Allegory And Symbolism In John Bunyan's Lastly '

John Bunyan book report John Bunyan uses many different literary styles and techniques in his works. He tends to use Allegory, Simplicity and Symbolism in his writing. Allegory is one of the literary techniques that Bunyan uses while he is writing to help portray his believes to the audience. The definition of Allegory is, “:a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another.” An example of John Bunyan’s use of allegory in The pilgrims progress is when he gives characters in the book names like Mr. money-love. Mr. money love is a real person in the book but it also represents a real struggle that we deal with while on this earth. Bunyan’s

Symbolism is, “the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character.” A great example of symbolism is when Bunyan says, “Now, a little before it was Day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out in this passionate speech; What a Fool, quoth he, am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty? I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will I am persuaded open any lock in Doubting-Castle. The said Hopeful, That’s good news, good brother, pluck it out of thy bosom and try” (Bunyan, The pilgrims progress 135) This is when Christian and hopeful are trapped in a dungeon of a castle and they remember that they have a key that can get them out that is called the promise. This is symbolic of, Gods promise to us to give us underserved grace and eternal life. Another example of symbolism being used in the pilgrims progress is when Christian and Hopeful meet ignorance. Ignorance is a teenager who doesn’t exactly have the best doctrine. This teenager believes being a good person can get you into heaven by being religious. This is symbolic of so many people in the world who sadly believe the lie that being of “good person” will get you into the kingdom of heaven. And one last example of symbolism being used in Bunyan’s writing of The pilgrims progress would be when, Christian and hopeful are crossing that river to get into the celestial city. In this scene of the book Christian nearly drowns but doesn’t when he is reminded of God’s love and salvation he will receive from the city! This is symbolic to our real life situations when life gets hard and we feel like we are drowning, we set our eyes on God and everything turns out just