...This essay examines Langston Hughes’ short story entitled “Salvation.” The aspect of the story on which this illustration essay focuses is the main character, “Langston” (Hughes 204), and the aspect of Langston’s character on which this illustration essay focuses is the way in which is character is portrayed as so significantly influenced by the circumstances in which he is enmeshed. “Salvation” is an autobiographical short story. Hughes portrays an event that occurred to him when he was close to the age of thirteen. Hughes’ “Salvation” is strikingly consistent with some of the experiments and findings of social psychology, which can leave as strong an impression on its readers as a work of fiction, such as Milgram’s teacher-learner experiment and Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment (Myers 138, 211-217). But a different social psychology experiment, less well-known, speaks almost exactly to Hughes’ “Salvation”: in Solomon Asch’s studies on group pressure, an experimenter working with six college student confederates (people who work for the experimenter for the purpose of deceiving the subject) are seated around a table, and the subject of the experiment sits at the sixth seat in the circle. When asked which single line on the blackboard was the same length as a group of three lines, the first five students lied and chose Line A instead of Line B. The subject of the experiment was bewildered, knowing full well that the line did not match, but after showing much anxiety, gave...
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..."Salvation", a short essay by Langston Hughes is a brief memory following the religious turning point of young Hughes himself. Written in first person point of view so all thought process is shared, "Salvation" opens with the hopeful 12 year old being told of and excited about being "saved from sin". As the story progresses, this hope dies down into disappointment when Jesus doesn't make the anticipated arrival, and he ends up having to lie to the entire congregation about his finding of salvation. Through Hughes' use of perspective, setting, and tone, he shares with us his continued struggles of finding religion. One of the literary tools used by Hughes in "Salvation" would be the fact that it's written in first person point-of-view. Becuase of this choice, you can clearly follow the author and his thoughts throughout the story. This...
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..."Salvation" is excerpted from Langston Hughes' personal history as a sample of an occurrence that affected him incredibly. He was going to the church to see Jesus. Langston is actually a young man around the age of thirteenth who is by all accounts experiencing a typical religious custom that is ordinarily gave to youngsters when they achieve a specific age in what is by all accounts an alternate kind of society. At this age, youngsters are asked, or possibly even better, advised to have confidence in God, and at exactly that point will these kids have the capacity to accomplish immaculate "salvation." This is apparent in the first paragraph where the writer mentioned "Then just before the revival ended, they held a special meeting for children,...
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...and that there had been no years” (White, 80). This recalled memory is triggered by a dragonfly that landed at the tip of his fishing rod. The identification of this dragonfly shows that what makes the lake holy is the idea that there is no time between his memory of the dragonfly and the one with his son, it is as if time stands still at the lake. When you leave the lake, untouched and come back to it later, to find that it will not be stirred, proves that White views this place as being a sacred place finding salvation. Langston Hughes “Salvation” (1061, 2) The main point of Hughes’s narrative is to describe how his experience of being “saved” only caused him to be disappointed in himself. Hughes feeling of guilt pushed him to...
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...A look back at "Salvation" by Langston Hughes Our story begins like many other stories with a setting, main character, and a catchy introduction. Like many other stories it attracts the reader’s attention with something vague, making the person reading the story want to continue on further into the piece. This reading is like many other’s which portray real life situations, and show a different culture coming from a first person point of view. In the story, the main character, Langston, is a young boy who seems to be going through a common religious ritual that is normally bestowed upon young people when they reach a certain age in what seems to be a different sort of society. At this age, young people are asked, or maybe better yet, told to believe in God, and only then will these children be able to achieve pure "salvation." This is highly evident within the first paragraph where the author writes, "Then just before the revival ended, they held a special meeting for children, "to bring the young lambs to the fold"" (Hughes 1). It is during these ceremonies that Langston feels that he has almost committed a crime for which his sins will never be forgiven. Throughout the reading, the author explains the process that these young children are put through during a ritualistic ceremony. The process according to the author is the path to righteousness, or the way to God. “My aunt told me that when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened to you inside! And Jesus came...
