How we cite our quotes: Paragraph (P#) or Line (Line #)
Quote #7
"If you will go with us you must go against wind and tide, the which I perceive is against your opinion; you must also own religion in his rags, as well as when in his silver slippers, and stand by him too when bound in irons as well as well as when he walketh the streets with applause." (P520)
In this speech, Christian is essentially pegging By-ends as a kind of fair-weather friend to Jesus's teachings: happy to go the Gospel way when it suits his own interests and makes friends, but quick to jump ship when things get rough. Comparing "rags" with "silver slippers," Christian is also specifically targeting the way people's allegiances go primarily to material life, even if they say they're followers of Christ.
Quote #8
"The name of the man was Little-faith, but a good man, and he dwelt in the Town of Sincere." (P664)
This is how Christian introduces his story of the errors and demise of Little-faith, but the way Bunyan makes Little-faith's home "the Town of Sincere" is worth pausing over. We generally tend to think of sincerity as a good thing, right? How does Bunyan's association of sincerity with having little faith comment on the potential problems of sincerity?
Quote #9
Then said Christian to his fellow, "Now do I see myself in an error. Did not the Shepherds bid us beware of the flatterers? As is the saying of the Wise man, so we have found it this day, A man that flattereth his Neighbour, spreadeth a Net for his feet." (P693)
Bunyan's representation of Flatterer is interesting on a couple of levels. One is that it gives us the sole racial allusion in the text. The Devil had been represented as both a flatterer and as black long before Bunyan was writing, so (historically) his fusion of the two in this character makes sense. It's also a pretty wicked jab at the false preachers he ridicules so much in this text. The other interesting thing, though, that, in comparison with his other allegories, Bunyan is relatively uninterested here in fleshing out the nature of flattery as such. He seems much more interested in showing us consequences of being influenced by flatterers and in putting us on our guard against them.