Critical Essay on "Salvation" by Langston Hughes

'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.

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.

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’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.

Langston Hughes was one of the first black men to express the spirit of blues and jazz

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 "Salvaiton", the main point that Hughes is trying to get across is that he "believed" in something only because it was what he was told was right. There is evidence of where he mentions "I'd better lie, too, and say that Jesus had come, and get up and be saved." Hughes also mentions that one of his fellow peers at one point had said how "He was tired of sitting, so let's get up and get saved." It is clear that throughout the essay, Hughes delivers an image of confusion and seeing people as hypocrites and it really gives an understanding of what Hughes was going through. The structure of the essay also allows the reader to understand and follow the confusion and these experiences as they unfold on young Langston.

In the story “Salvation”, by Langston Hughes, the church hosts a revival for the community. However, it is not a normal revival, the children are forced to go and get saved. The story conveys an underlying message of how adult family members put too much pressure on the youth of the family. Langston Hughes conveys this theme through the setting in the church and the characters.

The short essay by Langston Hughes takes place in Kansas during the year 1915. Langton’s mother had left and went north in search of a job. Meanwhile, his father abandoned the family and went to Mexico, with no plans on coming back. Leaving Langston to live with his grandmother. However, after his grandmother’s death, Mary and James Reed took Langston in and began to raise him as if he were their own. In “Salvation”, focusing on a specific traumatic event, Hughes describes the memory of his aunt and a revival held at her church, touching on topics such as family pressure and peer pressure alike, fear of disappointing or being a disappointment, right from wrong, and the guilt experienced during the aftermath.

Hughes regrets his decision to stand up and get “saved” at the revival because he deceived everyone in the church. Langston Hughes quotes “My aunt told me that when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened to you inside! And Jesus came into your life! And God was with you from then on! She said you could see and hear and feel Jesus in your soul. I believed her.” (Hughes 77). Auntie Reed explained how he was going to be saved. She was telling her experience of how she was saved by Jesus from her past. Aunt wants Hughes to know that Jesus will be a part of him for the rest of his life once he gets up. What she said was too dramatic

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

The short story "Salvation," which is part of Hughes' larger biography The Big Sea, recounts the author's experience as a twelve year old boy attending a church meeting where he is called to come find Jesus. Hughes was not anti-religious but was certainly not a devout Christian and had several controversial run-ins with religious people in his own community, and thus his description and treatment of religion in this story is of special significance. As a

Langston Hughes in several poems denounced religion, inferring that religion did not exist any longer. In reading these poems, the reader canes that Hughes was expressing his feelings of betrayal and abandonment, against his race, by religion and the church. Hughes had a talent for writing poems that would start a discussion. From these discussions, Hugh es could only hope for realization from the public, of how religion and the church treated the Black race.

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.

     Langston Hughes’s writing showcases a variety of themes and moods, and his distinguished career led his biographer, Arnold Rampersad, to describe him as “perhaps the most representative black American writer.” Many of his poems illustrate his role as a spokesman for African American society and the working poor. In others, he relates his ideas on the importance of heritage and the past. Hughes accomplishes this with a straightforward, easily understandable writing style that clearly conveys his thoughts and opinions, although he has frequently been criticized for the slightly negative tone to his works.