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The Pilgrim's Progress

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The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come by John Bunyan (published 1678) is an allegorical novel. Bunyan wrote this book while imprisoned in 1675 for violations of the Conventicle Act, which punished people for conducting unauthorised religious services outside of the Church of England. An expanded edition, with additions written after Bunyan was freed, appeared in 1679. The Second Part appeared in 1684. This work is regarded as one of the greatest classics of literature, and has been translated into more than 100 languages. The original English text consists of 108,260 words. It is divided into two parts, each of which reads as a continuous narrative, not being further divided into chapters.

Contents

Plot summary

The allegory tells of Christian, an everyman character, who makes his way from the "City of Destruction" to the "Celestial City" of Zion. Christian finds himself weighed down by a great burden that he gets from reading a book (obviously the Bible). This burden, which would cause him to sink into hell (Tophet), is Christian's acute, immediate concern that impels him to the crisis of what to do for deliverance. Evangelist suddenly comes by to direct Christian for deliverance to the "Wicket Gate," which is the direction indicated by a "shining light" that Christian thinks he sees. An insight into what the burden is allegorically is given by Help, Christian's rescuer from the Slough of Despond: 
This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended: it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond.
 Christian's burden had caused him to sink even further down into the slough than one who might have been unburdened; hence, the burden allegorically is the weight of the conviction of one's sin. Christian leaves his home, his wife, and children to save himself.


On his way to the Wicket Gate Christian is led astray by Mr. Worldly Wiseman into seeking deliverance from his burden through the Law, allegorically presented as Messrs. Legality and Civility in the town of Morality, rather than through Christ, allegorically by way of the Wicket Gate. Evangelist meets Christian before a life-threatening mountain, Mt. Sinai, that keeps Christian from getting to Legality's home. Evangelist shows Christian that he had sinned by turning out of his way, but he assures him that he will be welcomed at the Wicket Gate. Christian turns around and goes there.


The "straight and narrow" King's Highway begins at the Wicket Gate, and Christian is directed onto it by the gatekeeper Good-will. In the Second Part he is shown to be Jesus himself. [link] Christian makes his way from there to the House of the Interpreter, where he is shown pictures and tableaux that portray or dramatize aspects of the Christian faith and life.


From the House of the Interpreter Christian finally reaches the "place of deliverance" (allegorically, the cross of Calvary and the open sepulcher of Christ) where the "straps" that bound Christian's burden to him break, and it rolls away into the open sepulcher. This event happens relatively early in the narrative: the immediate need of Christian at the beginning of the story being so quickly remedied. After Christian is relieved of his burden he is greeted by three shining ones, who give him the greeting of peace, new garments, and a scroll as a passport into the Celestial City—these are allegorical figures indicative of Christian Baptism.


Atop the Hill Difficulty Christian makes his first stop for the night at the House Beautiful, which is an allegory of the local Christian congregation. Christian spends three days here, and leaves clothed with armor (Eph. 6:11-18)[link], which stands him in good stead in his battle against Apollyon in the Valley of Humiliation. After the battle he travels through the night through the Valley of the Shadow of Death where in the midst of the gloom and terror he hears the words of the Twenty-third Psalm spoken possibly by his friend Faithful: 
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me (Ps. 23:4).
 The sun rises on a new day as he leaves this valley. 


Just outside the Valley of the Shadow of Death he meets Faithful, also a former resident of the City of Destruction, who accompanies him to Vanity Fair, where both of them are arrested and detained because of their disdain for the wares and business of the fair. Faithful is put on trial, and executed as a martyr. Hopeful, a resident of Vanity, takes Faithful's place to be Christian's companion for the rest of the way.


Along a rough stretch of road, Christian and Hopeful leave the highway to travel on the easier By-Path Meadow, where they are forced to spend the night due to a rain storm. In the morning they are captured by Giant Despair, who takes them to his Doubting Castle, where they are imprisoned, beaten, and starved. The giant wants them to commit suicide, but they endure the ordeal until Christian realizes that a key he has called Promise will open all the doors and gates of Doubting Castle from which they escape.


The Delectable Mountains form the next stage of Christian and Hopeful's journey, where the shepherds show them some of the wonders of the place also known as "Immanuel's Land." 


On the way Christian and Hopeful meet a lad named Ignorance, who has the vain hope of entering the Celestial City even though he believes in works righteousness. A ferryman with the name, Vain Hope, ferries Ignorance across the River of Death only for him to be turned away from the gates of Celestial City and cast into hell.


Christian and Hopeful make it through the dangerous Enchanted Ground into the Land of Beulah, where they ready themselves to cross the River of Death on foot to Mount Zion and the Celestial City. Christian has a rough time of it, but Hopeful helps him over, and they are welcomed into the Celestial City.


