeatedly mentioned in The and joins them on their trek to the

King

Pilgrim's Progress is God, who rules Celestial City.

over the Celestial City (i.e., heaven).

Christian meets Obstinate just after Legality is a leading resident of the setting out on his pilgrimage toward town of Morality and an alleged

the Celestial City. He refuses to

Obstinate

specialist in helping pilgrims get rid of believe Christian's tale of the coming Legality

their burdens. Christian attempts to wrath and returns to the doomed City visit him in Part 1 but never makes it to of Destruction.

Morality.

Pagan is a giant who once lived in the Little-Faith is a pilgrim who is robbed Valley of the Shadow of Death. Bunyan of everything but the jewels he needs Pagan

mentions that Pagan has long since

Little-Faith

to enter the Celestial City. He makes died but terrorized many pilgrims in his his pilgrimage in poverty but arrives time.

safely at his destination.

Passion is a child found in an

Man of this

The man of this world is busily raking allegorical scene in the Interpreter's Passion

world

straw and dust in Part 2, Chapter 2.

house. He is impatient and squanders the good things that are given to him.

Martha is one of Mnason's daughters.

She is mentioned only briefly in

The child Patience appears in the

Martha

connection with her marriage to

same scene as Passion at the

Joseph, Christiana's son.

Patience

Interpreter's house. He is willing to wait for his reward, though it takes a long time to arrive.

Matthew is the eldest of Christiana's Matthew

sons and the eventual husband of

Mercy.

Phebe is the daughter of Gaius, the

Phebe

host of an inn for pilgrims. She marries James late in Part 2.

Maul is a giant who uses sophistry

(deceptive, faulty reasoning) to

Maul

dissuade pilgrims from their faith.

Pickthank (whose name is an early

Great-heart slays him in Part 2.

modern word meaning "yes-man") testifies against Christian and Faithful Pickthank

at Vanity Fair. He accuses the pilgrims Mistrust is, with Timorous, one of the of slandering the chief citizens of

two men who are frightened away

Vanity.

from Palace Beautiful because of the Mistrust

lions there. He tries to persuade

Christian to run away too and is later severely punished for his bad advice.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Characters 13

Piety is one of the damsels who live at Mr. Sagacity is the character within the Palace Beautiful. She welcomes

dream world from whom Bunyan

Piety

Christian in Part 1 and Christiana in ostensibly learns the details of

Sagacity

Part 2.

Christiana's pilgrimage. He is quietly dropped from the story as the main

narrative of Part 2 gets underway.

Pliable appears, along with Obstinate, near the beginning of Part 1, just after Christian has left home. He

Samuel is the second oldest of

Pliable

accompanies Christian on his

Samuel

Christiana's sons. Late in Part 2 he pilgrimage for a short time but turns marries Mnason's daughter Grace.

around at the first sign of difficulty.

Secret is the Celestial City messenger Pope is a decrepit giant who lives in a who visits Christiana at the beginning cave in the Valley of the Shadow of

Secret

of Part 1. He brings her a letter from Pope

Death. He symbolizes the Catholic

the city's king inviting her to make her Church, which Bunyan views as an evil pilgrimage there.

force working for the ruin of souls.

Self-will is a stubborn and impulsive Pragmatic is one of the three thieves pilgrim whose story is reported by

who cross swords with Valiant-for-

Self-will

Honest in Part 2, Chapter 6. His refusal Pragmatic

truth. Like the others, he runs off when to listen to others prevents him from a large group of pilgrims approaches.

mending his ways.

Prejudice, along with Ill-will, tries to Shame tries to persuade Faithful to

stain the garments of Godly-man by

give up his pilgrimage because religion Prejudice

throwing dirt at him. His effort

Shame

is a "low" and "unmanly" thing. He fails invariably fails.

to convince him despite a lengthy

argument.

Presumption is one of three men seen sleeping on the roadside in Part 1. He The unnamed shepherd boy appears in

Presumption

is later hanged as a criminal, a fact the Valley of Humiliation in Part 2. He Shepherd boy

reported in Part 2.

sings a song to express his

contentment with his modest lifestyle.

Faithful meets Pride in the Valley of Pride

Humiliation.

A group of shepherds tend their flocks on the Delectable Mountains. Though

they are given names—Knowledge,

Prudence is one of the maidens who

Shepherds

Experience, Sincere, and

live in Palace Beautiful; unlike her Watchful—they effectively serve as a sisters, she has a substantial speaking chorus, describing and explaining the Prudence

role in both Part 1 and Part 2. In the local sights.

latter she catechizes Christiana's sons (instructs them in religion via a series of questions and answers).

At several points in The Pilgrim's Progress Bunyan mentions "shining Shining Ones

ones," who may be saints or angels.

Ready-to-halt walks with the aid of They appear at key moments in the

crutches, but beneath his physical

text as messengers from God.

Ready-to-halt

infirmity is a devout soul. He joins the Part 2 pilgrims just as they leave

Gaius's inn.

Simple (in the sense of "foolish") is one of a trio of men whom Christian

attempts to wake from their sleep. In The Reliever drives off the two men

Simple

Part 2 Christiana learns that he has Reliever

who attack Christiana and Mercy in

been hanged for trying to dissuade

Part 2, Chapter 2.

pilgrims.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Characters 14

Mr. Skill is a physician who lives near Temporary is named by Christian as an Palace Beautiful. He prescribes

example of a pilgrim who made a

Temporary

Skill

Matthew medicine to cure him of

promising start but then backslid into indigestion brought on by eating

his old ways.

forbidden fruit.

Timorous is one of a pair of characters Slay-good is a giant who terrorizes the who attempts to warn Christian away

countryside near Gaius's inn. Great-

from Palace Beautiful because its gate Slay-good

heart kills him and rescues Feeble-

Timorous

is guarded by lions. He is later burned mind in the process.

through the tongue with a hot iron as punishment for trying to interfere in Christian's journey.

Sloth is one of three men whom

Christian spies sleeping early in Part 1.

Sloth

When Christiana comes to the same

Mrs. Timorous is a resident of the City point in her pilgrimage, she learns that of Destruction and a neighbor of

Sloth has been hanged as a criminal.

Christiana and Mercy. Early in Part 2, Mrs. Timorous

she briefly attempts to dissuade these two women from making a pilgrimage

Two unnamed men, sometimes

to the Celestial City.

referred to as spies in visual depictions of The Pilgrim's Progress, meet Spies

Christian as he is about to enter the Near the end of Part 2, a man named

Valley of the Shadow of Death. They

Too-bold is found sleeping on the

are fleeing the horrors of the valley Enchanted Ground. He is a former

Too-bold

and urge him to do the same.

pilgrim who was caught off-guard by the allurements of the Ground and

never completed his journey.

One of the last characters to appear in Part 2, Standfast is first seen giving a prayer of thanks on the Enchanted

The two ugly ("ill-favored") men Standfast

Ground. He takes his name from his

Two ugly men

attempt to attack Christiana and

ability to "stand fast" (i.e., persevere) in Mercy in Part 2, Chapter 2.

the face of extreme temptation.

Unidentified

An unidentified voice quotes Psalm 23

Superstition is one of the three

voice

in Part 1, Chapter 4.

witnesses for the prosecution in the Superstition

trial at Vanity Fair. He accuses

Christian and Faithful of disgracing the The unnamed monster, who terrorizes

Unnamed

religion of the town of Vanity.

pilgrims near Vanity, is killed in Part 2, monster

Chapter 6.

Take heed, the counterpart of

Heedless, escapes the Valley of the

The unnamed saint or angel rescues

Take heed

Shadow of death where his companion

Unnamed saint

Christian and Hopeful from Flatterer's fails to do so.

net in Part 1, Chapter 9.

Talkative is a false Christian who

Vain-Confidence is convinced that the would rather discuss faith than

"by-path" (side route) he chooses will Vain-Talkative

practice it. He is shown up as a phony lead to the Celestial City. He fails to Confidence

by Christian and Faithful, who avoid his watch where he is going and falls to company thereafter.

his death in a deep pit.

Tell-true is an evangelist-like figure Vain-Hope is the ferryman whom

who brings the news of the Celestial Vain-Hope

Ignorance hires to get him across the Tell-true

City to Dark-land. There, it reaches River of Life.

Valiant-for-truth and inspires him to go on pilgrimage.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Plot Summary 15

boggy area representing feelings of regret and hopelessness.

Often known just as "Valiant," this is a knight whom the pilgrims meet late in He next meets Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who convinces him to Valiant-for-Part 2. He is first seen defending

take a detour and abandon his difficult trek to the Celestial truth

himself against a group of thieves

City. The detour proves dangerous and futile, and a chastened representing various vices.

Christian finally makes his way through the Wicket-Gate.

The Want-wit is one of the two men

Inside the gate, Christian is guided to the house of the seen attempting to whiten the skin of Interpreter, who shows him a series of allegorical scenes and the Ethiopian in the Delectable

Want-wit

Mountains (Part 2). His futile effort artworks depicting principles of Christian living. He next arrives represents the attempt to clean up the at the foot of a cross, where the burden he has been carrying reputation of a person whose name is (and unable to remove) suddenly falls off and rolls away.

"darkened" by sin.

Clothed in new garments by a group of "Shining Ones" (saints or angels), Christian continues on his journey up a hill toward Madam Wanton, whose name implies

the Palace Beautiful. He is initially frightened off by a pair of indulgence in various bodily pleasures, is a resident of the City of Destruction.

lions there, but after learning they are chained, he enters the Madam

She is a friend of Christiana's

Wanton

palace without harm. There, he is entertained by a group of neighbors, who are committed to

virtuous maidens and shown about the palace grounds. Just enjoying this life rather than seeking another.

before he leaves, he is equipped with armor, which comes in handy when he reaches the Valley of Humiliation. There, he Watchful is the name of the porter (the fights with the fiend Apollyon, whom he drives off with a stroke Watchful

doorkeeper) at Palace Beautiful.

of his sword. He next proceeds through the Valley of the Shadow of Death—a place every bit as forbidding as it sounds, Wild-head is one of the three thieves filled with monsters, pitfalls, and dark, gloomy fog.

Wild-head

who assault Valiant-for-truth and are then chased off.

After reaching the end of the valley, Christian encounters his friend and fellow townsman Faithful. The two walk together Worldly Wiseman hails from a town

awhile, comparing notes about their respective pilgrimages and near the City of Destruction and offers are joined for a time by the aptly named Talkative. They part Worldly

dubious advice to Christian. He tells Wiseman

Christian of a shortcut to get rid of his ways with him when they discover he is interested in talking burden without any further suffering, about faith but not living it. Soon afterward, Evangelist but the shortcut ends in a deadly trap.

reappears to warn Christian and Faithful about the dangers they will face in the next town, called Vanity. Arriving there, they find that Vanity is home to the vast year-round Vanity Fair, k Plot Summary

which is devoted to the pleasures of this life. As obvious misfits in this worldly setting, they are ridiculed, locked up, and eventually put on trial. Faithful is sentenced to death and executed; Christian escapes and proceeds on his way.

Part 1

Having lost one companion, Christian gains another, named Hopeful. The two travel past a perilous but alluring silver mine, Christian, a resident of the City of Destruction, learns that his called Hill Lucre, and then wander into a pleasant meadow that city is soon to be destroyed by fire. He is dismayed by this leads them out of the path they are supposed to be traveling.

news until he learns from a messenger named Evangelist that They are captured by Giant Despair and brought to his home, safety can be found in the Celestial City. Over the objections of Doubting Castle. Again they escape and make their way to the his wife, Christiana, and their children, Christian decides to Delectable Mountains, a pleasant country from which they can make a pilgrimage to the Celestial City, which means he must just barely see the Celestial City. After the mountains, the next first pass through the Wicket-Gate—he proverbial "narrow major stop is the Enchanted Ground, where pilgrims are lulled gate" of salvation mentioned in the Bible. On his way there, to sleep by earthly comforts even as they near their celestial Christian briefly becomes stuck in the Slough of Despond, a Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Plot Summary 16

goal. Struggling over this dangerous terrain, the two travelers Crossing, they arrive at their permanent home in the Celestial arrive in the holy Land of Beulah. They cannot remain here, City.

however, but must cross over the River of Life. With this final feat accomplished, Christian and Hopeful arrive in the Celestial City, where they are welcomed by the king himself.

Part 2

The pilgrimage of Christiana, Christian's wife, runs parallel to that of her husband, with many of the same stops along the road. She and her sons start on their journey after learning of Christian's happiness in the Celestial City. They are mocked by their neighbors, but Christiana's young friend Mercy decides to go along with them. When they reach the Wicket-Gate, they are appointed a protector and guide called Great-heart, who defends them from assault numerous times during their journey. They visit the Interpreter's House, the Hill of Difficulty, and the Palace Beautiful just as Christian did, in each case receiving a warm welcome because of their ties to the now-famous earlier pilgrim. They stay longer than Christian did in Palace Beautiful, conversing with the maidens who live there.

Mercy is ineffectually wooed by a worldly man called Brisk and afterward marries Christiana's oldest son, Matthew.

When they leave Palace Beautiful, Christiana and company find the Valley of Humiliation much easier to traverse than Christian did. They also fare better in the Valley of the Shadow of Death because, unlike Christian, they have the good fortune to travel through it by daylight. Great-heart fights and beheads a giant named Maul, then places his head on a pillar as a warning to passersby. Outside the valley, the group meets up with the crotchety but good-hearted Honest, who joins their company.

