Diego Rivero
Professor. Mitchell
TS 113C
13 July 2015
TITLE
Have you ever thought how it should feel to be saved by Jesus? In the story “Salvation” by Langston Hughes, we can see through his own experience how this was for him. Clearly this was a critical situation in his life, since he was really affected. In the story, Langston is a twelve years old children going on thirteen, with a normal innocence of this age. As a kid, Langston is almost incapable of deceit, but this changes when he loses important things for his life such as expectation, faith, and more important, honesty.
In the first place, Langston is almost forced to go to a revival reunion at his Auntie Reed’s church. He goes with expectation because his Auntie spoke of it for days. Just before the reunion ended takes place a special meeting
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The preacher uses this story to say next “Won’t you come? Won’t you come to Jesus? Young lambs, won’t you come?” (Hughes), referring to the children as innocent creatures. And it worked, some of the kids jumped up right away and went to Jesus, but some of them remains sited, including Langston. Suddenly, all the church was singing a song, and the entire building was excited. Finally all the children went to the altar to be saved, but not Langston. He is still waiting to feel something, as well as this other boy named Westley who went to the altar couple of minutes later, not because he felt the presence of Jesus inside of him, but because he felt heat and fatigue, so he preferred to lie. While the whole congregation is prayed for Langston and his aunt is crying at his knees, he is still waiting for Jesus to come, but he did not. Under this pressure Langston starts to lose his faith, he knows that nothing will happen, he is tired of waiting and finally decides to get up to be
In a quest for a sense of belonging and success in life as well as a need for survival and money from a steady job, Richard attempts to conform to the social rules of those around him and the expectations of how he must behave like a second-class citizen. To feel like a part of the community and to please his family in hopes of improving his home life, Richard begins to attend a Protestant church. He consents to become a member of the church and is baptized, but he does so to please his mother and because his need for association and acceptance with a group is immense. After the church service that night, Richard reflects, “I had not felt anything except a sullen anger and a crushing sense of shame. Yet I was somehow glad that I had got it over with; no barriers now stood between me and the community”. In addition to these expectations from his family and the black community he associated with,
Salvation by Langston Hughes is a short story that explains dealings with religion and basic beliefs. In the story, Hughes attends a revival at his church with his aunt. Prior conversations with his aunt had given Hughes the impression that when you are saved you see a light and you feel something inside of you. Aware that a time of the service would be dedicate to bringing youth to Jesus, Hughs heads down to the designated row and listens to the pastor, sang when necessary and awaited the time that "the light of Jesus would be shown to him". One by one children handed their lives over to Jesus, still awaiting the feeling Hughes sat and searched for anything that could match the description that he had been given. As time goes on church goers
Paul D sits on the church steps feeling a little vulnerable. His tin heart has been open leaving him to think about life at Sweet Home. He thinks about how Mr.Garner called them men, but they were not treated like it. He also thinks about when he first experience what its like to experience brutal hardship, when he went to the labor farm. He then remembers when he tried to escape and was caught by Schoolteacher he had to wear chains and a
He fails and the lady, named Mrs. Jones, holds him so he won’t run, she helps him and connects with him by saying, “I have done things, too, which I would not tell you, son—neither tell God, if he didn’t already
"Why don't you come and be saved?" Think about this: you are told to "see" something, but what you are supposed to "see" is not there. Throughout Langston Hughes' essay "Salvation," he discusses his problems with "seeing" Jesus when he was younger. But in Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," he talks about how one human sees illusions that no one else sees. Both stories, though very different, are similar in many ways. Both stories explain how one person is different from everyone else.
The details provided in the book explain the story moderately well. In the book, Langston writes about how much pressure he felt from the altar to be saved by Christ. The book paints a good visual picture on how crowded and hot the church was. In the book , Langston explains how devoted
In Langston Hughes essay “Salvation” we read of a 12-year-old boy’s experience in his aunt’s church while waiting to see Jesus. The essay seems to start in a hopeful way. He speaks of waiting to see Jesus but sitting calmly while the church tempts him to stand and be saved. Langston’s view salvation was given to him by his aunt and other old people. He waited patiently in the pew to see Jesus but the longer he sat the sadder it becomes.
