Setting

The Pilgrim’s Progress

by John Bunyan

The Pilgrim’s Progress: Setting 1 key example

Definition of Setting

Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:

Pilgrim's Progress is set within an allegorical landscape loosely based on 17th-century England, beginning in a City of Destruction that stands in for any community filled with sinful human beings (that is, all of them) and concluding in the Celestial City, or Heaven. The characters progress through a landscape populated not only by other people who sometimes mock, distort, or otherwise reject or oppose the concept of pilgrimage to Heaven, but by supernatural beings like shining angels, deadly fiends, and cruel giants. Characters also encounter features like muddy bogs, pitch-dark valleys, and enchanted paths that symbolize the many discouragements, fears, and other temptations that all Christians are likely to come across in the course of their lives.