As they travel, Great-heart tells them all about the many other pilgrims, both wise and foolish, whom he has guided over the years.

In Vanity, where Christian met with such trouble, Christiana and her group likewise have an easier time. They are welcomed by a small contingent of pious people who live in the town without succumbing to the worldly excesses of Vanity Fair. When they reach Doubting Castle, the men in the pilgrim party slay Giant Despair and demolish his home. From here the pilgrims travel over the Delectable Mountains—where they are welcomed by the same shepherds who greeted Christian—to the Enchanted Ground, where they meet a new friend named Standfast.

Together, the group arrive in the Land of Beulah, after which several of them are summoned to cross the River of Life.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Plot Summary 17

Plot Diagram

Climax

Falling Action

Rising Action

Resolution

Introduction

9. In Vanity Fair, Christian is jailed, and Faithful is killed.

Introduction

10. Christian and Hopeful are captured by Giant Despair.

1. Warned by Evangelist, Christian flees City of Destruction.

Climax

Rising Action

11. The two pilgrims reach the Delectable Mountains.

2. Christian gets stuck in the Slough of Despond.

3. Christian passes through the Wicket-Gate.

Falling Action

4. At the Interpreter's house, Christian is shown wonders.

12. Christian and Hopeful arrive in the Land of Beulah.

5. Christian sojourns at Palace Beautiful.

13. At their final trial, the pilgrims cross the River of Life.

6. Christian endures the Valley of Humiliation.

14. The pilgrims are welcomed into the Celestial City.

7. Christian survives the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

8. An old friend, Faithful, joins Christian on his journey.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Plot Summary 18

Resolution

15. Ignorance is rejected from the City and cast into hell.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Plot Summary 19

Timeline of Events

Suddenly one day

Christian flees City of Destruction.

Soon after

Christian gets stuck in the Slough of Despond.

After further detours

Christian passes through the Wicket-Gate.

As night falls

Christian reaches Palace Beautiful.

In the coming days

Christian passes through two fearsome valleys.

Short while later

In Vanity Fair, Christian is imprisoned, and Faithful is killed.

In a few days

Christian and Hopeful reach the Delectable Mountains.

After a lengthy hike

Christian and Hopeful arrive in the Land of Beulah.

Not long after

The pilgrims cross the River of Life and enter the Celestial City.

Some time later

Christiana is summoned to the Celestial City.

Within days

Christiana and her party reach the Wicket-Gate.

Evening of the next day

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Plot Summary 20

The pilgrims follow Christian's path to Palace Beautiful.

About a month later

Christiana and family traverse the two valleys.

Over the coming weeks

Gaius and Mnason host the pilgrims.

A little while later

Great-heart and the other men slay Giant Despair.

After a night's rest

The pilgrims pass safely through the Enchanted Ground.

At the "time appointed"

Christiana crosses the River of Life to reach the Celestial City.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Chapter Summaries 21

c Chapter Summaries

show that The Pilgrim's Progress, despite its unusual style, is not a mere entertainment but a work of serious religious literature intended to guide the reader's own investigation into spiritual matters. The back-and-forth nature of discussion is The Author's Apology for His

evident here. Bunyan engages a logical appeal to the reader by presenting both sides of an argument and the logic supporting Book

each side even though they are in opposition ("Yes, you should publish the book" and "No, you should not"). This spirit of respectful debate is characteristic of the critical thinking and Summary

analysis each individual must engage in order to mature into a genuine (as opposed to superficial) Christian morality based not only on words but also upon actions.

The Pilgrim's Progress begins with a rhyming poem in which John Bunyan explains and defends his decision to publish the A major concern in the apology is the "dark" nature of The book. He tells how he "fell suddenly" into an allegorical style of Pilgrim's Progress. Here, too, Bunyan uses an important word in writing while trying to complete a more conventional book on a sense different from the modern one. His book is "dark"

religious themes. Ultimately, the allegorical ideas began to because it is obscure, not because it is morbid or bleak. It uses

"multiply" until Bunyan decided to put them in a freestanding metaphorical characters and settings to discuss religious book.

concepts, rather than speaking of them in a dryly direct way.

Bunyan spends many lines in the apology defending this The author explains to the reader that when The Pilgrim's practice, which he likens to the parables of Jesus and the Progress was drafted, he was unsure whether, as some of his complicated figurative language used in the Hebrew Bible. In friends urged him to do so, while others did not. Ultimately, he doing so, he calls to mind other senses of "dark" that are more decided to publish the book and let the world decide its merits.

familiar today. The "dark" (obscure) language of the Bible, he He defends this decision by saying that unusual methods says, "turn[s] our darkest nights" (i.e., of gloom or sometimes yield good results. He states that fishermen, for hopelessness) to days of sunlight.

instance, use different techniques to catch different kinds of fish, and fowlers (bird hunters) know to vary their tactics The contrast between light and dark throughout The Pilgrim's depending on the type of bird they are hunting.

Progress closely follows both biblical connotations and prebiblical emotional expressions. While darkness is Bunyan also defends his use of metaphors and symbols by emotionally associated with fear of unseen enemies or hazards pointing out that the Bible uses these same devices. He further that could beset someone traveling at night, misunderstanding observes that philosophers "write / Dialogue-wise," as he will and lack of knowledge is associated with the darkness of do throughout The Pilgrim's Progress. Since he is following the ignorance of mind and soul in the Bible; it is sometimes example of Holy Writ on one hand and learned authors on the symbolically presented as "blindness." Light makes it possible other, Bunyan is confident that the methods he has chosen are to perceive otherwise hidden enemies or dangers, and in many sound ones. The poem closes with a few lines advertising the biblical passages it is associated with clarity of purpose, divine book's contents and recommending them to readers who want guidance, and understanding leading to wisdom. Being "in the to be entertained in a "profitable" way.

light" is synonymous with being in God's grace, while "being in the dark" indicates separation from God.

Analysis

Bunyan is certainly not the first to make this kind of comparison, as indicated in biblical text. Several scholars have In 17th-century English the word apology meant "an paired The Pilgrim's Progress with the well-known epic poem explanation and defense" rather than "an expression of regret."

Paradise Lost (originally published in 1667) by Bunyan's Thus, Bunyan is not "apologizing" for his work in the modern contemporary Englishman, John Milton (1608–74). Milton not sense of the word. Instead, he is addressing and answering only included vivid descriptions of the battle between the rebel possible objections that his readers might have. He is keen to angels led by Lucifer (meaning "light") and those angels Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Chapter Summaries 22

defending Heaven from the rebellion, but also Lucifer's fall into Summary

darkness, or the non-illuminated cavern (severance from God) of hell. Italian poet Dante Alighieri's (1265–1321) Inferno (the John Bunyan as the author and narrator of the story tells it as a first book of The Divine Comedy, c. 1308–21), a religious work dream he once had while wandering through "the wilderness of preceding Bunyan's by 500 years, describes a blind and mute this world." In the dream he sees a man named Christian who is Satan as frozen in ice at the very bottom of the darkest hell greatly troubled at learning that his city will soon be destroyed (Canto 34).

by fire. Christian tries to convince his family to escape with him, Allegorical literature was hardly new or unusual in Bunyan's but they refuse to listen and suspect him of being mentally time; in fact, allegories were a familiar part of early modern unsound. The despondent Christian is greeted by a man English literature and were used for a variety of purposes.

named Evangelist, who tells him to leave the city and seek out English poet Edmund Spenser's (c. 1552–99) long poem The the "Wicket-Gate"—a narrow gate. Christian, who carries a Faerie Queene (1590), for example, was one long allegory that large burden on his back, listens to Evangelist's instructions sought, among many other things, to glorify the reign of Queen and resolves to follow them.

Elizabeth I (1533–1603) by likening her to figures from Leaving his family behind, Christian heads for the Wicket-Gate, mythology and legend. Two centuries earlier, English poet but his neighbors Obstinate and Pliable catch up with him. He William Langland's (c. 1330–c. 1400) late medieval poem Piers explains his plan to escape the city and convinces Pliable, but Plowman (c. 1380) mingled social satire with a religious journey not Obstinate, to join him. The two hurry onward but soon fall similar to that undertaken in The Pilgrim's Progress. The Book into a bog called the Slough of Despond. Pliable thrashes of the City of Ladies (1405) by the French/Italian writer about briefly and then turns back toward the city. Christian Christine de Pizan (1364–1430) presents the author as both struggles his way out of the bog with the assistance of a man narrator and participant in the construction of the City of called Help, who explains that the Slough is created by the filth Ladies as guided in her dream vision by the Ladies Reason, of sin, and that the servants of the king (God) are constantly Rectitude, and Justice. Although initially written in French, this trying to turn it into solid ground.

highly influential and popular book was translated into English in 1521. These earlier works show both the value and the Walking along further, Christian encounters Mr. Worldly versatility of writing in an allegorical style of which Bunyan took Wiseman, who promises him an easier way out of his burdens.

ample advantage in his own writing.

He tells Christian of a nearby town called Morality where a father-and-son team, called Legality and Civility, live. These Bunyan's concern in the apology is not simply to establish gentlemen, Worldly Wiseman says, can help Christian remove allegory as a legitimate literary technique, which would have the burden on his back without all the trouble of going through been old news to late 17th-century readers. Instead, he is the Wicket-Gate and beyond. Christian is fooled into taking defending allegory as an appropriate means for discussing Worldly Wiseman's advice, but he encounters a hazardous-weighty religious ideas in a time of great sectarian strife.

looking mountain on the way to Morality. Evangelist catches up Langland, in his own religious allegory, had had the luxury of with him and warns him that Civility and Legality are frauds.

working in a time when the English overwhelmingly embraced a The only way to salvation, he reiterates, is through the narrow single variety of Christianity, namely Catholicism. Bunyan, a gate.

Separatist writing in a country once more hostile to religious nonconformists, had to make sure that his ideas would not be taken as heresy—and that his methods would not be seen as Analysis

blasphemous.

The first words of the narrator in The Pilgrim's Progress, "As I Part 1, Chapter 1

walked through the wilderness of this world," are remarkably similar to the opening lines spoken by the pilgrim and narrator in Dante's description of the pilgrim/narrator in The Inferno.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Chapter Summaries 23

similarities between these lines might lead to speculation that through this smaller gate that, "by its inconvenient narrowness, Bunyan had been inspired by this epic poem, but there is no was a great obstruction to the traveler of liberal mind."

evidence that Bunyan could read Italian, and The Divine Comedy was first translated into English a good 500 years It may seem odd that a book about religion sets such little after Bunyan's lifetime. There is some possibility that Bunyan store by morality, per se. Bunyan goes to the trouble of might have heard someone conversant in Italian, which was not inventing a town named Morality, then locates it at the end of a unusual among the English aristocracy, read cantos from The dangerous detour, not along the way to salvation. It may seem Divine Comedy aloud, verbally translating or perhaps that morality, in Bunyan's estimation, is to be avoided. But to paraphrasing passages of it to English listeners. It must be understand the point Bunyan is making about morality here, it noted, however, that although Dante was pointedly critical of helps to look at who lives in the town: Legality and Civility. The members of the papacy he placed in various parts of hell, an people who take refuge in morality, without seeking for Italian Catholic writer in direct reference to religious practice anything greater, are for Bunyan mere followers of the law would have been viewed by English Separatists—the group to (Legality) or custom (Civility). They are not foolish or which Bunyan belonged—as heretical, especially since it dangerous because they are moral; rather, as Bunyan sees it, contains references to Pagan mythology, and the pilgrim's they are fools because they believe that living a moral life (by guide in it is the Pagan Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BCE). It is not their own definition) is sufficient, and they are dangerous beyond the realm of possibility that Dante's story might have because they attempt, with some success, to convince other been told to listeners as a secular rather than a religious story, people of this viewpoint. Bunyan argues instead that it is only perhaps along the lines of the English author Geoffrey by passing through the Wicket-Gate, which represents a Chaucer's (1342/43–1400) The Canterbury Tales in which a scripturally informed faith and deliberate acceptance of God's group of pilgrims journey to various holy shrines in England grace, that one can be saved. It's inadequate to be merely a together.

moral person, a follower of the law, or a courteous neighbor. A good Christian, in Bunyan's view, need not be an especially The Evangelist who first gives Christian good advice on what nice person. In fact, some of the holy pilgrims in Part 2 are to do reappears later to redirect the pilgrim when the way is downright cantankerous.

lost. It is speculated that the person behind this character is Bunyan's mentor, Gifford, who not only experienced some of The broader theme here, which is that there are no shortcuts the same youthful vices in military service as did Bunyan, but or detours to salvation, will be reprised in subsequent chapters repented his sins and turned to a religious life as the pastor of as a whole cast of characters try to get to the Celestial City a Separatist (Calvinistic) Baptist congregation in Bedford. This without going through the Wicket-Gate or without bravely pattern of youthful excess followed by stark conversion facing the various obstacles in the road beyond the gate.

echoes the autobiographical Confessions (c. 400) of St.

Through their foolishness or frailty, these unsuccessful pilgrims Augustine, who "helped lay the foundation for ... modern will be duped or cajoled into taking a road that seems safer or Christian thought." The idea here is that a person can't know more convenient but doesn't actually lead to the Celestial City.

what is right without first experiencing wrong firsthand, and it As in the old proverb, these roads to hell are often paved with is explored by many spiritual writers, including Dante, who, as good intentions—reaffirming that, for Bunyan, good intentions the pilgrim in The Divine Comedy, must first pass through the are not enough.

subterranean depths of Inferno before being ready to ascend to Purgatory and Paradise.

