On the Wings of Allegory: the Christian Message in The Pilgrim’s Progress by Bunyan

Abstract

The subject of this paper is a theological reading of The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678, 1684) by John Bunyan (1628–1688). In order to show the transmission of the Christian message through the form of allegory, the comparative analysis is used for interpreting the book’s first and second parts, with a special focus on relevant intertextual and contextual elements. Due to Bunyan’s Puritan religious orientation, the research remained within the framework of the history of Western Christianity.
By underlining different attitudes through a diachronic review of the use of allegory in biblical hermeneutics and practice in Western Christian exegesis, it is ascertained that the reformers rejected dominance of the allegorical approach in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, but did not completely omit it. Consequently, it is established that Bunyan’s choice to use the form of allegory was primarily based on the biblical discourse. Also, Bunyan’s understanding of allegory in the context of classical and radical reformers’ views proved to be the source of his insistence that it is the reader’s task to discover what lies in the text and beneath the „novelties“ that are only on the surface (Bunyan 2011: 6). Bunyan himself points out: „This book was writ in such a dialect as may the minds of listless men affect: it seems a novelty, and yet contains nothing but sound and honest Gospel strains“ (Bunyan 2011: 6). Through the following several questions he emphasizes personal choice as being a determining factor for committing oneself to the pilgrimage on the King’s highway. Likewise, it is established that the form of allegory provides a platform for interdenominational audience to identify with Christian’s journey, because in the hands of believers the discourse of this allegory primarily takes place within Creator-creation-sin-salvation (Christ)-eternal life paradigm.
This paper has shown that the power of the Word, the Holy Scriptures, is the wind in the sails of Bunyan’s allegory as Bunyan builds the message of the gospel with every element of the allegory — the story, the characters and the landscape. While the theological reading, derived from the author’s intention, has been maintained from the original to the contemporary context, by considering the status of allegory in the relevant literary periods, it is argued that the use of the allegorical mode of narrativization also proved to be a decisive factor for the reception of The Pilgrim’s Progress outside the Christian circles. However, even though The Pilgrim’s Progress was included in the English literary canon in the 19th century (Hofmeyr 2010: 163, 165; Wall 2018: 521, 536), where moral, allegorical, literary, psychological, historical, sociological, political, as well as feminist readings have been disclosed, it is thought that The Pilgrim’s Progress has been translated into 216 world languages, mostly due to the theological reading (Wilkinson 2016: 32–33, 40–41, 48; Hofmeyr 2010: 162). Furthermore, it is concluded that the common practice and motive for the theological reading of The Pilgrim’s Progress is related to the application of the Scriptures in everyday life.