The Second Part of The Pilgrim's Progress presents the pilgrimage of Christian's wife, Christiana, their sons, and the maiden Mercy. They visit the same stopping places that Christian did with the addition of Gaius's Inn between the Valley of the Shadow of Death and Vanity Fair, but they take a longer time to accommodate marriage and child birth for Christian and four sons and their wives. The hero of the story is Greatheart, the servant of the Interpreter, who is a pilgrim's guide to the Celestial City. He kills four giants, including Giant Despair, and participates in the slaying of a monster that terrorizes the city of Vanity.


The passage of years in this second pilgrimage better allegorizes the journey of the Christian life. By using feminine heroines, the Second Part illustrates how women—not only men—can be brave pilgrims as well.


Alexander M. Witherspoon, professor of English at Yale University, writes in a prefatory essay: 
Part II, which appeared in 1684, is much more than a mere sequel to or repetition of the earlier volume. It clarifies and reinforces and justifies the story of Part I. The beam of Bunyan's spotlight is broadened to include Christian's family and other, men, women, and children; the incidents and accidents of everyday life are more numerous, the joys of the pilgrimage tend to outweigh the hardships, and to the faith and hope of Part I is added in abundant measure that greatest of virtues, charity. The two parts of The Pilgrim's Progress in reality constitute a whole, and the whole is, without doubt, the most influential religious book ever written in the English language [Pocket Books, Inc. edition, New York, 1957, Introduction, p. vi].


When the pilgrims end up in the Land of Beulah, they cross over the River of Death by appointment. As a matter of importance to Christians of Bunyan's persuasion reflected in the narrative of The Pilgrim's Progress, the last words of the pilgrims as they cross over the river are recorded. The four sons of Christian and their families do not cross, but they remain for the support of the church in that place.



Characters of the First Part [the main ones in capitals]



Characters of the Second Part [the main ones in capitals]



Places in The Pilgrim's Progress



The Pilgrim's Progress in 
The allegory of this book has antecedents in a large number of Christian devotional works that speak of the soul's path to Heaven, from the Lyke-Wake Dirge forwards. Bunyan's allegory stands out above his predecessors because of his simple and effective, if somewhat naïve, prose style, steeped in Biblical texts and cadences. He confesses his own naïveté in the verse prologue to the book:



. . . I did not think
To shew to all the World my Pen and Ink
In such a mode; I only thought to make
I knew not what: nor did I undertake
Thereby to please my Neighbour; no not I;
I did it mine own self to gratifie.



John Bunyan himself wrote a popular hymn that encourages a hearer to become a pilgrim like Christian: All Who Would Valiant Be. 


Because of the widespread longtime popularity of this classic, Christian's hazards (the "Slough of Despond," the "Hill Difficulty," the "Valley of the Shadow of Death," "Doubting Castle," and the "Enchanted Ground"), his temptations (the wares of "Vanity Fair" and the pleasantness of "By-Path Meadow"), his foes ("Apollyon" and "Giant Despair"), and the helpful stopping places he visits (the "House of the Interpreter," the "House Beautiful," the "Delectable Mountains," and the "Land of Beulah") as phrases have become proverbial in English. For example, "One has one's own Slough of Despond to trudge through."


The Pilgrim's Progress's explicitly Protestant theology also made it much more popular than its predecessors. Finally, Bunyan's gifts and plain style breathe life into the abstractions of the anthropomorphized temptations and abstractions Christian encounters and converses with on his course to Heaven. Samuel Johnson said that "this is the great merit of the book, that the most cultivated man cannot find anything to praise more highly, and the child knows nothing more amusing." Three years after its publication (1681), it was reprinted in colonial America, and was widely read in the Puritan colonies. It went through eleven editions during the remainder of Bunyan's lifetime (1678-1688).  


The book was the basis of an opera by Ralph Vaughan Williams, premiered in 1951; see The Pilgrim's Progress (opera).


E. E. Cummings also makes numerous references to it in his prose work, The Enormous Room.


John Buchan was an admirer of Bunyan and Pilgrim's Progress features significantly in his third Richard Hannay novel, Mr Standfast which also takes its title from one of Bunyan's characters.


Alan Moore in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen enlists The Pilgrim's Progress protagonist Christian as a member of the earliest version of this group known as Prospero's Men.  This group disbanded in 1690 after Christian found his "heavenly country" and departed this world.


Danzig's "Mother" video begins with a quote from Pilgrim's Progress.



Editions


Online Editions 
The original non wiki text available online below -  
[The Pilgrim's Progress]



Abridged Editions



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