Part 1, Chapter 2

The Wicket-Gate is an important symbol in The Pilgrim's Progress. As a narrow passageway and the only opening that will lead to the Celestial City, the Gate implicates the rite of Summary

baptism, or a spiritual rebirth. The American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) sheds some light into what must have Christian hurries on to the Wicket-Gate and, arriving there, been a long-standing spiritual meaning of a wicket gate by knocks repeatedly. He is greeted by Good-will, who opens the stating in his book, Mosses From an Old Manse and Other gate and quickly pulls Christian in. Beelzebub, he explains, has Stories (1846), that pilgrims to cathedrals were admitted inside Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Chapter Summaries 24

a castle nearby, with archers who try to shoot down pilgrims such presentations is to bring the viewers closer to the actual before they can get through the gate. After asking Christian a presence of a spiritual concept. The rendering of an abstract little about his journey so far, Good-will describes the next step concept, such as salvation, into a concrete representation has of the journey: a straight and narrow path from which there is the effect of bringing it into an immediate reality of being.

no turning aside. He then sends Christian on toward the house of the Interpreter, who will show Christian "excellent things."

Passion and Patience are like the 17th-century versions of American comic strip characters Goofus and Gallant. One is Arriving at the Interpreter's house, Christian finds himself in a foolish and hasty and the other wise and cautious. The two kind of museum. The Interpreter first shows Christian a picture also reflect the way in which the seven deadly sins were, in the of "a very grave person" holding "the best of books" and popular imagery that had become a convention by the 1600s, speaking "the law of truth," with a golden crown hanging over matched with a corresponding virtue. Gluttony, for example, his head. This person, the Interpreter says, is the only one who would be matched with Abstinence or Arrogance with Humility.

can guide pilgrims in their greatest difficulties. Next comes a Identification of these and their correspondingly corrective large and spacious room that is first dusted by a man with a virtues in Church doctrine began in the 6th century and broom, an action that kicks up choking clouds. Then a maiden developed in the 13th century by St. Thomas Aquinas.

arrives and sprinkles water over the place to make it easier to clean. This, the Interpreter explains, is the soul, swept by the Despair is pictured as an iron cage that confines and law and sprinkled by the Gospel.

constrains a captive, an image with direct connotations to Bunyan's time spent in prison. Heaven is imagined rather The next room has two children named Patience and Passion.

splendidly as a palace that must be taken by storm. Here, as The latter is given a bag of treasure immediately and elsewhere in The Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan shows his sense squanders it all, while the former waits for the "good things"

of the hostility that a true Christian believer must expect to that are coming to him later. Another room holds a burning fire, face. As a member of a religious minority who was imprisoned which is continually doused by the devil but secretly fueled by multiple times for his beliefs, Bunyan could no doubt relate Christ so that it never stops burning. After this, Christian to—and thus chose to echo—the Bible's many images of beholds a stately palace, at whose gate a man sits taking down spiritual combat.

the names of those who enter. A bold man enters the palace and, after having his name set down, rushes through the gate, The scene in the dusty room reinforces a point about the law breaking through ranks of armed guards to enter. Another made in Chapter 1, which is revisited throughout The Pilgrim's room, dark and somber, holds a man in an iron cage, which Progress. By itself, Bunyan argues here, God's law is harsh, represents the despair of those who have abandoned their stirring up the "dust" of human sinfulness and bringing it into faith. In a final scene, a man rises from his bed, troubled by painful awareness. But simply stirring up guilt over one's dreams of the Last Judgment. Having seen all these things, sinfulness is not enough, just as morality derived from law and Christian thanks the Interpreter and takes his leave.

civility is not enough. Something more—the saving grace of Jesus—is necessary to truly clean the "house" of the soul instead of just kicking up clouds of guilt. The point is a Analysis

distinctly Protestant perspective critical of the Catholic practice of pardon granted through confession of sin, whereby The scenes and characters in the House of the Interpreter are the sinner is forgiven without having to change his ways.

mostly self-explanatory—or rather, the Interpreter spells out In Part 1, Chapter 5 Bunyan will return to this line of thinking, their meaning in detail, ostensibly sparing Bunyan the trouble offering a personification of the law in the form of a of doing so. The convention of "stations" (here represented as caricatured Moses. Almost cartoonishly violent, this version of rooms in a house) in which living tableaux represent biblical Moses "spareth none, neither knoweth ... how to show mercy to episodes dates from the earliest Christian times. Even today, a those that transgress the law." Jesus, in contrast, is for Bunyan tableaux (a staged scene without movement or speech with a consummately merciful figure. Some critics, though certainly live actors or statues, first recorded as a feature of ancient not all, have seen an element of anti-Semitism in Bunyan's Roman theatrical presentations) depicting the Nativity of Christ juxtaposition of letter-of-the-law Israelites with Christians who during the Christmas holidays is not uncommon. The intent of Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Chapter Summaries 25

live out the law's spirit.

Beautiful. He attempts to enter and seek a place to sleep but is deterred when he sees two lions near the entryway. The More than three centuries later, there is today no universal gatekeeper chides Christian for his cowardice and tells him the consensus as to who is depicted in the Interpreter's painting.

lions are chained. Christian takes Watchful at his word and Several editions describe the figure as Evangelist, which is enters the palace, where he meets four damsels named plausible given the major role he plays in both inspiring and Discretion, Prudence, Piety, and Charity. They offer him food encouraging Christian's pilgrimage. The "best of books" would, and lodging and converse with him about his travels. In the for Bunyan, be the Bible, and in particular the Gospels, which morning Christian's hostesses show him the "rarities" of the were written by the original four Evangelists. The "law of truth"

house, including the library, the armory, and a collection of would then be the doctrines of Christianity as expounded in biblical artifacts. The next day they point out to him in the the Gospels and interpreted by Bunyan and his fellow distance the Delectable Mountains, a "most pleasant Separatists. If, indeed, it was Bunyan's intention to depict mountainous country" that lies between the palace and the Evangelist in this portrait, he shows the character in a softer Celestial City. By the time he reaches these mountains, they light than elsewhere: stern and forbidding, Evangelist typically say, he will be able to see the city for himself.

appears in order to warn or chastise the pilgrims.

Analysis

Part 1, Chapter 3

The scene with the cross and the burden may require a little unpacking. The burden Christian has been carrying because he Summary

can't get rid of it by himself is sin, which metaphorically weighs a person down. Christian cannot remove this burden without Continuing along the highway, Christian encounters a cross. As help, or even with merely human help because only God's he beholds it, his burden falls from his back and rolls into a grace is capable of freeing humankind from the ill effects of tomb at the foot of the hill. Three "shining ones" appear and sin. This is why Christian's detour to the village of Morality is give Christian new clothing along with a sealed "roll" (scroll) to not only pointless but also dangerous: Legality and Civility, the serve as a kind of passport at the Celestial Gate. He sings a supposed specialists in burden removal, cannot truly song of rejoicing and resumes his journey, encountering three

"unburden" a person from sin. They can, however, delude a sleeping men "a little out of the way," with their feet bound in person into postponing the effort and cultivating the humility irons. He calls to the men—whose names are Simple, Sloth, and required to reach and pass through the Wicket-Gate—a narrow Presumption—but they fail to recognize that they are in any opening in a larger barrier that will admit only one person at a danger and lie back down to sleep.

time so that a group of pilgrims entering a cathedral through its wicket gate must be patient and generous to one another.

Next, Christian encounters Formalist and Hypocrisy, two men Concentrating on merely being a good person is, for Bunyan, a who snuck over the wall rather than going through the Wicket-kind of spiritual procrastination.

Gate. Christian accuses them of trespassing, but they assure him that their way of reaching the highway is as legitimate as Given the role of the cross in Christian theology, it is not all that his. When the three encounter a hill called Difficulty, Christian surprising that Bunyan chooses this moment to free Christian begins to climb over it, while the other two attempt to go from his burden. In so doing, Bunyan follows an almost around and are never heard from again. Partway up the hill, universally accepted tenet of Christian thought, which is that when Christian pauses for a nap, the "roll" slips out of his Jesus's sacrifice on the cross redeemed humanity from its pocket and is lost. He proceeds up to the hilltop unaware and fallen state. The traditional explanation, still current across meets Mistrust and Timorous, who are fleeing from a pair of many modern Christian denominations, is that humanity had, lions. Realizing he has misplaced his roll, Christian goes back through sin, fallen short of the demands of God's law. Part 1, down the hill and searches for it. By the time he finds it, night is Chapter 2 includes the lesson from Interpreter's house that coming on, and he fears he will be eaten by wild beasts.

this law is, by itself, strict rather than lenient. No burnt offering, act of atonement, or other sacrifice would be sufficient for Fortunately, however, Christian happens upon a palace called humans to redeem themselves; the debt, to use a common Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

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analogy, was too great to be repaid.

wounds Apollyon and forces him to retreat.

But God did not simply pardon the sin or forgive the debt. The After the Valley of Humiliation comes the Valley of the Shadow usual reasoning here is that to do so would be merciful but not of Death, where Christian encounters a pair of spies who warn just, and God in the Christian tradition is both infinitely just and him of the many monsters lurking therein. They flee, infinitely merciful. To reconcile the demands of divine justice presumably back through the Valley of Humiliation, but with those of divine mercy, God took human form (the Christian proceeds. The path is narrow, with a steep ditch on Incarnation) and atoned for humanity's sins himself by one side and a bottomless quagmire on the other. Nonetheless, accepting death on the cross. Because of the blamelessness Christian makes it through, relying on continual prayer to pluck of the victim—after all, how could God offend against up his courage, even when he hears voices whispering himself?—this was a perfect sacrifice, capable of redeeming

"grievous blasphemies" all around him.

humanity's sins. Christian, at the mere sight of the cross, is reminded of this sacrifice, and the burden falls off seemingly of The sun rises, and Christian reaches the end of the valley, its own accord.

alongside which he sees a cave. This, John Bunyan explains, is the home of two giants, Pope and Pagan, who were once quite The "three shining ones" who give Christian new clothes and a terrifying and killed many men. Pagan, however, is now dead, roll as a certification or "passport" invoke the gift of new and Pope has grown decrepit with age. Thus, Christian clothes to converts who have just been baptized to symbolize emerges unharmed from the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

the new life into which they have been reborn. Travelers in Bunyan's time who went from one town to the next as itinerant professionals, such as both Bunyan and his father, as Analysis

metalworkers, were required to carry a roll with an official seal to be presented to the town magistrate. This would verify that Christian is armored like a knight, which invokes references to the stranger is on an errand of legitimate business rather than stories of Christian knights who rode into battle with the for criminal purposes. Only thieves and other miscreants Saracens (identified as the Muslims who held the Holy Land of would, like Formalist and Hypocrisy, try to avoid detection by Jesus's time) during the Crusades (late 11th century), and King climbing over the wall instead of knocking, presenting a roll to Arthur's knights of the Round Table, who were set on heroic be examined, and then going one by one through the narrow deeds, one of which was to find the Holy Grail, or the cup from wicket gate. This requirement of being vouched for to enter a which Christ drank at the Last Supper. Whether or not Bunyan city is all the more important to understand why the loss of his read these stories for himself or was told them by oral

"roll" is as much a trouble to Christian as if he'd lost a key.

tradition, he certainly realized their dramatic and thrilling potential to attract young men and draw them into a spiritual battle for themselves. Bunyan himself contemplated writing a Part 1, Chapter 4

version of King Arthur and the knights. In any case, his allegory The Holy War (1682) includes this imagery. Even today, evangelistic rhetoric exhorting Baptist youth to go forward as Summary

warriors of Christ into missionary work invokes the glamor of knightly battle righteously won against the ignorance of nonbelievers. The Pilgrim's Progress represents this as both an Before leaving the Palace Beautiful, Christian returns to the internal and external battle. The two valleys through which armory, where he is given a full suit of armor to defend himself Christian must pass are inhabited by monsters, the first of against unspecified "assaults." He hears that his neighbor which in the Valley of Humiliation is Apollyon. The name Faithful has been spotted along the highway and wishes to Apollyon (the Hebrew word Abbadon as translated from the catch up with him. First, however, Christian must navigate the Greek) appears in biblical text in Revelations 9:11 and refers to Valley of Humiliation, where he meets a fiend named Apollyon.

a place of destruction later personified as "the angel of the The demon first tries to get Christian to forsake God and bottomless pit."

return to the City of Destruction, but, failing to persuade him, he attacks him instead. After a frightful struggle, Christian The Valley of the Shadow of Death is a phrase from the Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

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Twenty-Third Psalm, one of the most well-known of the Bible Part 1, Chapter 5

and particularly associated with final Christian funeral rites.

The contrast between the fear of this valley and the image of Christ as a Good Shepherd who guides his flock to safety is drawn upon throughout Bunyan's story.

