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Salvation by langston hughes analysis
Salvation by langston hughes analysis
Salvation by langston hughes analysis
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In Langston Hughes's "Salvation", towards the end of the story, Langston basically shows signs that he has accepted God into his life, even though he didn't "believe there was a Jesus anymore, since he didn't come to help me." Langston said "I cried, in bed alone, and couldn't stop." He was showing remorse for deceiving his Aunt and the other people of the church. The Bible states in Leviticus 19:11 "You shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another." Langston had been raised in a Christian home, thus knowing that lying was a sin. By lying to his Aunt and the church members, Langston defied the Bible, thus he sinned. Not only did Langston deceive his Aunt and church members, he deceived them in the house of God. Finally,
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
The world wants us to take part in things that we might not want to but we feel pressured by society or yourself. In the story, Salvation, Langston Hughes implied this perfectly. “I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen. But not really saved” (McMahan, Day, Funk, and Coleman 279).
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.
Throughout Linda’s life she came to acknowledge that a Christian master was the most dreadful master of all. A Christian master knew the word of God or what we would call the teachings of the Bible, so he was able to intentionally misconstrue biblical verses to his. Yet, white southern “Christians” committed these cruel acts, believing their behaviors were neither wrong nor immoral(BN 1). Looking back at these atrociousness, those who call themselves Christians are appalled. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, Harriet A. Jacobs describes the hypocrisy of Southern, Christian slave owners in order to show that slavery and Christianity are not congruent. Despite the fact that Christianity teaches the values of respect, goodwill and generosity, etc., Christian slave holders seem to think these teachings do not account for them and they do not have to follow them, which is without a doubt hypocritical. African American slavery is reducing a human being to the condition of property, the same as other goods, wares, merchandise and chattels almost like prison if not worse.The treatment of slaves was customarily unfortante because slave masters did not care if their slaves were hurt,tired,hungry, etc they had their profit in mind rather than the well-being of their slaves. Due to the way that
With Langston refusing to get up to be saved, he created a conflict between him and everyone in the church. He felt that if he got up, it would be degrading to his character. Not everyone can believe that what you tell them is automatically true, no matter how many stories you tell them; they have to find that out for themselves.
One example is Douglass talking about Mr. Covey. Even though he seems to be one of most devoted Christians its all an act. But in Convoy case he isn’t just a hypocrite, he actually thinks he is a Christian. ‘Douglass refused to pray with a man who believes owning a slave is a righteous thing to do, and this had Convey completely confused” (Wishart). Douglass relates biblical and Christian knowledge to his feeling about the inherent wrong of slavery and could never pray with someone who perpetuates
It was the night of the big revival, and Langston, a young boy going on the age of thirteen, was brought to his Aunt Reed’s church to see Jesus and be saved from sin. His aunt told him, “when you were saved from sin you saw a light, and something happened to you inside” (219). He believed her. When he was brought to church, his aunt directed him to the front row, where he sat calmly and patiently in the heat, waiting for the preacher to begin the service. The Preacher welcomed the “young lambs” (219) and started his sermon. Towards the end of his speech he invited the young children to the altar to be saved. At this point, Langston was confused because he was not seeing Jesus before him. All the young boys and girls sprang to their feet except Langston and another boy named Westley. They were the only two left on, what the parishioners of the church called, the “mourners’ bench” (218). Finally, Westley became very restless and decided that he was not going to sit on this bench anymore. Langston was left there all alone until
Religion is voluntarily practiced according to a person's own spiritual faith and belief of a higher power. In Langston Hughes "Salvation," Langston was only twelve years old, but he knew there was a God, because his aunt had told him so. His aunt had told him that once he is saved, he would see a light. She also told him that he could see, hear, and even feel God in his soul(2). Langston literally believed everything she had said. However, his expectations were different from reality, and Langston stopped believing in God. In Ken Noyle's "A Grunt's Prayer," the story centers around an unknown soldier that is terrified about the killing and injuries that surrounded him every day while he was away at war. At the time, the soldier worried about protection and being safe, because believe it or not he would rather be dead, instead of living with a long-term effecting injury. It was either kill or be killed.
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
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.
Ligon writes, “… and so quite gave over his questions, and desired me, that he might be made a Christian; for, he thought to be a Christian was to endure with all those knowledges he desired” (50). This passage is referring to when Ligon is speaking about how a negro that is struck in awe by the compass moving on its own, going so far as to believe that the needle was alive. With this supernatural encounter, the negro wanted to convert to Christianity in order to harness such powers. However in order to do so, he had to comply with the masters’ demands, for not anyone could gain conversion. Ligon suggested that by slaves converting to Christianity, they gain several opportunities. “…the substance of this, in such language that they had, they delivered, and poor Sambo was the orator; by whose example the others were led both the discovery of the plot and the refusal of the gratuity” (54). In this passage, Ligon talked about how a negro told the master about the other slaves’ plot to rebel. This slave did so out of love for his Christian brother, the master. It is in the slaves’ best interest to convert, for doing so gives them abnormal opportunities; not only can the gain the master’s favor by converting to the true religion, but they are able to be educated and
Slave-owners forced a perverse form of Christianity, one that condoned slavery, upon slaves. According to this false Christianity the enslavement of “black Africans is justified because they are the descendants of Ham, one of Noah's sons; in one Biblical story, Noah cursed Ham's descendants to be slaves” (Tolson 272). Slavery was further validated by the numerous examples of it within the bible. It was reasoned that these examples were confirmation that God condoned slavery. Douglass’s master...
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 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.
For many people a life of obstacles would be impossible to overcome. For Langston Hughes he conquered these obstacles and became the famous poet from the Harlem Renaissance read today. Langston Hughes dedicated his poems to the pride, struggles, and dreams of African American people, and his legacy continues to be felt today.