The Pilgrim’s Progress is a book written by John Bunyan and was published in

1678. This book talks about a journey executed by its main character, Christian
from the City of Destruction to Celestial City which stands for heaven. The
Pilgrim’s Progress contains allegories in each side of the plot, from the name of
the characters, actions, up to its circumstances. According to Bunyan, an allegory
is the employment of a certain set of characters, actions and circumstances in
such a way that this convey certain moral qualities and conceptions so all the
parts can combine to form a whole. Actually all interpretations of literature, any
way of understanding meanings other than its literal surface can be called
allegorical.

The Pilgrim’s Progress consists of two meanings, one is on its surface and the
other is the one hidden. The surface meaning is seen as an adventure of Christian
salted with full actions scenes. Its hidden meaning conveys an important message
and moral values about the preseverance of a human being in seeking his soul’s
salvation to get God’s grace. The journey done by Christian is not merely a
common adventurous story, but it is also a representation of one’s spiritual
journey since he is born until death comes and takes him to an eternal life. The
narrative has also its didactic mission, i.e to tell the readers on how to  tackle
God’s trials and strives such as spiritual doubt and uncertainty, carnal desires,
worldly temptations, despair and afflictions as well as felicities to reach God’s
salvation. Bunyan’s allegory keeps the spiritual meaning explicit bu the use of
personification. His allegories immitate external actualities and at the same time
reveal the significance of such immitations by extending a central metaphor and
by showing additional analogies. Bunyan is aware of the capacity of the allegory
to train the mind in form of judgement and to help the memory as well as to
please the understanding. He treats the allegory as a persuasive way of making
important matters known through figurative expression. Since the very beginning,
Bunyan has put allegory in the name of the central character, Christian. Such
name symbolizes Christ follower. He is told to have a burden in his back which
represents his sins and the book in his hand which refers to Bible. Christian’s
journey to Celestial City is the representation of a religious-minded man in order
to keep his faith alive to attain God’s grace to give his soul a salvation. The Wicket
Gate is an important allegory for Christ. 
When Christian reaches the Wicket Gate which is opened by the watchman
named Good-Will, it is in a deeper sight a symbol of Christ’s grace to grant him
salvation through difficulties, strives and trials. In the House of the Interpreter,
Christian is shown some Christian life lessons. One of those is a man in an iron
cage which represents a sinful person who is unable to repent because his heart is
too hardened. The Interpreter in this place stands for an interpreter of God’s
message to the congregation members. The scene in the House of Interpreter is
best regarded as the didacticism of this story to show some lesson based on
Christian’s values. The cross that Christian meets afterwards which rolls off the
burden on his back also reveals a message that his sin has already been forgiven
by God. Bunyan’s allegories is his persuasive way to make important things
recognized. His personification of the devil in the Valley of Humiliation in the form
of Appolyon is his method to symbolize the worldly temptations offered by the
devil to make an allegiance with him rather than with God. Christian finally
conquered Appolyon by the sword which represents faith. This scene conveys the
victory of faith over temptations. Another important allegory lies in the town of
Vanity and Vanity fair where Christian and his pilgrim companion whose name is
Faithful refuse to be interested in the merchandise displayed in the fair, they
choose to buy only truth. This scene is a representation of worldly and carnal
desires which are successfully beaten by Christian and Faithful, refering to their
succeeded struggle to conquer carnal and sensual desires. Faithful died as martyr
here to defend his seeking of truth.
God’s strives and trials which are given to human beings are not always in the
form of afflictions, but also in the form of pleasurable state such as the scene in
Hill Lucre. In this scene, Christian has to defend his faith to God to beat
temptation of monetary gain. The pleasure offering materialistic gain is defeated
by his firm self determination to seek only for God’s grace. The Doubting Castle’s
scene put Christian and his pilgrim companion, Hopeful in an imprisonment, in
which the Giant Despair urges them the temptation to give up their journey and
commit suicide. We can relate this allegory to our own life’s experience that
sometimes we feel desperate for the hardship we face in life and forget that God
is always there to help. Bunyan’s didactive mission to tell his readers that one
must hang on to his faith and maintain his hope and trust to God so that he can
reach God’s salvation is accomplished in this scene.
From all the descriptions it reveals that allegories are everywhere in the Pilgrim’s
Progress. Bunyan provides those allegories to show us some important matters
through the use of personification, metaphors, and allegories so that the reader
can recognize the moral values and general conceptions regarding one’s spiritual
journey to attain soul’s salvation. The moral of the whole story is that by means of
faith, hope, and firm self determintaion, a man can achieve the salvation of his
soul. In the process of doing so, he has to overcome his spiritual doubts,
temptation to despair, and he also must conquer the carnal desires as well as
forego all pleasures of the flesh. It is also to be noted that a man can achieve
salvation only if he gains the grace of God.