Summary

The two giants at the valley's end are a great help in Pausing to take in a scenic view, Christian spots his friend understanding the religious and political context in which Faithful up ahead and rushes to catch up with him. Faithful, Bunyan wrote. "Pope" and "Pagan" symbolize the threats of the who is glad to have company on his pilgrimage, fills Christian in ancient and recent past, but, tellingly, there is no third giant to on the happenings back in their hometown of Destruction. He represent the threats of the present.

then tells of the dangers of his own journey, which was nearly turned aside at the foot of Hill Difficulty. There, Faithful met an An anti-Catholic streak is evident in The Pilgrim's Progress at ancient man—Adam the First—who tried to lure Faithful into various times, but nowhere more than here, where Bunyan becoming his servant. Rejecting Adam's offer, he proceeded to gives the name Pope to a senile yet terrible monster.

climb the hill but was chased, knocked down, and beaten by Catholicism was officially repressed in England throughout Moses, who "[knew] not how to show mercy." In the Valley of much of the early modern period, but this repression was Humiliation he met with many who attempted to halt his relaxed somewhat under Charles II (1630–85), the first journey, including Discontent, Pride, and Shame, but he shook monarch of the English Restoration era, likely due to the fact them off and continued through the two valleys to where he that his queen was Catholic. Hence Bunyan's portrayal of the stands now.

pope (the supreme leader of the Catholic Church) as a former threat who has lost much of his power to threaten pilgrims but As the two friends continue, they are joined by Talkative, who who is not quite dead.

quickly proves himself worthy of his name. Faithful admires Talkative because he speaks a great deal about religious The figure of Pagan, who appears to represent non Judeo-matters, but Christian warns him to beware. Together, the two Christian religions as a group, shows that the focus of bait Talkative into admitting that he may know and say a great Bunyan's religious writing is close to home. England in deal about religion without actually being a good Christian.

Bunyan's time had extremely few residents who did not at least Irritated by their behavior, Talkative parts ways with them just outwardly profess some variety of Christianity. Of those few, as they come to a wilderness.

most were Jewish. Worldwide, however, Christianity did not enjoy the dominant position that it had acquired in late 17th-century English society. The idea of "pagan" traditions as a Analysis

largely defunct opponent to Christianity was accurate only from a European perspective.

Bunyan continues to stress the distinction between faith and works and to insist on the value of both in Christian life; that is, In England the main political antagonist of Bunyan's Separatist faith instigates and guides the execution of good works beliefs was thus not the still-suppressed Catholic Church nor something on the order in which a horse —in action—is the ancient "pagan" customs of the British Isles. Instead, the directed by its rider—in intent. In the first half of this chapter force most responsible for marginalizing Separatism and Faithful recalls his encounters with a cast of characters who repressing its leaders was the established Church of England, showcase the need for faith. Moses, who assaults Faithful as which had resumed its prestigious place in English society he is already climbing up Hill Difficulty, is for Christians the when the monarchy was restored. Prior to the Restoration, archetypal lawgiver of the Hebrew Bible. In making Moses such Separatists had briefly ruled the country, so the official a violent figure here, Bunyan underscores the emptiness of backlash was in a sense predictable. Living through this merely following the law without a saving faith in Jesus. This is backlash as a member of a minority religion, Bunyan—ordinarily one of a few points in The Pilgrim's Progress at which Bunyan no stranger to controversy—is shrewd enough not to include a contrasts obedience to God's law in the Hebrew Bible with the third evil giant called Anglican.

fulfillment of God's law through Christ in the Gospels. In this, he puts the New Testament firmly as a refinement to the Old.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Chapter Summaries 28

The group of malcontents in the Valley of Humiliation further throws them into a cage as if they were madmen. The pilgrims showcases the need for faith. If Faithful were not so faithful, he remain calm, but their refusal to retaliate or lash out only might easily be convinced by their arguments, which are aggravates the townspeople. Christian and Faithful are grounded in this world. Discontent, Pride, and Shame all seek brought to trial before a judge named Lord Hate-good, where to appeal to Faithful's vanity—a recurring point of attack for they stand accused of creating a public disturbance and Bunyan's "bad guy" characters. Faithful, however, has his eyes speaking seditiously against Beelzebub. Three on a bigger prize, and his belief in the Celestial City and its king witnesses—Envy, Superstition, and Pickthank—are called, all of draws him onward.

whom speak out at length against the two pilgrims and their vanity-hating ways. Hearing their testimony, Lord Hate-good In the second half of the chapter, Bunyan introduces a new calls for Faithful's execution, which is carried out immediately character who shows the folly of faith without works—or, more via a series of painful tortures. Christian, who is granted a brief accurately, who shows that a true faith is an active faith. For respite, escapes from Vanity and resumes his pilgrimage.

Bunyan faith is more than mere belief in the fact of Jesus's resurrection: it is an inward change that inspires virtuous living.

This view draws support from the New Testament letters of Analysis

Paul and other early Christian leaders, but there is a certain

"chicken-or-egg" quality to the way Bunyan presents it in The The way in which the town of Vanity and its year-round fair is Pilgrim's Progress. Talkative may have faith in some sense, as described in careful detail is likely due to several points Bunyan he professes to, but if he really had faith, he would practice wished to put to the reader. Since he had first followed his what he preaches. Thus, it isn't the case that good works are father's profession as a metalworker and was later stationed in necessary, per se; rather, they serve as a sign that one's faith the military, Bunyan was, in his early life, likely in the company is resilient and mature.

of every unsavory character who preyed on unsuspecting victims amid the many lighthearted distractions of an urban street fair. He probably was himself a victim of fraud, theft, and Part 1, Chapter 6

con games popular in the day, and he may have learned some of the tricks to pull on others. In any case, placing the town of Vanity near the Celestial City reminds the reader that the Summary

closer the pilgrim comes to the goal, the stronger are the efforts of evil to dissuade his purpose. This is also the case As they make their way out of the wilderness, Christian and with the wicket gate by which pilgrims traditionally entered a Faithful are approached by Evangelist, who set Christian on his cathedral, in that not only did they have to enter one at a time pilgrimage several chapters ago. He now warns them to be but they were also at risk of being shot with arrows by steadfast in their faith, even to the point of death. Courage will Beelzebub, a sort of lieutenant to Satan. Once they had be necessary, he says, in the town they are coming to, where crossed the threshold between the secular world of vanities one or both men will likely be killed. Soon enough, the two into the sacred space of worship, evil could not touch them.

pilgrims arrive in the town of Vanity, where the famous Vanity Bunyan refers to this danger when in the first chapter Christian Fair is held year-round. There, all kinds of vain worldly goods has reached the Wicket-Gate and knocked until Good-will are sold, and all sorts of crimes and subterfuges are answers and lets him in. Good-will assures him he is now safe committed. Presiding over Vanity Fair is Beelzebub, who in fact from the arrows that Beelzebub and his evil followers shoot at founded the fair for the express purpose of ensnaring and travelers approaching the gate.

distracting pilgrims. Jesus (referred to here by the title Prince The special bitterness with which Bunyan depicts Vanity and of Princes) was, Bunyan reveals, once tempted by the fair's its court system may reflect his own longtime status as a finest merchandise, but he resisted.

prisoner of conscience. The first installment of The Pilgrim's Christian and Faithful pass through the fair, drawing attention Progress was written while Bunyan was in jail for refusing to on account of their strange clothes and their distaste for the give up preaching, a casualty of the changes in religious fair's goods. The crowd begins to mock them and eventually climate brought by the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. In 1661 Bunyan was rounded up as part of a larger effort to Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

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repress Separatist preachers. He remained imprisoned for pillar with the inscription "remember Lot's wife" reminds the over a decade because he would not take a vow to stop pilgrims not to "look back" to worldly things as they are fleeing preaching should he be released.

to the safety of heaven.

Bunyan left prison in 1672, not because he renounced his The path to the Celestial City now runs parallel to a river for a principles, but because King Charles II had temporarily backed while. The scenery is so pleasant and the going so easy that down from his persecutory campaign. The Declaration of Christian and Hopeful are tempted to follow a side trail, not Indulgence, the king's official proclamation of this policy noticing that it curves away from the true way. The trail leads change, effectively suspended the harsh penal laws enacted them to the domain of Giant Despair, who, with his wife, during the early 1660s. Now licensed to preach, Bunyan was Diffidence, keeps the pilgrims prisoner in Doubting Castle. He freed just long enough to establish himself at a congregation in seeks to convince them, through starvation and beatings, to Bedford before the pendulum swung back toward intolerance.

give up on life and commit suicide. They escape, however, He spent a further six months in prison, again on charges when Christian recalls that he has had a key, called Promise, to related to his religious nonconformism, and he published The get out of the dungeon all along. Returning to the main road, Pilgrim's Progress not long after his release.

the two pilgrims post a sign to warn others of the dangers of Doubting Castle.

To be clear, Bunyan was not persecuted as harshly as Christian and the hapless Faithful in this chapter. Prison in early modern England was a pay-as-you-go, or more Analysis

accurately, a bribe-as-you-go system. Both of Bunyan's jail sentences were served close to his family and congregation in Here, as elsewhere, Bunyan juxtaposes two dangers to Bedford, and he was occasionally permitted visits by family and Christian life: one blatant and one insidious. The pilgrims have other supporters. Moreover, though Bunyan himself was by no little trouble avoiding the deadly silver mine because they have means affluent, he had enough friends in his dissident been warned repeatedly and in many ways to avoid it. The congregation that he could bribe the guards for various inscription on the pillar in particular ("remember Lot's wife") is comforts and necessities. Still, Bunyan's imprisonment severely The Pilgrim's Progress equivalent of a "Danger!" sign. It limited his ability to earn money to support his family. The work hearkens back to Genesis 19, in which the wife of the biblical available to inmates was repetitious and poorly paid, consisting patriarch Lot is transformed into a pillar of salt. She met this mostly of small manufacturing trades such as lace making.

fate as punishment for looking back at her hometown of Bunyan himself spent a lot of time making shoelaces for little Sodom as it was being destroyed by fire. As Christian and pay.

Hopeful muse, this act of disobedience seems a small offense given the magnitude of the punishment. The traditional explanation is a symbolic one: Lot's wife is an archetype of Part 1, Chapter 7

those who "look back" at the vanishing things of this world when their eyes should be on heaven. The juxtaposition here of salt and silver is interesting because both are types of lucre, or Summary

monetary gain. The silver mine is in Lucre Hill (related to the word lucrative), and as a precious metal silver has long been Though bereft of his friend Faithful, Christian is now joined by used as money. But here Bunyan has tied in a biblical Hopeful, a former resident of Vanity who was inspired by reference to an older type of renumeration that was probably Faithful's pious example. The two of them are joined briefly by still in use among the poor of his time: salt. For example, Mr. By-ends, who represents the idea of being religious only soldiers of the Roman Empire were sometimes paid in salt, and when it is convenient. Christian sharply criticizes him for his it is from this practice that the word salary is derived.

attempts to treat religion as a tool for worldly profit or career Even without the pillar, though, Christian and Hopeful should advancement. They next visit Hill Lucre, where a man named be well versed in the dangers of greed. They have only recently Demas has set up a silver mine. The mine is dangerous, yet come from Vanity Fair, a massive, town-sized festival of buying many adventurers are lured to it and end up losing their lives. A and selling. The denizens of that city were not just materialistic Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

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but also warped by materialism to a shocking extent, as can be Part 1, Chapter 8

seen when their way of life is challenged and they clamor to execute the offending party. Having witnessed the evil that comes of a preoccupation with such "vanities," these two pilgrims are better able to resist the temptation posed by the Summary

silver.

Soon, Christian and Hopeful reach the Delectable Mountains, When it comes to By-path Meadow and Doubting Castle, where they are greeted by a group of shepherds. These however, the pilgrims let down their guard—and pay dearly for shepherds are individually named, but they act in unison, like a it. The idea here is that greed, like most of the deadly sins, is a type of chorus. The shepherds show the two pilgrims the powerful but fairly obvious source of temptation. The seven suitably allegorical "wonders" of the area, including a deadly sins including greed (or selfishness) were sloth, vanity, dangerously steep hill called Error and a smoky passageway pride, avarice, lust, and wrath. But each of these sins is they describe as the "by-way to hell." For a final wonder, the matched with a counteracting virtue, which, if a person applies shepherds bring them to the end of the mountain range and it, grants the ability to overcome the vice. It is by application of offer them a "Perspective-Glass" (spyglass or telescope) the virtue of humility, for example, that the sin of pride can be through which they can just barely glimpse the gates of the overcome.

Celestial City. After some parting words of wisdom from the shepherds, Christian and Hopeful begin the last leg of their There are numerous stories in the Hebrew Bible about the pilgrimage.

dangers of an attachment to material things, the tale of Lot's wife being just one example. There are multiple biblical proverbs on the theme of greed and its perils, and several Analysis

letters and parables in the New Testament sound the same theme. But the danger of the by-path is a more abstract one, Shepherds and shepherd imagery have a special place in the not to be found among the seven capital sins. The pilgrims do New Testament, which Bunyan was surely aware. Shepherds not even realize they are going astray, as they certainly would are proverbially vigilant, protecting their flocks from predators if they took a sharp detour to visit the mines. The religious and other dangers. Early Church iconography prior to the doubts represented by the meadow and the castle sneak up Crusades (an ongoing conflict between Christians and Muslims on them. Bunyan here efficiently offsets the perils of doubt—in over territories held holy by both religions) depicted Jesus as a the form of a confining castle—and despair—a giant—that gentle, loving, and youthful shepherd to his flock of faithful might lead the pilgrim to take his own life (one of the most devotees. The Twenty-Third Psalm of the Bible, which is grievous sins a person can commit against the life God has perhaps the most well known, uses the rich imagery of safety, gifted is "self-murder") by providing a key. If only the pilgrim will refuge, and comfort. Another biblical example of the humility recall that the key, or the promise of redemption from sin, is and diligence of a shepherd is that the job of guarding the already in his possession, then there is nothing in doubt or father's flock of sheep was given to the youngest son, as was despair that can reach the soul. The pilgrim can, with this key, the case in the Old Testament, or Book of Genesis, with Jacob, release himself from it.

the youngest son of Isaac. It is further recorded in the New Testament that watchful shepherds were among the first Thus, in a short space Bunyan sketches the outlines of a story summoned to the Nativity of Christ. Given this longstanding he cannot tell in complete detail, challenging the notion that association, it's not all that surprising that one of the the road to hell is necessarily paved with good intentions. Here, shepherds' names is Watchful in Bunyan's allegory. Likewise, as throughout The Pilgrim's Progress, he shows instead that shepherds and other rustic figures are often perceived as there are many roads to hell, the paving materials of which vary honest, humble, and lacking in guile, qualities summed up by as much as silver does from soil.

the inclusion of Sincere. Knowledge and Experience can be explained, somewhat more loosely, as emblematic of the qualities that exert a shepherd-like influence on the soul, guiding it away from harm.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Chapter Summaries 31

Among the specifically biblical reasons for including shepherds up, they quiz him about the nature of his faith and find it in The Pilgrim's Progress, perhaps the most important is their defective on several points.

role in the Gospel of Luke. There, a group of shepherds tending their flocks near Bethlehem is described as the first to hear the angels' proclamation of Jesus's birth (Luke 2:8–20).

