A Pilgrim’s Progress Literary Analysis
A Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegorical novel by John Bunyan, follows the journey of Christian, a man traveling from the sinful City of Destruction to the Celestial City after experiencing spiritual conviction and direction from Evangelist. Christian encounters numerous friends and foes along the way, until, after great turmoil, he reaches the City at last. Though Bunyan includes a variety of characters and places that accurately represent the various facets of the Christian walk, his overt approach neglects to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions, making his point less effective. This is demonstrated in his use of characterization, setting, and point of view. Bunyan begins introducing characters …show more content…
His description is the polar opposite of the “show, not tell” method; he tends to keep it to the bare minimum, sometimes stating the presence of the surrounding objects as one would an inventory. The author’s account of Vanity Fair epitomizes this: “…at this fair are all such merchandise sold: as houses, lands, trades, places, honours, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms; lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts – as whores, bawds, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not (pg. 81).” He continues on with several more similar lists, and later reports several interactions with the people of the fair, which are kept to short exchanges of dialogue and the reaction of the people of the town upon seeing the pilgrims. This choice of descriptive language does not immerse the reader in the setting. One may be aware of the transpiring events, but not grasp the full weight of the context. Allowing the reader to infer the type of place through which the pilgrims must travel by means of description (for instance, by describing the suggestive hinting of a heavily made-up woman, or the beckoning finger of a man with a cart of potions and blood beneath his fingernails) also allows one to react to the frightening and disturbing images presented, and what they imply, rather than just acknowledging an extremely simple list of the practices of the town. In the walk of the Christian, one must learn to recognize the warning signs of a potentially evil situation. It may not be as clear-cut as, “I am being told outright that this situation is sexual in nature,” but one must recognize that going upstairs with someone one does not trust to abstain from such practices would be a poor judgment call. The description of the setting, intended to parallel real-life temptation, must be presented in
A Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegorical novel by John Bunyan, follows the journey of Christian, a man traveling from the sinful City of Destruction to the Celestial City after experiencing spiritual conviction and direction from Evangelist. Christian encounters numerous friends and foes along the way, until, after great turmoil, he reaches the City at last. Though Bunyan includes a variety of characters and places that accurately represent the various facets of the Christian walk, his overt approach neglects to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions, making his point less effective. This is demonstrated in his use of characterization, setting, and point of view. Bunyan begins introducing characters …show more content…
His description is the polar opposite of the “show, not tell” method; he tends to keep it to the bare minimum, sometimes stating the presence of the surrounding objects as one would an inventory. The author’s account of Vanity Fair epitomizes this: “…at this fair are all such merchandise sold: as houses, lands, trades, places, honours, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms; lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts – as whores, bawds, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not (pg. 81).” He continues on with several more similar lists, and later reports several interactions with the people of the fair, which are kept to short exchanges of dialogue and the reaction of the people of the town upon seeing the pilgrims. This choice of descriptive language does not immerse the reader in the setting. One may be aware of the transpiring events, but not grasp the full weight of the context. Allowing the reader to infer the type of place through which the pilgrims must travel by means of description (for instance, by describing the suggestive hinting of a heavily made-up woman, or the beckoning finger of a man with a cart of potions and blood beneath his fingernails) also allows one to react to the frightening and disturbing images presented, and what they imply, rather than just acknowledging an extremely simple list of the practices of the town. In the walk of the Christian, one must learn to recognize the warning signs of a potentially evil situation. It may not be as clear-cut as, “I am being told outright that this situation is sexual in nature,” but one must recognize that going upstairs with someone one does not trust to abstain from such practices would be a poor judgment call. The description of the setting, intended to parallel real-life temptation, must be presented in