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Analysis of the salvation story from Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes thoughts on religion
Analysis of the salvation story from Langston Hughes
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In Langston Hughes’ Salvation, he tells the story of how he was disappointed with God because he failed to save him and how this incident caused him to lose faith and become an atheist. The narrative begins when Hughes was twelve years old. He was going to church with his aunt for a big revival. His aunt told him how Jesus was going to save him. She told him that when he was going to be saved he was going to see a light and he would feel and see Jesus inside of him. Hughes being so young and naïve thought his aunt meant that he was literally going to see an actual light and that Jesus was going to be physically in front of him. Little did he know this was not going to be the case. Hughes then goes on about how the preacher brought all the young kids …show more content…
There was mixed feelings on our performance. After a while we started talking about the next test which was the next day. I confessed to my friends that I was not feeling so confident in my ability to pass the test because at the time science was my weakest subject and I had a low three in this subject. I was telling them I was worried about getting a two because I had never received one and I was afraid of what my parents would do if they saw one on my report card. One of my friends told me if I really wanted to pass I should cheat on the test. I was shocked when he said this I could not believe it. Why would I ever do that. I remember always being told to never cheat to always be honest. He told me that is what he had done on the math test we just had. He said the way he did it was by folding a sheet of paper and sticking it in the front pocket of his hoodie. On the paper he had written formulas, calculations, and steps on how to do certain math problems. Whenever he was having trouble with a question who would pretend he was taking out a pencil or fixing his jacket and look at his cheat sheet. My friend told me it was fool
For a moment, imagine being in young Hughes’ place, and hearing, “Langston, why don’t you come? Why don’t you come and be saved? Oh, lamb of God! Why don’t you come?” (Hughes, 112), being whispered into your ear by your aunt as tears rush down her face. Would you not take the easy way out? How could someone at the age of twelve understand the torment that follows such an event? Hughes learned that night just what he had done, and what it meant, as he mentions in his essay when he says, “That night, for the last time but one- for I was a big boy twelve years old- I cried. I cried, in bed alone, and couldn’t stop. I buried my head under the quilts, but my aunt heard me….I was really crying because I couldn’t bear to tell her that I had lied, that I had deceived everybody in the church, and 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” (Hughes, 112). At the first moment he was alone in silence, he understood what he had learned, and what it meant. That not only did he lie to his aunt, and to the church, but in his time of need, no one was there to help. There was no God by his side as he knelt on the church
Langston Hughes paint a picture of himself, as he goes on to thirteen in church but finds himself directly reflecting on mans own instinctive behavior for obedience. A congregation who wants him to go up and get saved, gives into obedience and goes to the altar as if he has seen the light of the Holy Spirit itself. "won't you come? Wont you come to jesus? Young lambs, wont you come?" As the preacher stilling there with open arms, girls crying, kids standing that they have felt the power force of the holy spirit through there body. There, Langston, sits not feeling anything but himself sitting in a hot church waiting for this unknown pheumona to come and touch his inner soul only to find out that the Holy Spirit isn't coming for him at all.
Writer and member of the 1920’s literary movement, Langston Hughes, in his autobiographical essay, Salvation, elucidates the loss of innocence and faith due to the pressure of accepting a concept that he has yet to acknowledge. Hughes’ purpose is to describe his childhood experience of the burden to be saved by Jesus, resulting in his loss of faith. He adopts a solemn, yet disappointing tone to convey his childhood event and argues the unqualified religious pressure.
Langston Hughes was twelve when he was “saved.” He was at a revival at his Aunts church when he soon felted pressured to accept Jesus into his heart. He wanted to experience what everyone else was feeling but could not experience what others were. Soon he began thinking of what the other guy was feeling and began to become ashamed of himself, holding everything in for so long. Then Westley was sitting high on the thrown with Christ and Langston wanted that. Soon after Langston’s stood up to be saved, everyone started cheering and celebrating his salvation with him. Whenever he got home from the revival he cried alone in his room. His aunt thought he was crying because the Holy Spirit came into his life. Little did she know he was crying because he lied and said that he seen Jesus when he really didn’t (McMahan, Day, Funk, and Coleman 280).
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.