Analysis

The shepherds depicted in The Pilgrim's Progress recall this important scene in that they are positioned just within sight of The fate of Ignorance at the end of Part 1 is a particularly hard the Celestial City. Just as the Gospel shepherds were pill to swallow compared to the deaths of other minor forerunners of the many Christians who would hear the good characters. Like many, though certainly not all, of the other news of the Incarnation, the shepherds of Part 1, Chapter 8 are

"also-rans" on the pilgrims' road, Ignorance seems truly the harbingers of the pilgrims' arrival in heaven.

convinced that he is in the right. Formalist and Hypocrisy in Part 1, Chapter 3 and the doomed miners in Part 1, Chapter 8, The spyglass or telescope is a further image of watchfulness, never get very far, but Ignorance will make it all the way to the or of being able to see what is approaching from a great Celestial City only to be rejected. Bunyan does not even make distance away. The use of lenses in this way was still Ignorance a particularly annoying or unpleasant character; in something of a novelty in Bunyan's time, as a telescope was any case, he is not in the same league as the grating Talkative used for astronomy as early as 1609.

from Part 1, Chapter 5. By having this hapless character join the pilgrims near the end only to fail, Bunyan is setting up his readers for what he sees as a harsh reality, which is that not Part 1, Chapter 9

everyone who considers himself a Christian will be saved. A person can persist in following Christianity to the best of their knowledge and ability and still be denied salvation because Summary

they willfully cling to their ignorance that they are not following the true Christian path.

Now in the home stretch of their journey, Christian and Hopeful The question of whether or not the ignorant (in this theological meet with a "brisk" young man named Ignorance, who comes sense) will be saved is one that has interested Christian from a place called Conceit. He has come into their path via "a theologians of all eras. Catholic ethics, for instance, make a little crooked lane," but he protests that he will be welcomed in distinction between invincible and vincible ignorance: the the Celestial City because he has led a good life overall. The former is ignorance so profound and irremovable that it two attempt to argue with Ignorance, but finding him unwilling prevents a person from being truly guilty for their sins. The to hear what they have to say, they leave him to follow behind.

archetypical case would be someone who has never even Christian tells Hopeful the story of Little-Faith, who was heard of Christianity or of what it teaches. For Bunyan, robbed by a group of thieves but managed to keep the "jewels"

however, calculations of distinctions of ignorance do not of his faith, though reduced to poverty otherwise. The thieves, matter much: he confidently declares in Part 1, Chapter 10 that Christian explains, might have done far worse to Little-Faith God will not save the ignorant, citing Scripture to defend his had they not fled for fear of Great-Grace, the king's champion.

position. This unsettling conclusion—that an honest mistake As they walk, still followed by Ignorance, Christian and Hopeful might doom a person to hell—doubtless lent as much fire and are accosted by two more tempters. First is the "false apostle"

urgency to Bunyan's preaching as it did to his writing.

Flatterer, who traps them in a net before they are set free by an unnamed saint or angel. Next is Atheist, who has made it almost all the way to the Celestial City before concluding that Part 1, Chapter 10

no such city exists. Finally, the two pilgrims reach the Enchanted Ground, where they struggle to stay awake. To keep from falling asleep and possibly never getting back up, they speak with each other about the circumstances that first led them to become pilgrims. Waiting for Ignorance to catch Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

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Summary

asks who the multitude are, he learns they are the souls who survived the final trial and have "washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Rev 7:14). In other words, Closer than ever to the Celestial City, Christian and Hopeful these are the elect, the saints and martyrs who have suffered discuss various theological topics, including the fear of God for their faith and have been purified by Jesus's sacrifice—"the and the danger of backsliding in one's faith. Christian illustrates blood of the Lamb." Bunyan updates the imagery somewhat by the latter with the cautionary tale of a would-be pilgrim named comparing the Celestial City to the court of an early modern Temporary. At last the two arrive in the beautiful Land of European monarch, but the underlying idea of this final chapter Beulah, their last stopping point before the city. They rest here is solidly biblical.

for a time but then grow eager to resume their journey. Their last and greatest obstacle is the deep, broad River of Life, Other details, such as the binding and casting away of which surrounds the city on all sides and over which there is no Ignorance, recall Jesus's teachings about hell and judgment.

bridge. Wading in, Christian falters and seems nearly to drown, Perhaps the closest analogy to Ignorance's situation comes in but Hopeful rescues and encourages him multiple times.

the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus likens the kingdom of heaven to a royal wedding banquet. In the first part of this When the pilgrims finally make it ashore, they are immediately parable (Matt 22:1–10), Jesus describes the king's search for welcomed into the Celestial City. There, they are adorned with guests to come and partake of the feast. When those invited robes and crowns and are given harps to play in praise of the reject his invitation and mistreat his servants, the king punishes king. They greet, and are greeted by, their fellow citizens: the them and then summons everyone, "both bad and good," to the saints and martyrs who have loved God throughout the ages.

feast. At the banquet, however, the king sees a man who is not Ignorance, meanwhile, is ferried over the river but is rejected wearing "a wedding garment" (Matt 22:11)—that is, who is not by the king because he does not have a certificate proving his appropriately dressed for such a celebration. This man, like right to enter. He is therefore bound hand and foot before Ignorance, is seized by the king's servants, bound hand and being thrown into hell. After this frightening epilogue, Bunyan foot, and "cast ... into outer darkness," where "there shall be offers some reflections in rhyme, asking the reader to seek out weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt 22:13).

the "substance" beneath the allegorical exterior of his work.

This punishment may seem shockingly severe, given that the crime is essentially a dress code violation. The guest's fate, Analysis

however, anticipates and underscores Bunyan's point about the necessity of responding to God's call and of preparing The River of Life is likely in reference to the symbolic drowning oneself. Ignorance's lack of a "certificate" he can show at the of baptism, a submersion often conducted in a river to echo gate, like the guest's lack of a "wedding garment," shows a the baptism of Jesus in the Bible as conducted by his cousin, failure to prepare properly. For Bunyan, merely being St. John the Baptist, in the Gospels. Different Christian invited—or even accepting the invitation—is not enough. One denominations have argued for either infant baptism or adult must respond to God's call in the proper time and manner, and baptism, but the idea is the same. A person is first born into the even seemingly minor failures are enough to jeopardize one's world and then is "reborn" as a member of the Christian faith. A soul.

complete submersion of the body into the waters of a river can be terrifying, especially if the person doesn't know how to swim. Hopeful, then, is a trustworthy aide to Christian in his Part 2, Author's Way of

effort to reach the Celestial City.

Sending Forth His Second Part

The details of this final chapter are taken wholesale from the Book of Revelation, where the second coming of Christ in glory of the Pilgrim

is prophetically described. The closest and most important parallels come in Revelation 7:10, which describes a great, white-robed multitude assembled before God and praising him in "a loud voice." When John, the prophet witnessing this vision, Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

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Summary

continued by another. The author of this Second Part, thought to be the Baptist Thomas Sheridan, appreciated the popular appeal of Bunyan's allegory but evidently disagreed with him As with Part 1, John Bunyan begins the second part of The on some theological points, which he therefore attempted to Pilgrim's Progress with a poem, in which he anticipates and correct in a "Supplyment" or sequel. Many other Christian answers some possible criticisms. This time, the imagined writers through the ages have taken a similar tack, preserving critics are those who did not like Part 1 or who do not see the the general outline of The Pilgrim's Progress while conforming need for a Part 2. Bunyan structures most of the poem as a its contents to their specific beliefs.

series of "objects" (i.e., objections) and "answers."

Despite Bunyan's protestations, the parade of false sequels did The first objection is: How will people know this is an authentic not stop when the authentic Part 2 was published in 1684. An sequel, since so many counterfeited books get published?

anonymous Third Part appeared in 1693, five years after Bunyan's answer is that he will testify on the book's behalf if Bunyan's death, with a new protagonist named Tender-people doubt its authenticity. Objection number two is: What Conscience tracing a similar route to that taken by Christian about all the people who hated Part 1? Here, Bunyan engages and Christiana. The authenticity of this work was questioned in a bit of self-promotion by answering that his first book has as early as 1708, and a 21st-century reader will quickly find that been extremely well received among men, women, and the style differs noticeably from Bunyan's. If early modern children, both in Europe and in America. Thus, those with a bad readers shared these doubts, however, they were evidently opinion of Part 1 are a small minority.

either ignored or suppressed: the Third Part continued to be A third objection is related to the second: some people say printed alongside the authentic Parts 1 and 2 until 1852.

Bunyan's method of storytelling is too "dark" (i.e., obscure).

Bunyan defends his use of allegory the same way he did at the beginning of Part 1. "Similes" and "similitudes," he argues, are Part 2, Pilgrimage of Christiana

an appropriate tools for religious literature because they capture people's attention and imaginations in a way that dry, and Her Children

nonfiction prose cannot. The final objection—that The Pilgrim's Progress is unserious "romance" literature—is answered with the written equivalent of a shrug: there's no accounting for Summary

taste, Bunyan admits. The poem closes with a short overview of the plot and characters of Part 2, which concerns the John Bunyan frames Part 2 as a second dream vision, pilgrimage of Christian's wife, Christiana, and their children.

experienced under similar circumstances to Part 1, but years later. Awaking in the dream world, Bunyan meets Mr. Sagacity, who tells him that Christian is now highly thought of in the City Analysis

of Destruction, though few wish to follow his example. Sagacity also reports that Christiana, Christian's wife, left on a Bunyan's apparent paranoia about counterfeit Pilgrims is, pilgrimage of her own with her four sons. At this point Sagacity historically speaking, quite understandable. There were not any essentially drops out of the story, leaving Bunyan to narrate legal safeguards against copyright infractions in England until the remainder of the dream.

1844, although the United States had enacted legislation in 1790. The Pilgrim's Progress, Part 1 was a tremendous success, Christiana's pilgrimage begins much like her husband's, with a running to eight editions during its first four years in print conviction that she is living a sinful life and a desire to change.

(1678–82). No wonder, then, that some enterprising but She is greeted one day by a man named Secret, who bears a unscrupulous writers set about writing their own unofficial summons from the king of the Celestial City. Once she sequels that were fraudulently marketed under Bunyan's name.

explains this to her sons, they are eager to go along, but the The most important of these spurious works—the 1682 Second family is interrupted by a visit from neighbors Mrs. Timorous Part—was, however, never explicitly described as Bunyan's: it is and Mercy. Mrs. Timorous tries to get Christiana to give up her left to a careful reader to deduce that Bunyan's work has been travel plans, but Mercy, a compassionate young woman, insists Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Chapter Summaries 34

on going with Christiana at least part of the way. As the Part 2, Chapter 1

pilgrims, now six in number, set out, Mrs. Timorous goes home to gossip about them with her worldly friends.

Summary

Analysis

Christiana, her sons, and Mercy set out from the City of Bunyan's allusion to two different "dream" episodes may Destruction. Mercy says she would gladly go along for the reflect the two different periods of imprisonment he suffered, entire trip if she thought she would be admitted at the Celestial one long (1661–72) and the other relatively short (1676–77). In City, and Christiana encourages her to trust in the merciful Part 1, Bunyan made the connection explicit via a marginal nature of the city's king. Mercy remains doubtful but agrees to note, describing the "den" in which he lay down to sleep as a go as far as the Wicket-Gate, where Christiana will speak to jail. No such direct comparison is made in Part 2. Instead, the gatekeeper on Mercy's behalf.

