Throughout the history of literary works the position and esteem that has been held regarding women has been of much controversy. People, especially women, often saw religious texts as some kind of solace that they could turn to in order to see the true freedom of themselves from the vicious hand of such matters as sex and gender. This kind of matters were thought to be finally drawn to the margins and given less significance by the preaching of the ideology of religion. The body of works of John Bunyan, as one of the most revered English religious writers has been always considered to embody religion and its ideology at its fullest even though he was disapproved much at his own time for his nonconformist beliefs. Bunyan talked about women much ever since he started his writings, but the problematic aspect of his account of women comes to the surface when we start to pay close attention to them e.g. when he visits the Women of Bedford in his spiritual autobiography book Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners saying “instead of having satisfaction, here I began to find my Soul to be assaulted with fresh doubts about my future happiness” and that “how if the day of grace should be past and gone?” [1]. Another viewpoint that this matter can be elaborated on is the presence of Calvinist Predestination essence that somehow dominates Bunyan’s works. This paper, then, will try to go through this issue and illuminate them as far as possible.

Religion, as the ultimate gateway through which the happiness of human beings has always been associated, has offered a distinct kind of freedom. This specific freedom goes beyond such matters as age, race, language and most particularly sex. Of course, as we go further in the course of religion’s history the number of deviations from this ideology that an equal role or position should be considered for both men and women rises. Social circumstances can be said to play one major role in the emergence of such deviative thoughts. The significant point about this matter is that, we as human beings are all subject to social dogmas that are prevalent at any particular time. This matter entered the field of Literature as literary works can be defined as the mirror of ongoing social changes and debates. Naturally, these relations and ideas influenced literature as one focal part of the superstructure of the society and women seemed to be re-experiencing the same loss all over again. In Nicholas Kristof’s words, “That’s a context that religions have helped shape and not pushed hard to change” and he goes further on by quoting Jimmy Carter saying that “Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths, creating an environment in which violations against women are justified” [2]. From the first moments that controversies rose against the doctrines of the Church regarding the rights of the other sex, there were some books like Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies that tried to break away from this male-based ideology which dominated the very fundamental origin of their thought. One interesting issue to put into consideration here is the fact that the very means by which women hoped to liberate themselves was the confinement from which they happened to struggle – and are now struggling - to get away from. 

Bunyan [3], the Protestant Nonconformist, has written some of the most influential religious books in the course of human history. His books were (and are) so wide read that a book like Pilgrim’s Progress set the record of selling about one hundred thousand copies in the first five years of its publication (1678-1683). As a puritan, he strictly believed in the doctrine of Calvinist Predestination, the belief which is declared in The Westminster Confession of Faith as that “God from all eternity did by the most and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass” [4]. What can be extracted from these lines is the assertion that no matter what sort of conduct one puts into his/her life, the outcome that s/he is going to receive has been predetermined. This doctrine can include a whole set of other preset subjects as well, for example the social position that one is going to have in life. Bible, as the primary source of the teaching of Christians has not shown that much of affection and kindness towards women:

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. (1 Tim. 2:11-15)

Bunyan, as a puritan and a close follower of the Bible doesn’t give the impression to be keen to defy these lines, for example:

A Case of Conscience Resolved emphatically resists all female power in the church; for Bunyan, women bear most heavily the burden of original sin because of Eve’s first disobedience. Women who are holy are thoroughly convinced of their ‘miserable state by nature’ (GA, p. 14) and duly shamed by it.” [5]

He tended to get rid of all the irrelevant interpretations that would depart from the true purpose of the preaching of religion. He warns his readers against any kind of misinterpretations of his work at the end of the first part of Pilgrim’s Progress:

Now, reader, I have told my dream to thee

See if thou canst interpret it to me

Or to thyself, or neighbor: But take heed

Of misinterpreting; for that, instead

Of doing good, will but thyself abuse

By misinterpreting, evil ensues (195)