In most people's lives, there comes a point in time where their perception changes abruptly; a single moment in their life when they come to a sudden realization. In Langston Hughes' 'Salvation', contrary to all expectations, a young Hughes is not saved by Jesus, but is saved from his own innocence.
In most people's lives, there comes a point in time where their perception changes abruptly; a single moment in their life when they come to a sudden realization. In Langston Hughes' "Salvation", contrary to all expectations, a young Hughes is not saved by Jesus, but is saved from his own innocence.
Langston Hughes’s personal narrative “Salvation” is a recollection of Hughes’s experience with salvation at a religious revival at his aunt’s church. He recounts his experience in order to describe how it led to his enormous guilt over deceiving his aunt and the congregation and how it stemmed his disbelief in religion. His ironic tone and vivid imagery plays a key role in the development of the conflict and the complications that he faces. In order to dramatize suspenseful moments and magnify key points, he uses an array of rhetorical devices.
His aunt is really excited about him joining the church community: “my aunt spoke of it days ahead”. With his aunt at the church, young Hughes gets sat in the front of the church and with the entire congregation looking at him and the other kids that were getting ready to be saved. One by one they all experience God and His divine touch up to the point where only Hughes is left sitting on the bench. After some more time, he decides that he would rather loose his belief in God and lie about his presence than to keep everyone else waiting and looking at him. He lies and gets up and moves to the “saved” side. By lying and pleasing the society, we find out the effect that this has on the congregation: “the whole room broke in a sea of shouting, as they saw me rise”[pg. 181].
He goes into depth about hoping for something to happen, anything. He expresses himself of what was going through him excitedly for example the author says, “So I sat there calmly in the hot, crowded church, waiting for Jesus to come to me.” (182) He describes his situation attempting to make some sort of relationship with God. He creates an anxious tone in order to demonstrate just how important having a connection was valuable to him. Why having a connection to God was important at that time is because before the big revival was over they called the kids to convert them. When it was time to bring his spiritual needs, he was told by his aunt “when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened to you inside! And Jesus came into your life! …I believed her.” (182) Hughes punctuation creates an ethos tone of voice by being persuaded by his aunt. The author may employ pathos through his emotional language. This rhetorical appeal is often used to emphasize his emotional response towards how he feels about being “saved.” The outpouring of his emotions towards getting “saved” was a big concern that he was trying to achieve. He implicated how not only was he expected to be touched by the presence of God, but every other kid his age. This is how the writer was discussing about him being open about the idea of being “saved.”
Langston Hughes’ dedication to depicting the bona fide aspects of black life leads him to discuss struggle. One of the most omnipresent themes in black life, at the time of Hughes, is the constant struggle they face every
'Salvation', by Langston Hughes is part of an autobiographical work written in 1940. The author narrates a story centering on a revival gathering that happened in his childhood. During the days leading up to the event, Hughes' aunt tells him repeatedly that he will be 'saved', stressing that he will see a light and Jesus will come into his life. He attends the meeting but when Jesus fails to appear, he is forced by peer pressure to lie and go up and be 'saved'. Hughes uses his story to illustrate how easy it is for children to misinterpret adults and subsequently become disillusioned.
The pressure of seeing all his other peers also played a major role in his decision. His fear of being “left all alone on the mourners' bench” incited him to become saved. When he witnessed the last boy on the bench go fourth and be saved, Langston suddenly felt the pressure of the whole church come down on him. Especially that of his Aunt Reed, she sobbed to Langston "Langston, why don't you come? Why don't you come and be saved? Oh, Lamb of God! Why don't you come?" This was the last straw this pressure eventually caused Langston to get saved out of deceit. When Langston tried to go to bed that night his feelings of dishonesty had overcome him. He cried not tears of joy but tears of regret and confusion “But I was really crying because I couldn't bear to tell her that I had lied, that I had deceived everybody in the church, that I hadn't seen Jesus, and that now I didn't believe there was a Jesus anymore, since he didn't come to help me.” He cried because he felt in his heart that he lied to his Aunt Reed and the whole church.