Bunyan elliptically says that he has "had some concerns" (i.e., business to tend to) in the place he visited in Part 1. In any case The pilgrims arrive at the Slough of Despond and find it even it is true that neither part of The Pilgrim's Progress was worse than when Christian passed through, but they step published until after Bunyan's second and final release from carefully and manage to get over without falling in. They make prison.

their way to the Wicket-Gate, and Christiana knocks for admittance. Hearing the menacing bark of a dog, they are Mr. Sagacity, who initially seems like an important figure, is briefly paralyzed with fear, but they knock even more really just a framing device who will be quickly and quietly energetically in the hope of escaping through the gate.

abandoned. He serves both to introduce Part 2 and to give Bunyan an excuse to recap the events of Part 1, under the The gatekeeper admits Christiana and her children, though guise of asking what happened to Christian. The real one to Mercy lingers outside, fearful of being rejected. Eventually, watch here—the protagonist of Part 2—is Christiana, whose Mercy works up the courage to knock, but by the time the gate remorse over failing to follow her husband is cured when she is opened again she has fainted. Reviving, she is overjoyed and begins her own belated pilgrimage. The role of the wife and relieved to be brought safely inside. The gatekeeper explains mother in the early 17th-century England and the Americas that the dog they heard is kept by the devil for the purpose of among European immigrants was strictly maintained as scaring off pilgrims.

subordinate to her husband, whose "patriarchal role as governor ... was ... instituted by God and nature." Faced with Analysis

the example of her husband having achieved entry into the Celestial City, Christiana, as a good wife, saw her failure to Mercy's doubts about her salvation form part of an important accompany him as a grave error and sought to rectify it by recurring theme in The Pilgrim's Progress. For Bunyan, those following him. Mercy, who is introduced as if she were a minor who are most anxious about the state of their souls are, in fact, character, will become, in effect, Christiana's sidekick and play the most likely to be saved. This idea is voiced in Part 1, a major role in the remaining chapters. Since such feminine Chapter 10, where Hopeful reassures Christian that his fears at qualities as mercy, compassion, and modesty were considered the point of death are actually a good sign: only the foolish and appropriate to women, it is appropriate that mercy should the damned, he suggests, can go to their deaths easily.

appear as a woman. Congregations of Protestants made distinct separations of gender in all facets of life. The small Part 2 makes a similar point regarding Mercy's anxiety about group of Shakers, also called the United Society of Believers in whether she will be saved. Her soul would be in more danger, Christ's Second Appearing founded in England in 1747, for Bunyan implies, if she were not continually asking this question.

example, entirely separates men and women from any and all Christiana's son James will put it concisely in Part 2, Chapter 6: contact with one another, and membership in the Church is

"No fears, no grace," though he proceeds to explain that fear achieved by conversion only.

itself does not necessarily indicate divine favor.

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and a morbid, paralyzing dread, though he makes it clear that At supper the pilgrims are entertained with music, and the the latter is still preferable to foolish overconfidence. James's Interpreter asks Christiana about her travels so far. Mercy tells remark follows the account of Mr. Fearing, whose entire of her last-minute invitation to join Christiana, and the pilgrimage is made unnecessarily difficult by his inability to Interpreter commends her courage. In the morning the pilgrims trust in God's loving kindness. Mercy will, understandably, bathe and are given new white garments, and a seal is placed recognize something of herself in this character, who serves on their foreheads as a final adornment.

almost as a parody of her own timidity. Mercy might also be inclined to be especially fearful of attack by a dog, which shows no mercy to any stranger as the traditional guardian of Analysis

property. This might be all the more true in Bunyan's time, since the risk of rabies as a result of being bitten by an

"Ask and you shall receive," Jesus famously declares in the infected dog was an additional threat.

Gospel of Matthew 7:7. Here, and throughout the remainder of Part 2, Bunyan sets out to explain the necessity and benefit of asking for God's help. When the Reliever comes to the pilgrims'

Part 2, Chapter 2

rescue, he explains that they might have had a protector from the get-go if they had thought to ask for one. They respond, naturally enough, by asking why God did not provide a Summary

protector in advance if he knew that there would be trouble—and if he knew they would forget to ask.

The pilgrims now continue beyond the Wicket-Gate.

The chicken reference is interesting in that one of the symbols Christiana's sons pluck fruit from a tree whose branches of a call to the spiritual life in the Bible is the crowing of a overhang the wall, unaware that the tree is planted in the rooster first thing in the morning well before the sun rises.

garden of "the enemy" (the devil). Two ugly ("ill-favored") men However, since Christiana is a woman, it may have been come down the road and attempt to assault Christiana and inappropriate to refer to a rooster, so Bunyan brings in a hen Mercy, but the women's shouts attract a Reliever, who drives instead. As is observed by anyone who has kept chickens, it is the men off. This man asks why the women did not ask the the rooster who marshals the hens, summons them to eat first gatekeeper for a guide to protect them. Christiana explains thing in the morning, drives them into the roost at night, or that they were so happy with the "blessing" of being let in the leads them to safety when threatened by a predator. Bunyan gate that they forgot about the "dangers" that might await may have used the hen here by way of illustrating that them inside. Christiana tells of having dreamed of the ill-Christiana's husband has gone before, and is now, like the favored ones' assault and chides herself for failing to prevent rooster to his hens, calling her to follow to safety.

it.

Reliever's answer is illuminating: when God bestows favors Soon, the group reaches the Interpreter's house, where all are without asking, those favors are often underrated or taken for overjoyed that Christiana has "turned Pilgrim." The Interpreter granted. That is, God does not have to wait for a person to shows Christiana and company the various allegorical scenes pray before granting blessings, but there is value for the he showed to Christian in Part 1. He then takes them into a believer in having to pray before blessings are received. This room with a man who, busily raking straw and dust, cannot see message will take a while to sink in for Christiana and Mercy, the crown that dangles above his head. This, Christiana not just because they are forgetful, but because they will be surmises, is a "man of the world," too bent on earthly things to afraid to ask for too much. The second lesson here, one contemplate heavenly ones. The next room is empty except for learned in later chapters, is that there is no "too much" where a spider clinging to the wall, emblematic of the way in which prayer is concerned.

sinners must "take hold" of faith. Out in the yard various plant and animal images are presented: a hen's different calls, for The bath that the pilgrims take before setting out has instance, represent the different ways in which God calls his baptismal connotations, but it should be noted that Separatists, people.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Chapter Summaries 36

precisely. Instead, the bath can be seen as a more general saw what she has seen. After all, so many other pilgrims have metaphor for the purification that one must undergo before made their way through the gate and past the cross, only to setting out toward heaven. The seal and white garments the lose sight of their goal and fall prey to greed, carelessness, or pilgrims then receive are, though described as beautiful, a some other vice.

somewhat ominous touch. The gesture of sealing hearkens back to the Book of Revelation, where God commands his In inviting the reader to think about Mrs. Timorous and the rest angels to seal the foreheads of the saved before proceeding to of Christiana's neighbors back home, Bunyan is revisiting a bring about the apocalypse (7:2–8). Those sealed are then topic from the end of Part 1: "Many are called, but few are

"clothed with white robes" (7:9) and proceed to take their chosen" (Matt 22:14). Although Bunyan does not here go into places before the throne of God as the world is destroyed by the factors that make one person—Christiana—respond to fire, flood, and earthquake.

God's call and others—Mrs. Timorous and company—stay behind, the point remains that not everyone will follow the pilgrim's path, even if invited. She does, however, have one Part 2, Chapter 3

clear advantage over her neighbors relative to the hope of success, and that is that her good husband, Christian, has gone before her and provided her and their children with his Summary

own example.

As the pilgrims prepare to resume their journey, the Interpreter Part 2, Chapter 4

appoints his servant Great-Heart to be their guide to their next waystation, Palace Beautiful. As the group pass by the cross where Christian's burden fell off in Part 1, Great-Heart leads a Summary

discussion on the nature of justification and righteousness.

Affected by the thought of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, Christiana wishes that her neighbors back in the City of Great-Heart politely urges the pilgrims onward, so they Destruction would undergo their own change of heart.

continue uphill toward Palace Beautiful. The two lions from Part 1 are now accompanied by a giant called Grim or Bloody-Continuing down the road, they see three hanged men. These man. Great-Heart fights and slays Grim, and the pilgrims pass are Simple, Sloth, and Presumption from Part 1, Chapter 3, now by the two chained lions without further trouble. With night duly punished for dissuading pilgrims from their quest. Next coming on, they reach the palace door, and Great-Heart takes comes Hill Difficulty, at the foot of which are the two deadly his leave for now. The porter, Watchful, comes out to greet paths once taken by Formalist and Hypocrisy. After some them, as do the damsels who live in the palace.

remarks on the danger of taking "by-ways" to salvation, the group climb the hill, albeit slowly and laboriously. They make a That night Christiana and Mercy converse about their journey brief stop for rest at the arbor midway up the hill where and resolve to stay at Palace Beautiful a while if invited. In the Christian fell asleep and lost his scroll.

morning Prudence—one of the damsels—catechizes Christiana's four sons; that is, she quizzes them on their religious knowledge. The boys answer questions about God Analysis

and humankind, sin and redemption, heaven and hell. Days pass, and Mercy is briefly visited by a suitor named Mr. Brisk, Christiana's concern for her neighbors illustrates her who gives up when he learns that she makes handicrafts to kindheartedness, but it also shows a degree of spiritual help the poor rather than for profit.

immaturity. On the one hand it is laudable of her to wish that Matthew, Christiana's eldest son, now grows sick because of her worldly neighbors would experience a change of heart and the forbidden fruit he ate just after coming through the Wicket-be saved rather than perish in flames with the other denizens Gate. The physician Mr. Skill is summoned and gives Matthew of Destruction. On the other hand she is naive in thinking that a purgative made " ex carne et sanguine Christi" (from the flesh her neighbors would become devout Christians if only they and blood of Christ). Taking this medication according to the Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

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doctor's orders, Matthew soon recovers. The boys question Summary

Prudence about the spiritual meaning of various natural phenomena. Christiana, like her husband before her in Part 1, Amid sunshine and birdsong, the pilgrims set out once more.

Chapter 3, is shown various biblical wonders, including the They carefully make their way down into the Valley of apples from the Garden of Eden. Great-Heart arrives, to the Humiliation, which they find much more pleasant than Christian surprise of the pilgrims, and announces that he will guide them did. A shepherd boy alongside the path breaks into song, the rest of the way to the Celestial City.

extolling the virtues of the simple life. Great-Heart explains that Jesus was also very fond of the Valley of Humiliation and once Analysis

kept a "country-house" here. The pilgrims pass by the place where Christian fought with the demon Apollyon and behold the marks left by the battle on the landscape.

This chapter presents, first and foremost, a continuation of the

"ask and receive" idea from Part 2, Chapter 3. Leaving the Next comes the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Here, house of the Interpreter, the pilgrims are so thrilled to have earthquakes and strange sounds frighten the travelers, Great-Heart as a protector that they repeat their mistake from especially James, the youngest. Darkness falls, and the group the Wicket-Gate: they do not think ahead to the dangers they prays for deliverance. Soon the darkness is lifted, but snares may face after he is gone. When he leaves them at the Palace and pits make for rough going right up to the end of the valley.

Beautiful, they realize their error and ask him to continue Just as they are about to emerge, they are accosted by a giant further with them. Their request, really a prayer, seems to named Maul, who calls Great-Heart a kidnapper and come too late, as Great-Heart is bound by duty to return to the challenges him to a fight. The ensuing battle is drawn-out and Interpreter. Yet the fact that their prayer is not answered dramatic, but Great-Heart prevails and beheads the giant. The immediately does not mean that it goes unheard: Great-Heart women and children celebrate as Maul's head is fastened on to comes back to lead them when they no longer expect him to.

a pillar as a warning.

Mr. Skill's prescription—which, unusually for The Pilgrim's Progress, includes a Latin phrase—is a direct reference to the Analysis

Lord's Supper, at which Jesus instituted the Eucharist. The fact that Christ's body and blood are administered to cure illnesses The word humiliation in modern English has a meaning akin to may seem to suggest that, for Bunyan, the Eucharist had extreme embarrassment or shame. In Bunyan's time it meant miraculous powers. Here, it has to be kept in mind that The something more like "humility," which is why Great-Heart can Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory. Separatists like Bunyan, along speak of so many people living contentedly in the Valley of with their theological allies the Puritans, did not believe in Humiliation. These people, including the singing shepherd boy, transubstantiation, as Catholics do, or in the power of the chose the secure blessings of a simple life over the precarious Eucharist to expiate sins. Rather, they viewed the Lord's gifts of worldly power and status. Reading "humility" for Supper as essentially a renewal of the participants' bond to

"humiliation" also helps to explain why Christ would have a Christ and to each other. Participants were spiritually

"country-house" (but not his main residence) in this valley. The strengthened and nourished, but only if they took part with a Incarnation—God becoming human—was a profound act of pure and carefully examined conscience. Hence, perhaps, Mr.

self-humbling; thus, figuratively speaking, Jesus during his time Skill's insistence on taking the medicine exactly as prescribed.

on earth took up residence in the valley.

In the next valley Bunyan introduces a third giant at the cave Part 2, Chapter 5

previously occupied by Pope and Pagan. Maul represents a different, more insidious kind of threat than the doctrines of other religions (Pagan) or of Catholicism (Pope). He is a sophist, using high-sounding philosophical argument to trap pilgrims and dissuade them from their faith. By positioning Maul here, Bunyan suggests that sophistry is a modern Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Chapter Summaries 38

"successor" to paganism and Catholicism—a new but no less Analysis

deadly allurement away from the true path.

The story of Mr. Fearing serves as a natural conclusion to a Part 2, Chapter 6

thematic thread begun much earlier in The Pilgrim's Progress.

At the beginning of Part 2—and even briefly at the end of Part 1—John Bunyan develops the idea that it is healthy to fear God and, consequently, to fear for the salvation of one's soul.