John Bunyan, can be said to be under the influence of Paul the Apostle or St. Paul in some grounds. Both of these authors wrote some of their notable works while being held in prison. Both considered themselves as sinful beings with Bunyan thinking of himself as the chief of sinners in his Grace Abounding and with St. Paul being responsible for the carrying out of early followers of Jesus Christ. In his Apology for his Work, Bunyan compares the essence of his work to gold wrapped up in his lines by noting “My dark and cloudy words, they do but hold/The truth, as cabinets enclose the gold” [6]; he goes further on by saying that Paul as well used that gold by stating “… Paul him nowhere did forbid/the use of parables; in which lay hid/that gold …” (59). Anyhow, St. Paul has always been associated with some peculiar remarks about women and the role that he has in mind for them; for instance, his first letter to the Corinthians saying “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law” [7]. Of course some theologians like Joseph Tkatch tried to justify this by claiming that St. Paul has stated his claims to be a rule upon which the churches under his own jurisdiction should be ruled, but the fact is that John Bunyan, as a devotee of Paul, considered himself under Paul’s jurisdiction. This being the case, we can understand St. Paul’s tremendous influence on Bunyan’s system of thought. The significant point to keep in mind here is that the matter of women for Bunyan is more of neglection than opposition. An eye-catching example of this can be seen in the beginning pages of the first part of Pilgrim’s Progress where Bunyan recounts his dream by narrating:

"So I saw in my dream that the man began to run. Now he had not run far from his own door when his wife and children, perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on crying, Life! life! Eternal life!" (4)

As it seems, either you have to be totally compliant to your husband or you will be left behind just “as Bunyan outlines in his conduct book Christian Behavior, a wife’s duty is to be respectful of and obedient to her husband” [8]. In the process of going further in the story, we can see so many characters being added to the story, but, not surprisingly, most of them are male ones. It is said so many times that Pilgrim’s Progress is a book that is written for both men and women; but it seems that if you are of any gender except a woman, you will reach the celestial city a lot sooner than the other. Nonetheless, the second part of Pilgrim’s Progress starts with a female character as its main protagonist but falls into the same problems that the first part can be criticized mostly from. The issue of this part will be discussed in its own respect later on.

In 1868, Louisa May Alcott wrote the first volume of a novel named Little Women and she published its second volume one year later in 1869. This novel, being one of the best seller books ever since its publication, draws so many allusions from John Bunyan’s work Pilgrim’s Progress but, iconoclastically, has female characters as its protagonists who are striving for their womanhood. One specific aspect from which this work can be elucidated is the fact that the main characters (Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy March) actually don’t have a full hand in making decisions for themselves and they are under the powerful influence of some bigger cause like the patriarchal society in which they are living, the issue that Christiana (Christian’s wife) is also subject to, being recognized as an alternative for another character (Christian). Alcott was a fanatic follower of John Bunyan and she tried to model the adventures of her story on the basis of the quest we see in Bunyan’s work. Hence, it would be quite natural if we saw much criticism posed against her work. Anne K. Phillips recounts some of these discussions in her article The Prophets and the Martyrs quoted in Little Women and the Feminist Imagination edited by Alberghene and Beverly [9]:

Several critics have suggested that Alcott’s reworking of Pilgrim’s Progress in Little Women undermines its implications about possibility and power for young women. Representative of these readings, Beverly Lyon Clark writes that “[t]hough Alcott gives some play to subversive ideas of self-expression, her overt message is that girls should subordinate themselves and their language to others. A little woman should channel her creativity into shaping the domestic space or shaping her soul. She can enact Pilgrim’s Progress and learn to live as a Christian-to live by God’s word, or by John Bunyan’s word, not by her own.” [9].

So can we see Christiana’s subordination in the second part of Pilgrim’s Progress just as she was expected to follow Christian in the first part? Furthermore, Christiana is associated with some kind of rebellion against God and the Eternal Life that He has promised us. The only thing needed to get away from any such kind of conception was for Christiana to submit to Christian and follow him blindfoldedly, but, here, we may have to ask ourselves that at what cost? Clearly, the connotation of women as getting in the way of reaching the ultimate goal can raise much controversy and criticism towards Bunyan’s work, but is it to be dealt with so severely?

