Suffering comes in many flavors in The Pilgrim's Progress. There are way more than fifty shades of suffering going on here.
Not a fan of acute anxiety and dread of inescapable damnation? Consider hauling a heavy, nondescript "burden" on your back instead. Being beaten by giants not your cup of tea? Why not give The Shining One's conscience-easing whippings a try instead? It seems like to Bunyan, however, there's such a thing as good suffering and bad suffering. Bad suffering is the kind of thing Christian experiences in the City of Destruction, where he suffers because he's living the wrong way. Good suffering, on the other hand, is the kind of discomfort you have to put up with for the sake of a future good.
Questions About Suffering
- Think of a time in your life when you'd say you were not simply "in pain," but suffering. How did the experience change you? Do you see any similarities with the way suffering affects Christian?
- Think of an example of physical suffering from the book. How could it be seen as being symbolic of spiritual suffering?
- How does Bunyan's tone change when describing different kinds of suffering? Like, for example, the suffering of the sinful or literally damned as opposed to the suffering of Christian and his friends?
- All of the instances of suffering in this story are literally being observed by the dreamer. Why is the witnessing of suffering so powerful?
Chew on This
The pilgrim's journey symbolizes the journey of all of our lives, and it symbolically asks us to measure our suffering against the suffering of Christ.
Rather than something to be shunned or simply kept out of view (as Worldly-Wiseman advises), suffering, for Bunyan, is an experience not only to endure but to embrace.