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Analysis Of Langston Hughes 's ' The Salvation '

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Hunter Podlin
September 19, 2014
English 1102

In Langston Hughes 's autobiographical anecdote, “Salvation,” the author reflects on his childhood, and also examines the basis on which his religious views were founded. Hughes 's nonfiction piece, written in adulthood, allows him to look back on his past and reconsider what he learned about salvation, as well as organized religion and conformity, as a child. Because of this inquiry, he begins to question the ways in which adults pressure young people to conform to their views of religion, even without having the deep feeling of faith required. When people are young, they are often asked to conform to roles that they don’t really understand or think deeply about, and religious duty is thus carried on without a lot of free will. Langston Hughes divulges the hypocrisy and the fraudulent faith of the Church and its indoctrinated members through irony and his own indoctrination into his damning salvation. The church service pressures and bullies young Hughes into falsifying his salvation. This ceremony proves that the church values tradition over faith. Hughes wrote "Salvation" just at the beginning of World War II, as racial tensions began to dissipate for a short period of time. During this time, all of the energy of the nation was put towards the war effort, and African-Americans found themselves in many occupations that had previously been forbidden to them. As Hughes saw prejudices begin to break down as people started

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