Summary

Among the major characters, no one exemplifies this pious fear more than Mercy, who in Part 2, Chapter 1 is afraid even to go Emerging from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Christiana on the pilgrimage because she worries she will be rejected.

and company pause to rest. They spy an old pilgrim sleeping Mercy becomes, among her many other roles, the embodiment under a tree nearby and decide to wake him up. The old man, of a largely appropriate, in Bunyan's eyes, level of caution and whose name is Honest, is initially annoyed but soon agrees to trepidation. At the same time she is also held back by fear from join the party, which now resumes its journey. He and Great-seeing some of the blessings that God would otherwise Heart talk awhile about other pilgrims they have known, bestow on her. She nearly fails to knock at the Wicket-Gate, including Mr. Fearing, whose journey was constantly hampered for example, because she is afraid she will not be admitted.

by his doubts about his own salvation. Mercy, Christiana, and the boys are edified to hear of Fearing's safe arrival at the In Fearing, however, Bunyan presents the idea of a holy fear Celestial City in spite of his fears. Another pilgrim, called Self-carried to extremes. Fearing responds to every event along the will, is discussed as a counterpoint to Fearing. Self-will, Great-pilgrim's way in terms of how it plays upon his fears—how it Heart says, was excessively self-assured and embraced his either aggravates or assuages them. He gets to the Celestial sins when he should have rejected them.

City at last, but with much more grief and anxiety than are necessary. Moreover, his fears make him a burden to other Christiana, growing tired, wishes for an inn, and Honest directs pilgrims. Compared to Fearing, Mercy seems quite reasonable, her to a nearby one. They are greeted heartily by their host, a fact she seems to acknowledge as she listens to and Gaius, who tells them of the noble line of martyrs from whom comments upon his tale.

Christian is descended. Gaius urges Christiana to find wives for her sons to perpetuate that line. In all, the pilgrims spend a The names Gaius and Mnason both come from the New month at Gaius's house, during which time Matthew and Mercy Testament. There, as here, the two men are emblematic of are married. During their stay, Great-Heart leads an expedition hospitality, in particular, hospitality toward Christians. Gaius is to kill the giant Slay-good and rescue his prisoner, a pilgrim mentioned in the letters of Paul, both 1 Corinthians 1 and named Feeble-mind. Because he is weak and sickly, Feeble-Romans 16, as a man who helped to found the Church in mind worries he will be a burden to the pilgrims, but just as Corinth and who hosted Paul when he stayed in that city. His they are about to resume their journey, they meet a man role as innkeeper here is in keeping with his biblical status as a named Ready-to-halt, who walks with the aid of crutches. Able patron or "host" of early Church meetings. The early disciple to keep pace with each other, these two men become friends.

and Christian convert Mnason appears briefly in the Acts of the Apostles. There, he is described as extending hospitality to The next stop is the town of Vanity, where Christian was Christians traveling to Jerusalem from Caesarea.

imprisoned and Faithful was killed in Part 1. Here, the pilgrims stay with Mnason, one of the few truly good people in the otherwise amoral town. Mnason summons several friends to Part 2, Chapter 7

visit the pilgrims, who are given a chance to recount the story thus far. Great-Heart, having gone almost 10 pages without drawing his sword, leads the townsmen on the hunt for a Summary

creature that has been capturing local pilgrims. They succeed in wounding and driving off the unnamed monster.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Chapter Summaries 39

sheep graze. When they reach the By-path Meadow, Great-sign that the narrative is drawing toward its close. The pilgrims Heart and Honest, together with Christiana's sons, decide to have gotten accustomed to the rigors of travel, but they are destroy Doubting Castle and kill its master, Giant Despair. They about to enter the most hazardous part of their journey.

succeed, freeing the captive pilgrims Despondency and Much-Resting and refreshing themselves with the shepherds will Afraid in the process. These "honest people" thank their allow them to cross the Enchanted Ground without liberators and accompany them back to the womenfolk, who succumbing to weariness.

have been left in the road. Music and dancing ensue.

The party's next stop is the Delectable Mountains, where they Part 2, Chapter 8

are greeted by the same shepherds who welcomed Christian in Part 1, Chapter 8. After a meal and a rest, the shepherds show the pilgrims some suitably allegorical wonders, including Godly-Summary

man, whose clothes remain clean no matter how much dirt is thrown at him by Prejudice and Ill-will. The pilgrims also Leaving the Delectable Mountains, the pilgrims meet a man glimpse the horrifying By-way to Hell, with its smoke and with his sword drawn and his face bloodied. This is Valiant-for-shouts of torment. Mercy is given a magical mirror ("the word truth, who was assaulted by a trio of robbers but managed to of God," Bunyan clarifies in a note) that, held at a particular hold them off until they were forced to flee. The party tend to angle, allows her to see Jesus. The shepherds bestow a further Valiant's wounds and invite him to join them. He accepts, and, gift of jewelry on the women, and the pilgrims go singing on as they continue walking, he tells them of his upbringing in their way.

Dark-land and of his eventual calling to go on pilgrimage. No tale of woe or threat of danger, he says, could dissuade him Analysis

from setting out for the Celestial City.

Next, the pilgrims reach the Enchanted Ground, "where the air In light of Bunyan's Puritan sympathies, the celebratory scene naturally [tends] to make one drowsy." Despite the after Giant Despair is slain deserves some comment. This is arduousness of the path, none of them give in to the not the first time that music or dancing is seen in The Pilgrim's temptation to lie down, knowing they may not wake up if they Progress, but it is the most conspicuous. Christiana plays the do. They pass by two sleeping men, one of whom is Too-bold, viol, a kind of precursor to the violin, and Mercy accompanies who were less careful and who now appear doomed to sleep her on the lute, a plucked-string instrument. More important forever. As they are about to leave the ground and enter the than the instrumentation here is the fact that Bunyan finds Land of Beulah, they encounter another pilgrim praying upon nothing unseemly in singing and playing after liberation from a his knees. This is Standfast, who moments before was great evil. Moreover, he sees nothing indecent about near-delivered from the allurements of a dangerous temptress strangers such as Ready-to-halt and Much-Afraid dancing called Madam Bubble. He is on his knees because he was together.

offering thanks to God.

This is just one way in which The Pilgrim's Process complicates Now free of the Enchanted Ground, the pilgrims arrive in the the traditional and highly unflattering picture of the Puritans Land of Beulah, where they are welcomed as Christian was and, by extension, their Separatist brethren. Bunyan, himself, in before them. Waiting for their appointed time, they one by one earlier life shunned such pastimes as dancing, and a few of his receive summons to cross over the River of Life to the pilgrims follow suit. Yet music and dancing, along with feasting Celestial City. Christiana goes first, after bequeathing her and drinking, are not categorically forbidden and are in fact earthly possessions to her fellow pilgrims and saying goodbye even presented in a positive light, here and elsewhere. To the to her children. Ready-to-halt is summoned next, then Feeble-extent that Bunyan's work can be taken as representative of mind, then Despondency and Much-Afraid at the same time.

Puritan attitudes, the prudish "fun police" stereotype doesn't Honest follows, then Valiant-for-truth, and finally Standfast, hold much water.

leaving Christiana's sons to follow someday.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Quotes 40

Analysis

allegory. Here, he offers a metaphor to explain why a "dark"

(i.e., obscure) way of writing may nonetheless be fruitful for the reader. Sometimes, he asserts, good things—like The name Beulah, here used for a land of abundance and ease, rainwater—come from a source that does not appear originally appears as a synonym for Jerusalem in the biblical outwardly promising—like dark clouds.

Book of Isaiah. This prophetic book has a broad narrative arc of exile and redemption, similar in some respects to the journeys described in The Pilgrim's Progress. The book of the

"What shall I do to be saved?"

prophet Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible speaks primarily of the fate of the Israelites during the Babylonian captivity, construed as a punishment for straying from God. About midway through the

— Christian, Part 1, Chapter 1

book, however, the tone of lament and recrimination gives way to hope for a renewal of God's favor.

Christian begins The Pilgrim's Progress in a state of great In Isaiah 62:4, where the name Beulah is used, the prophet distress because he has learned that his hometown, the City of predicts a radical reversal of fortunes for the then-captive Destruction, will be destroyed by fire. Within the context of the Israelites. Once called Forsaken, they shall now be called book, Christian's outcry, "What shall I do to be saved?" is a Hephzibah ("My Delight Is in Her"), and their land, once called response to the looming physical threat of a fiery death. The Desolate, will be renamed Beulah ("Married"). The marital line is originally a verse from the Acts of the Apostles, where it imagery continues a longstanding trope in which God presents refers to salvation of the soul rather than of the body. The himself as a bridegroom who is loving and faithful toward his answer given there is to believe in Jesus (Acts 16:31).

people. Present throughout the Hebrew Bible, not just in Isaiah, Cultivating this faith and answering its demands is the main this conceit of God's betrothal or marriage to his people recurs challenge of Christian's subsequent pilgrimage.

in the New Testament as well.

All of this, in turn, fits with the way Beulah is used in The

"Knock and it shall be opened unto Pilgrim's Progress, both at the end of Part 1 and here at the end you."

of Part 2. In both parts of Bunyan's work, Beulah is depicted as the land nearest to the Celestial City, that is, the closest one can get to heaven in this earthly life. It is thus a fitting place for

— John Bunyan, Part 1, Chapter 2

God's chosen people—a label Bunyan, like many of his time, attaches to the Christian elect. Like the Israelites of old, This phrase, inscribed on the Wicket-Gate, comes from the Bunyan seems to say here that the Christians have a special Sermon on the Mount, the longest single discourse given by relationship to God: a betrothal, accompanied by abundant Jesus in the Bible. The verse immediately following reads: "For blessings.

everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened" (Matthew 7:8).

g Quotes

Bunyan follows the mainstream interpretation of these verses as metaphors for persistent prayer. Christian, and later his wife, Christiana, knock repeatedly at the gate (i.e., pray fervently to God) and are admitted (i.e., saved).

"Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none."

"Though I walk through the Valley

— John Bunyan, The Author's Apology for His Book of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me."

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Quotes 41

— Unidentified voice, Part 1, Chapter 4

is a fool."

As Christian walks through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,

— Christian, Part 1, Chapter 9

he hears a voice ahead of him uttering a prayer of trust in God's protection. The prayer, like the whole concept of the Here, Christian is quoting from the Book of Proverbs (28:26).

"Valley of the Shadow of Death," is taken from Psalm 23, one The immediate context of his remark is a debate with of the best-known passages in the Hebrew Bible. The psalm, Ignorance, who trusts that he has done enough to secure a read in full, expresses a blissful confidence that God will place in the Celestial City. To Christian, this is dubious provide and protect; there, the valley is a single dark spot reasoning because people are quite capable of deluding (Verse 4) in an otherwise brightly reassuring poem.

themselves with false reassurances.

"For there is a knowledge that is

"Blessing, and honor, and glory, not attended with doing: "He that and power, be unto him that sitteth knoweth his Master's will, and

upon the throne, and unto the

doeth it not.""

Lamb."

— Faithful, Part 1, Chapter 6

— Chorus of Saints, Part 1, Chapter 10

Here, Faithful chides Talkative by pointing out the distinction This text comes from Chapter 5 of the Book of Revelation, the made in the Bible between knowledge of what is good and biblical prophetic narrative of the apocalypse and final actual obedience to God's will. This paves the way for a larger judgment. There, the phrase is uttered by the multitude of discussion of the role of faith and good works, both of which saints saved by God from the wrath of the final days. Here, it Bunyan construes as necessary for salvation.

underscores the Celestial City's status as a representation of heaven. Populated by the faithful, it is a place protected by

"Let us be wise as serpents."

God's power from the evils encountered on earth.

— Mr. Hold-the-world, Part 1, Chapter 7

"The bitter is before the sweet."

This advice is, in itself, not as sinister as it might sound; in fact,

— Christiana, Part 2, Pilgrimage of Christiana and Her Children it has a biblical precedent. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus enjoins his disciples to be "wise as serpents, and harmless as Christiana hears this phrase from the visitor who brings her an doves" (Matt 10:16) in the face of the coming persecution. What invitation to the Celestial City. She repeats it to her doubting makes Mr. Hold-the-world's advice poisonous is that he takes neighbors as a defense against their attempts to dissuade her Jesus's injunction out of context and applies it in a self-serving from her pilgrimage. It may be true, she reasons, that a manner. He is happy to be "wise as serpents" in saving himself pilgrim's path is a bitter one, but the bitterness is, for Bunyan, a from hardship, but he is unwilling to embrace the other, more necessary prelude to future joys.

self-sacrificial aspects of Christian living.

"He that trusteth in his own heart

"God speaks once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not."

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Symbols 42

— Christiana, Part 2, Chapter 4

— Feeble-mind, Part 2, Chapter 6

Here, Christiana is attempting to reassure Mercy, who Feeble-mind's resolution here is essentially to keep moving continues to harbor some doubts about her salvation. Mercy forward on his pilgrimage as fast as he is able. (To "go," in this has had a wonderful dream in which she was welcomed into 17th-century sense, is to "walk.") Bunyan adds a marginal the Celestial City, and she shares it with Christiana, evidently note—"Mark this"—in the original text to show that he thinks unsure of whether it should be seen as a sign. Christiana Feeble-mind's example is especially noteworthy.

quotes Scripture—specifically, the Book of Job—to argue that God does "speak" to people in their dreams.

"He that watereth, shall be

"He that is down, needs fear no watered himself."

fall; he that is low, no pride."

