ABSTRACT
Whether or not Christianas journey in the second part of Pilgrims Progress represents a continuation of the concerns of her husband’s pilgrimage or an entirely new narrative with little connection to the first part has been a repeated question in Bunyan scholarship of the past three decades. Studies of the 1970s, like Stanley Fishs consideration of memory, interpretation, and what he sees to be the works ‘antiprogressive” pattern, rarely mention Chris tiana except in passing (229). Roger Sharrock’s mid-seventies study high lights the differences between the two parts, defending and yet simplifying the artistic merit of Christianas story when he writes that “it presents a cheerful, teeming picture of the life of a seventeenth-century godly family and of the small separatist community made up of a few such families” (“Women and Children” 175). Writing at the same time, R.M. Frye believes that the second part promotes the proper relation of the individual to the community and the Church (145). Fryes focus on community has come to dominate scholarship of Christianas journey. More recently, for example, Michael Davies reiterates Fryes claim that Christianas journey is a “corpo rate, cooperative, and collective mission” (327). Nick De Marco agrees and goes a step further to announce that the second part is a disturbing portrait of “the total passivity of the individual in a communal context,” repeating Ronald Knoxs now famous description of Christiana’s pilgrimage as a “walk ing tour” and David Daiches’s assessment of it as “a tourist’s visit” (De Marco 47, Knox 206, Daiches 588).
