Part II- The Gate-Hill of Despair

I feel like Christina has endured less difficulty and learned less at this point in the journey. Many of the characters and temptations that helped to shape Christian during his journey, are unavailable to Christina.

SparkNotes also points out how much sharper Christina is than Christian when finding the meaning in the rooms at the Interpreter's house. Christian needed much assistance in interpretation while Christina picked up on the meaning quickly.

I think that it is interesting that Christina seems so smart, yet she needs a guard or a guide to keep her safe on her journey.

Most of the areas that Christian could get off track, were of his own choice, and only two were because of threatened violence. So far Christina hasn't had to make a decision in her journey, other than to leave. She has though been physically threatened twice already.

Does this all mean that Christina needs to learn different things during her journey, or is it just reflective of the time the novel was written?

I also thought that it was interesting that the women were cleansed and clothed in white, where Christian and his male companions were in 'rags'.

I think Christiana's travails reflect what might have been accepted as a womans course for the time the book was written and rested easy in the minds of the men and women who have subsequently read it. It may be that she will experience something to bring to mind Eves fall further a long in the book.

Speaking of Eve, did you find it interesting that her children, male children, picked fruit from the devil's arbor? Christina didn't seem to notice that they had done this, and definitely didn't know who's fruit they had been stealing. Maybe that will come up again.