According to John Bunyan, the positive use of words and stories awakens religious belief and strengthens the elect community. In The Pilgrim's Progress, part 1 and part 2, he tells the story of his characters' journey through an allegorical landscape, from sin to redemption. Bunyan bases his faith in the transforming power of the story he has created on his faith in the transforming power of the story told in the Bible (PP, 4–6). He publishes his work in order to help his readers understand how their actions and attitudes affect their spiritual prospects (PP, 6–7). By reading the book, they should be able to learn how to tell their own stories and judge their own moral and spiritual progress.

Bunyan uses other texts to create the landscape through which the pilgrims travel. The allegory combines images from Scripture with the conventions of popular stories of chivalry. The “pilgrimage of life” motif, common in devotional literature of the time, structures the material. Because it is the tale of a journey through a world created by means of words and stories, The Pilgrim's Progress is concerned with language and storytelling. Christian, the hero of the first volume, must learn both to understand the signs around him and to tell his own story correctly. His account leads the characters who follow him through their journeys. The pilgrimage metaphor implies a final destination that is known, albeit obscurely, from the outset of the journey.