# John Bunyan — The Varieties of Religious Experience character guide

> John Bunyan in The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** John Bunyan, Bunyan, Poor patient Bunyan, poor John Bunyan

**First appearance:** 0012-lecture-ix-conversion

## Snapshot

The tinker-turned-preacher whose decades-long terror of damnation becomes James's most harrowing case study in the sick soul.

## Who they are

Bunyan's own account of his conversion — the blasphemies that ambushed his prayers, the years of feeling sold under sin — supplies James with the Protestant conscience at its most excruciating. Where Whitman sails through life untroubled, Bunyan must fight for every inch of assurance, and his eventual peace feels earned rather than given. James treats him as the archetype of the twice-born: a man for whom religion is not consolation but rescue, and whose Pilgrim's Progress grew directly out of that interior war.

## Relationships

### [William James](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters/william_james)

_psychological_

James uses Bunyan's spiritual autobiography, especially his struggles with despair and salvation, to illustrate the psychology of conversion.

### [Jesus Christ](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters/jesus_christ)

_psychological_

Bunyan's intense personal relationship with Christ, marked by both fear and love, is examined by James as a key religious dynamic.

### [William James](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters/william_james)

_psychological_

James uses Bunyan's spiritual autobiography, especially his struggles with despair and salvation, to illustrate the psychology of conversion.

### [Jesus Christ](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters/jesus_christ)

_psychological_

Bunyan's intense personal relationship with Christ, marked by both fear and love, is examined by James as a key religious dynamic.

### [Jesus Christ](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters/jesus_christ)

_psychological_

Bunyan's intense personal relationship with Christ, marked by both fear and love, is examined by James as a key religious dynamic.

### [William James](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters/william_james)

_psychological_

James uses Bunyan's spiritual autobiography, especially his struggles with despair and salvation, to illustrate the psychology of conversion.

## In the story

### [Lectures VI and VII: The Sick Soul](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/chapters/lectures-vi-and-vii-the-sick-soul)

Example of religious melancholy focused on personal sin and despair, as described in his autobiography.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters/john_bunyan
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_varieties_of_religious_experience_se/characters