James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902, to James Nathaniel Hughes, a lawyer and businessman, and Carrie Mercer (Langston) Hughes, a teacher. The couple separated shortly thereafter. James Hughes was, by his son’s account, a cold man who hated blacks (and hated himself for being one), feeling that most of them deserved their ill fortune because of what he considered their ignorance and laziness. Langston’s youthful visits to him there, although sometimes for extended periods, were strained and painful. He attended Columbia University in 1921-22, and when he died he, left everything to three elderly women who had cared for him in his last illness, and Langston was not even mentioned in his will.
In Langston Hughes’s narrative essay “Salvation”, Langston talks about how his experience at church caused him to crack under pressure and pretend to be saved from Jesus, which leads him to not believing Jesus is real anymore. I personally felt like he relates to real-world problems when it comes to Salvation. How you're expecting to feel this tidal wave of emotions to flourish and have these signs of repent to show up but doesn't happen. Another thing is, I like how he explains how tense the room felt when it was just him alone on the mourning bench and how the pressure to be “Saved” makes him lie to everyone. Within the essay, Hughes touches on many different types of ideas and feelings that most people can relate too.
In Langston Hughes’ short narrative, “Salvation”, Langston struggles with his belief and feels pressured to conform to the church. He struggles with his faith as his family and the church push him to being saved. Hughes does not want to upset his own family and the church for not being saved. This causes him to lie about “seeing Jesus” to avoid sitting alone on the mourners’ bench and feeling different from everyone surrounding him. As a twelve year old, he most likely did not want to feel different from his peers and wanted to feel accepted. Peer pressure from family members and people one cares about can lead one to believe that they a disappointment and guilty that they are letting their loved ones down.
A time comes in everybody's life where they need to be "saved." When this happens a spiritual bond is formed with in that individual. In Langston Hughes' essay, "Salvation," that bond is broken because Langston wasn't saved. It is because Langston turned to Jesus, and in his eyes Jesus wasn't there. This creating a conflict within himself and the members of the church, with the end result being Langston's faith being destroyed.
James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin , Missouri . His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico . He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln , Illinois , to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland , Ohio . It was in Lincoln , Illinois , that Hughes began writing poetry. Following graduation, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University . During these years, he held odd jobs as an assistant cook, launderer, and a busboy, and travelled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington , D.C. Hughes's first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature.
In Langston Hughes’s Salvation, Hughes makes describes many differences between the his and the congregation’s perception of biblical acceptance. As a boy, Hughes was vividly told by his aunt that in accepting Jesus, he would “see a light, and something happened to you inside”. Being young, he believed that he had to actually see an incarnation of Jesus in order to be saved. When surrounded by the older crowd in church, Hughes anticipates a kind of “great awakening” but his expectations are met with nothing. He does not understand why he can not find Jesus while the congregation is in the midst of praising.
In the short story “Salvation”, young Langston is introduced to the idea of God’s greatness as a result of his Auntie Reed’s discussion. She tells him that when one sees a light and one feels something happening from within, which is an indication that Jesus has made his presence in one’s life, uniting the two for eternity. Due to the enthusiasm Auntie Reed’s dialog presents with multiple exclamation marks, this indicates to the reader that Langston is somewhat engrossed in the conjoining in which has one feeling so wonderful. Throughout the church service, he watches the other young sinners being saved by Jesus but patiently awaits his turn for the almighty savior to make an appearance before him. Hughes continues to wait until he is the last young lamb waiting to be saved from the “lonely cries and dire pictures of hell.” Finally, Langston’s impatience gets the best of him and he begins to feel embarrassed since congregation is waiting on him, as well as frustrated and irritated due to the fact Jesus has still not come to see him. In the end, poor Langston ends up lying about being...
“I dream a world where… love will bless the earth and peace its paths adorn.” -- Langston Hughes
In Langston Hughes 's definition essay entitled "Salvation" he discusses the social and emotional pressures that effect young people. He pulls in his own experiences from being an active member in his church, and the moment he was supposed to experience revival of twelve. Hughes 's purpose for writing this definition essay is to show the peer pressures and internal conflicts that come from both church and the religious community, and his personal experiences that led to the pressures that were put upon him in his youth. The audiences that “Salvation” was pointed towards are adults; it shows the pressures that are put upon the youth, while the child does not fully grasp the idea being expressed to them. Langston Hughes 's overall message to
Langston Hughes and Religion Langston Hughes in several poems denounced religion, inferring that religion did not exist any longer. In reading these poems, the reader can see 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, Hughes could only hope for realization from the public, of how religion and the church treated the Black race. Hughes wrote two poems that generated a lot of discussion about religion and African-Americans.