Women as Pilgrims Theme Analysis

The second half of Pilgrim’s Progress focuses on Christiana, the late Christian’s wife, as she, her children, and her friend Mercy seek the Celestial City, symbolic of Heaven. Initially, Christiana harshly rejected Christian’s faith and refused to join his pilgrimage to the Celestial City. However, after Christian’s death, she, too, is converted and decides to follow the same path. Although Christiana’s pilgrimage retraces much of Christian’s, Bunyan also portrays her as a pilgrim in her own right, with her own story to tell. In some respects, women are portrayed as being weaker both physically and in their understanding of spiritual matters. Yet this doesn’t hold true throughout the whole novel, as in fact women are portrayed as responsible for their own spiritual growth; what’s more, they should teach others as they receive opportunity. Through female characters’ curiosity, capability as teachers, and perseverance in their calling, Bunyan suggests that, current cultural views notwithstanding, women should strive to be theologically adept pilgrims, too.

In Pilgrim’s Progress, women are sometimes portrayed as less formidable pilgrims than men are, reflecting the stereotypes of the day. Women are portrayed as weaker and in need of more help on their pilgrimage. Christiana and Mercy are accompanied by a champion named Mr. Great-heart who fights off lions, a giant, and other foes on their behalf. In addition, when they visit the Interpreter’s House early in their journey, the Interpreter shows them images of the Christian life that are more domestic in nature than those Christian had been shown in the same place: a hen with her chicks to illustrate God’s call to sinners, a butcher with sheep to illustrate accepting sufferings without complaint, and a robin eating a spider to show that outward beauty can mask insincerity. The Interpreter explains that “I chose, my darlings, to lead you into the room where such things are, because you are women, and they are easy for you.” At first glance, this suggests that women are less capable of understanding spiritual truths than men are and need concepts to be made “easy” for them.

However, in the ways that matter most in the context of the story (and contra the Interpreter’s implication above)—women pilgrims are not weaker than their male counterparts. They have the ability to grasp core doctrines and to persevere in their pilgrimage. Women should be curious about theology and strive to understand it. For example, when they pass the spot where Christian’s burden of sin fell from his back, Christiana doesn’t just marvel at her husband’s salvation; she asks questions about it in order to better understand the theological doctrines at stake for all Christians. She asks Great-heart to explain the doctrine of justification (the pardon of sinners by Christ) in more detail than it is explored when Christian himself receives salvation: “What the promise [of salvation] is, of that I know something; but what it is to have pardon […] let us hear your discourse thereof.” To simplify, Christiana asks Great-heart to explain in more detail how salvation is accomplished according to Protestant Christian teaching. In other words, she finds it unsatisfying simply to accept a doctrine at face value without understanding it for herself. This suggests that women not only can understand theology on a deeper level, but they should strive to do so.

Women can and should be capable teachers of theology to those in their care. When the women and children lodge at a place called the Porter’s House, one of the women there, Prudence, “catechises” Christiana’s children—in other words, she asks them religious questions to determine how well they understand the content of their faith. (Catechisms are documents, laid out in question-and-answer format, which present central religious teachings; in the 17th century, when Pilgrim’s Progress was written, catechism memorization was considered a household duty in some Protestant communities.) When the children answer her questions correctly, Prudence praises Christiana for training them so well: “Good boy, Joseph; thy mother hath taught thee well, and thou hast hearkened unto what she has said unto thee.” This section is significant because it shows that women’s authority as household religious teachers was considered important, and Bunyan takes care to highlight it through an extensive section.

Women should not be deterred from their pilgrimage by worldly concerns like marriage—especially when suitors fail to match women’s spiritual level. While they linger at the Porter’s House, a man named Mr. Brisk becomes interested in marrying Mercy, but when he sees her dedication to caring for others (she spends her time making clothes for the poor), he changes his mind. Mercy is at peace with this development: “I might a had husbands afore now […] but they were such as did not like my conditions […] if nobody will have me, I will die a maid, or my conditions [i.e., being dedicated to merciful acts] shall be to me as a husband; for I cannot change my nature.” In other words, Mercy’s core nature isn’t to be a wife; it’s to be a Christian—in her case, to be merciful. If a potential husband can’t accept that, Mercy finds it better to remain unmarried. This further suggests that, regardless of their family status, Bunyan urged Christian women to make Christianity their primary allegiance in life.

In the end, the women’s journey isn’t substantially different from the men’s, and they have the same goal: the Celestial City, or Heaven. This suggests that, in Bunyan’s view, men and woman have the same basic spiritual needs and calling. By extension, too, the book takes for granted that “ordinary” Christians, no matter their gender, status, or background, should be pilgrims who read the Bible and who strive to understand Christian theological teachings in detail. In this flattening of gender, class, and lay/clergy distinctions, the book is groundbreaking.