— Shepherds, Part 2, Chapter 7

— Shepherd boy, Part 2, Chapter 5

In the Delectable Mountains, the shepherds show Christiana and her party several wonders with spiritual meaning. One of This comes from one of the many spontaneous songs into these is a man who cuts garments for the poor out of a which the characters of The Pilgrim's Progress tend to break.

magically endless roll of cloth. The moral: God will provide for The singer, a humble shepherd boy, is extolling the virtues of a those who give to the poor.

simple life. Those who have little, he declares, have little to fear.

"For he that goeth away in a sleep,

"The heart knoweth its own

begins that journey with desire

bitterness; and a stranger

and pleasure."

intermeddleth not with its joy."

— Standfast, Part 2, Chapter 8

— Christiana, Part 2, Chapter 5

In this quotation, Standfast explains the meaning of the Enchanted Ground, which makes those passing through This is another quotation from the biblical book of Proverbs extremely drowsy. The Ground, as he explains it, represents all (14:10). Here, Christiana is reflecting on the fact that she only those worldly temptations that are not outwardly evil, but now can understand the suffering her husband went through pleasant and innocent seeming. One can drift off into such on his pilgrimage. There are limits to human empathy, she temptations, to the detriment of one's soul, without even affirms, to the ability of one "heart" to appreciate the joys and realizing that one is going to "sleep."

sorrows of another.

"This I have resolved on ... to run l Symbols

when I can, to go when I cannot

run, and to creep when I cannot

go."

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Symbols 43

Two Cities

day of unrepentance before they are ready to mend their ways.

The Celestial City is the opposite of the City of Destruction. It is everlasting, whereas the latter is doomed to perish in flames.

It is beautiful, not in a mundane, "postcard" way but in a way The settings of The Pilgrim's Progress are diverse, ranging that defies Bunyan's ability to describe. Everything in the from smoke-filled chasms to bucolic hillsides. Most of these Celestial City takes place on a grand scale and is saturated places are fairly simple and self-explanatory in their allegorical with light and music, opulence and ceremony. Such description implications. The Slough of Despond, for example, is a as Bunyan provides follows directly from biblical precedent: treacherous bog land, as difficult to escape from as the Book of Revelation speaks of "the holy city," the "new despondency itself. Two cities, however, stand out as the Jerusalem" (Rev 21:2) as the final dwelling place of God and his

"anchors" of Christian's journey—the ends, so to speak, of the people. This city is lit from within, so that night and day are moral tightrope he must walk to secure his place among the indistinguishable; it is made of a material that resembles both blessed. These are the City of Destruction, which symbolizes

"pure gold" and "clear glass" and is "garnished" with precious all that is alluring about earthly life, and the Celestial City, stones of all sorts (21:18–19). In his own description, Bunyan which is a lavish allegorical depiction of heaven. In Part 1

combines the accretion of wondrous details à la Revelation Christian struggles to escape the former, wends his way with the idea of an earthly king's court. The Celestial City is, he through the varied country described above, and at last arrives affirms, like the best possible version of an earthly city, and life safely in the latter. Christiana in Part 2 repeats her husband's there is the best possible version of life in the service of a journey, and her narrative adds detail to the description of both human monarch.

places while reaffirming their centrality to Bunyan's allegory.

Christian (also known as Graceless) starts his journey in the City of Destruction, his hometown. There, he lives a life of Crown of Righteousness

unthinking sinfulness alongside neighbors with such names as Lechery and Obstinate. Even after he is convinced the city will be destroyed, he is hard-pressed to find somewhere else to go, in part because he does not know there is another place to go.

Clothing is another area in which The Pilgrim's Progress offers Christiana and her children in Part 2 have the benefit of great symbolic variety, from the armor of faith to the rags that knowing, through rumors, of the Celestial City's existence.

Christian casts off to be clothed anew. Within the book's They realize there is another, even better, place for them, but metaphorical wardrobe, however, no single item gets as much they are put off by the many dangers and inconveniences of attention as the crown. Early on, Christian is shown an traveling from one city to another. For them the extent of the allegorical painting in which a long-suffering saint is about to difference between the two cities seems to get lost in receive a golden crown as a divine reward for his translation so that it is hard for them to appreciate why the perseverance. Later, Christian and his fellow pilgrims are journey is worth the hassle.

promised crowns of their own once they reach the Celestial City. The crowns are mentioned again at particularly tough Moreover, the City of Destruction is not described as an points in the pilgrims' journey, as if to evoke an "eyes-on-the-outwardly hellish place. Rather, Bunyan paints it as a pleasant prize" mentality among the believers. In the closing pomp and if mundane city in which his typically middle-class characters circumstance of Part 1, Christian indeed receives a crown of can enjoy the good things of this world in relative comfort. The gold adorned with pearls, which are commonly used to problem with the City of Destruction, as Bunyan portrays it, is symbolize purity. The "shining ones" (saints) in the city wear that the citizens fall into the trap of thinking they can live there similar crowns, suggesting that this is the common reward for forever—that earthly life is all there is, and their sins are of no righteousness in life.

consequence. This is not to say that Bunyan's characters are atheists except, of course, for the character who is actually Many elements of Bunyan's crown symbolism—the crown as named "Atheist." Rather, they are Christians who procrastinate, ultimate prize, the injunction to persevere, and so forth—can be putting off the painful but necessary journey that leads to traced back directly to the New Testament letters of Peter, heaven. They want one more dance, one more drink, one more Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Themes 44

James, and Paul and to the Book of Revelation. The latter is virtue. No model of right living—being civil to one's neighbors, the Bible's most detailed description of the end times and is obeying the law, or striving to be a moral person—is adequate even more richly—and bewilderingly—allegorical than Bunyan's without divine grace.

writings. In Revelation 1, Jesus appears in glory to judge the living and the dead. In Revelation 2, he sends messages to In dramatizing this process of discovery, John Bunyan various early Christian churches, promising one group of (1628–88), a Separatist, is weighing in on a longstanding believers that if they are "faithful unto death" he will give them dispute about a question first posed in the Acts of the

"a crown of life" (Rev 2:10). Paul's First Letter to the Apostles: "What must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30). The Corinthians uses fundamentally similar language in Chapter 9, answer given in Acts is simple: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Verse 25.

Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (16:31). However, the exact role of faith in salvation has been debated much more intensely Although the crown is a traditional symbol of power and through the centuries than this answer might seem to imply.

dominion, neither the Bible nor The Pilgrim's Progress use it to The Catholic position (and thus the position of the Church in mean that the righteous are rulers in their own right. Rather, the medieval West) is that both faith and good works are they are participants in the Kingdom of God, crowned not so necessary: the works demonstrate, or prove, the person's faith.

much because they are the masters of themselves as because This position was attacked as incompatible with Scripture they have accepted his mastery over them. It's worth noting in during the Protestant Reformation, and the official stance of this connection that the "crown" (from the Greek stephanos) of German religious leader Martin Luther (1483–1546) and his which the New Testament epistles (letters to early believers) fellow reformers was sola fide, sola gratia: "faith alone, grace speak can also in many cases be interpreted as the wreath of alone." That is, only through God's grace can a person be victory placed on the heads of the winners of ancient Greek saved, and only through faith can a person participate in that athletic contests. Thus, for the writers of these letters the grace—although this sola fide position is not supported by the crown may be a prize for "leaving it all on the field" through Christian Bible. From the Lutheran—and, for that matter, the self-denial or even martyrdom. Bunyan chooses to depict a Calvinist—viewpoint, the performance of good deeds on earth metallic crown of the type worn by European monarchs, not a is an expression of God's grace, never a way of "earning" it.

wreath of leaves, but it is safe to say that he envisions this crown more as a symbolic reward than as a conferral of By the 17th century, however, Protestantism had itself become authority.

a diverse set of denominations, united as much in their rejection of Catholicism as in their embrace of any shared theological principle. The Separatists, along with the Puritans and a growing number of other Protestant sects, rejected the m Themes

sola fide position as too extreme and reaffirmed the role of good works in salvation. This is the viewpoint espoused throughout The Pilgrim's Progress, where those who express faith in God but fail to follow his commandments are not merely Path to Salvation

called out as hypocrites but threatened with damnation. That faith is necessary, meanwhile, is never in doubt for Bunyan: those who merely try to be good people without God's help are Throughout The Pilgrim's Progress, Christian is engaged in an missing an essential ingredient for salvation.

ongoing process of spiritual discernment. Specifically, he Bunyan, however, does not simply come out and say that faith learns through his trials to distinguish the heart of Christian life without works is insufficient, a claim he is happy to make for from the many things that are inessential or even detrimental

"works without faith." He is well aware of Acts 16:31, a verse to salvation. In the beginning, he carries a great many mistaken that seems to make an open-and-shut case regarding the notions about what is necessary for him to be saved; his criteria for salvation. He gets around this potential scriptural encounters throughout his pilgrimage pluck these roadblock in a time-honored fashion: if a person truly has faith misconceptions away like leaves from an artichoke. Mere piety, in God, he says, that person will avoid sin and live virtuously. A he discovers, is insufficient, as is the cultivation of personal faith too weak to manifest itself in good works is, Bunyan Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Themes 45

seems to argue, not the kind of faith envisioned in the Acts of Christian and Hopeful the ease with which Ignorance "gets the Apostles. This position is especially evident when Bunyan's over" death is a bad sign, since saints are supposed to suffer protagonists encounter lip-service Christians who have read right up to the end. When Ignorance is condemned to hell for the Bible and claim to believe but whose "conversation" (i.e., taking the easy way out, Bunyan drives home his point: neither their manner of living) is a godless one.

shortcuts nor detours are permitted on the pilgrimage to heaven.

Because he is writing an allegory and not a theological treatise, Bunyan is ultimately spared from having to articulate a precise position in the faith-and-works debate. It is clear, however, that he holds out little hope for those who say they believe but fail,

"Dark" Means May Lead to

or refuse, to act accordingly.

Holy Ends

No Shortcuts, No Detours

From the very beginning of his book, Bunyan is engaged in a battle against detractors real and imagined. He is preoccupied—not necessarily unreasonably—by the idea that In addition to the "faith and works" debate Bunyan dramatizes The Pilgrim's Progress will be rejected because it is an throughout The Pilgrim's Progress, there are several characters allegorical work, expressing religious truths through extended who simply attempt to cheat their way into the Celestial City.

symbolism instead of stating them plainly and literally. Even the First to appear are Formalist and Hypocrisy, who briefly join title page of the original edition reflects this concern: "I have Christian just after he passes through the Wicket-Gate in Part used similitudes," Bunyan quotes from the biblical Book of 1, Chapter 3. Unlike him, they have gotten in by climbing over Hosea (12:10). A similitude here is a metaphor or, as it is usually the wall, thus bypassing the gate entirely. He explains, as he rendered in modern translations of the Bible, a parable. Thus, was told by Evangelist, that only those who come through the from page one Bunyan is proactively justifying his own use of Wicket-Gate will be saved. Formalist and Hypocrisy scoff at similitudes by pointing out that God himself sanctions the him and counter that their people have been coming in over the practice.

wall for centuries. The broad point here is that, in Bunyan's Protestant theology, those who are called by God must still In the apology (introductory poem) to Part 1, Bunyan offers a respond via the proper means; namely, faith in Jesus Christ.

much more detailed defense of his use of allegory. He repeats This faith must be an inwardly held conviction, not a mere the point, suggested on the title page, that symbolic language ritualistic performance (Formalist) or outward profession appears in numerous instances large and small throughout the (Hypocrisy).

Bible. In addition, Bunyan offers some metaphors of his own to explain why a "dark" (i.e., obscure) manner of writing or Perhaps the most notable shortcut taker, however, is speaking may nonetheless bear fruit: crops are nourished by Ignorance, who appears in the final two chapters of Part 1. His rain, he points out, whether it falls from "dark" clouds or light story is significant because he is evidently unaware of having ones. Bunyan also cites non-Scriptural works, both literary and done anything wrong, unlike some of the other false pilgrims.

philosophical, to show that many wise people have viewed When he pushes back against the reasoning offered by

"dark" symbolism as a worthy means of conveying important Christian and Hopeful, he seems to be arguing in good faith, if ideas. The apology to Part 2 ("The Author's Way of Sending at times a little high-handedly. His main crime, as allegorized by Forth ... ") reinforces and partly repeats this argument to justify Bunyan, consists in having joined the pilgrims' way via a the publication of a second volume in a similar style.

"crooked lane" from his home country rather than walking the entire long road from the Wicket-Gate onward. Ignorance later In the house of the Interpreter, Bunyan takes things one step hires a ferry to carry him over the River of Life, which seems further: he gets, to use a modern term, metafictional. Both like a sensible way of overcoming a physical obstacle but is, of Christian in Part 1 and Christiana in Part 2 visit the Interpreter course, against the rules of The Pilgrim's Progress. In fact, for soon after they pass through the Wicket-Gate. In his house, Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Pilgrim's Progress Study Guide Themes 46

each is escorted through a veritable museum of different religious symbols. They view paintings, witness dramatic scenes, and contemplate natural and man-made landscapes, all with the Interpreter standing by to explain the spiritual meaning of what they behold. In introducing such a character, Bunyan does more than provide himself with a convenient way of stuffing even more symbolism into his book. He also justifies the place of symbolism itself in religious instruction (after all, his heroes repeatedly profit from such instruction) and sanctions his own role as an "interpreter" for his readers.

Document Outline

What's Inside
j Book Basics
d In Context
a Author Biography
h Characters
k Plot Summary
c Chapter Summaries
g Quotes
l Symbols
m Themes