“While Christian goes on a pilgrimage, Christiana goes on a walking-tour.” This is the title we find in Essays on Satire written by Ronald Arbuthnot Knox [6]. In his article, Vision, Form and the Imagination in the Second Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress", James Forest presents some of the covert aspects of Bunyan’s work. He draws our attention to the dramatic weight of Christiana’s journey and the claim that “her adventures lack much of the dramatic force of Christian’s” and goes on by saying that “her effectual call provokes far less perturbation of mind because it is received through a vision in the night” (109). Therefore, we can recognize the lack of psychological sophisticatedness that we see in Christian and specifically in his fellow follower Hopeful. There are many occasions in the second part of Pilgrim’s Progress that we see Mr. Great-Heart making the decisions and also making the allegory progress and making Christiana as a second-character as a result of this. Therefore, Bunyan – consciously or unconsciously-conveys this sense of passivity that women have long been associated with; “The leadership of the group remains masculine, whether it is Christian’s example, or Great-heart’s and Valiant-for-Truth’s battling” contributing to the fact that “If the phrase ‘played the man’ is the constant refrain of Bunyan’s description of Christian’s battles, there seems no equivalent of ‘playing the woman’ on the spiritual battlefield of the Second Part” [5]. Furthermore, Christiana is recognized as ‘Christian’s wife’ or ‘the wife of Christian’ many times all over the story and an independent identity is quite difficult to be identified for her. This being recognized with the name of her husband goes to another ground as well by concentrating on the fact that Christiana does and is supposed to follow the path that Christian has long passed in order to reach the Celestial City just as we saw in the part that she was tormented in her sleep for betraying her husband and the next morning she received a letter containing the word of the King telling her to follow the path of Christian. Thus, we can feel the presence of Christian everywhere in the second part of Pilgrim’s Progress as well. This and the matter of her having a somehow second-class identity go along together throughout the second part of the story. Kathleen M. Swaim studies this method of characterizing Christiana in her book Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 and states that in making up Christiana’s disposition there hasn’t been much attention to herself as a sole subject; her “Christiana is essentially defined by what is outside herself in contrast with the internal selfhood that is normal to Christian’s and the male role generally, or as Linda Bamber would phrase it, Christiana measures by Other rather than by Self” [8].

As a final point, a further aspect from which this case of the submission of women can be inspected is in the matter of Christiana hiring Mercy. Christiana tells Mercy that “I will hire thee and thou shalt go along with me as my servant” (218). Of course, Christiana promises her that they would share their findings on the road equally and that their relationship will be more like a companionship, but surely it would be hard to neglect the sense of mastery that Christiana’s lines convey, particularly when they are on their way to the Celestial City and the fact that, supposedly, everyone is to be considered at an equal rank while entering it. Isn’t this a clear violation of God’s law, or is it?

Generally speaking, we have seen many pathways which have been used as means to suppress women and, consequently - and out of choice- women have tried to get away from the burden that have been imposed on them. The tremendously influential ideology of religion revealed itself as a significant get-away from the idea of putting women as scapegoats in order to prevail in the way to get to God’s glory. Nevertheless, the verdict of this ideology didn’t last long and many issues appeared out of this context in which there was a dynamic conflict between religion’s demands and the opposing ideas including the problem concerning women. These issues, put together, concern a problematic connection between authority and sex in which the liberty of women was considered as a danger to the prevailing ideology.

As one of the prominent figures of English puritanism, John Bunyan didn’t stray far from the Puritan verdict which didn’t consider a high place for women’s grandeur at the end. Puritanism was hardly a philosophy of liberating women and eventually it led to the strengthening of the patriarchal authority. Traces of this dogma, then, can be seen in Bunyan’s thought and consequently in his works. Still, Bunyan tried to break free from this masculine viewpoint by attempting to make an equilibrium between different elements of his writings e.g. his characters. On the other hand, there are still many contradictions in his works that clearly disregard women as individual subjects. Examples of this can be seen numerous times throughout a work like Pilgrim’s Progress which have been explored in their own respect in this paper.

1. Bunyan, J. The Pilgrim's Progress and Other Select Works. New Leaf Publishing Group, 2005.

2. Kristof, Nicholas. “Religion and Women.” The New York Times, 9 Jan. 2010, p. 3.

3. Bunyan, J. Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. Houghton, 1888.

4. Staff, Westminster. Westminster Confession of Faith. Ist Edn., Free Presbyterian Bookshop, 1983.

5. Dunnan-Page, A. The Cambridge Companion to John Bunyan. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

6. Forrest, J.F. “Vision, Form and the Imagination in the Second Part of the Pilgrim's Progress (1684).” The Journal of Narrative Technique, 1983.

7. Hendrickson Publishers. The Holy Bible: King James Version. Hendrickson Publishers, 2004.

8. Swaim, K.M. Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900. Rice University, 1990.

9. Alberghene, J.M. and B.L. Clark. Little Women and The Feminist Imagination: Criticism, Controversy, Personal Essays. Routledge, 2014.