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...Langston Hughes is an African-American poet and novelist. In the story, “Salvation” by Langston Hughes describes his experience of being saved to cause him to become disappointed in himself. The saving of Hughes leads to him losing his faith in Jesus Christ. This shows the audience how the pressure put on a child by an adult can cause the child to have problems, if the child has no idea what exactly going on. Hughes most likely wrote “Salvation” as part of an autobiography because he might have understood what exactly happened in this event of his life at an older age. Hughes assumes that the readers are familiar with his type of church, he writes the story as if he was still a child, and he uses sounds to recreate the story of the event for...
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...Langston Hughes, a poet, novelist, playwright, and short story writer, belonged to the group of black artists known as the Harlem Renaissance. His short story "Salvation," published as a chapter in his autobiographical work The Big Sea, and first published in 1940, relates an experience in a twelve-year-old boy's life. This event helped shape the boy's religious understanding far differently from what his Auntie Reed intended. "Salvation" begins with the narrator stating he was "saved from sin" when he was twelve. Then he announces he was not really saved, explaining what happened. A religious revival was in town and had proven quite popular. His Aunt Reed attended every night for a week. On the final evening, the churchgoers' children...
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...Hughes and Angelou, both start out their works with hope and conviction. In “Salvation”, Hughes begins by sharing his excitement and nervousness as a child committing to something he didn’t fully understand. Hughes enters the church with a heart full of hope and an expectation of a religious awakening. The thrill and excitement of the situation was enthralling to him, and hope of salvation was high. Angelou also begins “Graduation” with a feeling of excitement and hope, feeling as if she is starting a new chapter of her life. The main difference in the start of these works is the realisticity of Angelou's graduation and the fallacy in Hughes expectation. While Hughes is sitting expecting an epiphany while awaiting salvation from the Lord,...
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...Salvation", Langston Hughes Langston Hughes paints a picture of himself as a little boy whose decisions at a church revival directly reflect mans own instinctive behavioral tendencies for obedience. A young Langston whose congregation wants him to go up and get saved, gives into obedience and ventures to the altar as if he has seen the light of the Holy Spirit. Hughes goes on to say: " So I decided that maybe to save further trouble, I'd rather lie, too, and say that Jesus had come ,and get up and be saved ." In saying this, Langston has obviously overlooked his personal belief to meet the level of obedience laid out by the congregation. It leads us to fact that people may believe strongly in an idea or thought but will overlook that belief to be obedient. One can make a justified assumption that everyone in society has at one time or another overlooked his or her personal feelings to conform this occurrence whether it is instinctive or judgmental is one that each individual deals with a personal level. He was a young boy who wanted to see Jesus, who wanted to earn salvation, but when he couldn't see Jesus, when everyone else saw,he found himself in the terrible position of disappointing not only himself but everyone in his community.He finally "saved" himself by pretending to see Jesus . He was saved not by love of Jesus as a congregation or preacher intended but by pretending to be other that who he was. One wanders what would have happened if he didn't stepped forward...
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...Josh Nicholas Professor Graham English 1301 8:00-9:30 September 12, 2013 “Salvation” by Langston Hughes No one person is without sin. Everyone has done wrong, and nobody is perfect. A lot of people seek salvation and forgiveness for what they have done in their life. The definition of salvation is the deliverance of sin and its consequences brought by faith in Christ. Of the many people that seek salvation, some may not find what they are looking for. In “Salvation” by Langston Hughes, the main character has lied to and deceived most of his church members about being salvaged, or in other words, saved, and he should be supported for his actions. The author of “Salvation” is Langston Hughes, and he is also the main character himself. Hughes was born in Joplin Missouri on February 1, 1902. Soon after his birth, his parents split and his mother moved around, so Hughes was mainly raised by his maternal grandmother. After moving to several different cities, he eventually settled in Cleveland which is where he began to write poetry. Poetry was not the only type of writing that Hughes partook in. He wrote novels and short stories along with his poetry. In the short story “Salvation” Langston is a twelve year old boy going on thirteen attending a revival at his Auntie Reeds church. Towards the end of the revival, all of the “sinner children” were brought upon the mourners’ bench. The reason for this? To find Jesus and to let him into the children’s lives. One by one the children...
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...Butler-Rotholz August 25, 2014 Salvation “Salvation” an autobiographical work by Langston Hughes, written in 1940.Langston describes his childhood and how he was introduced to the church during the discovery of his religion. In the course of the story Langston explained that when he was only thirteen he went to church, because he was told that he needed to be saved by Jesus. At this point he was convinced that he needed to go the church, so he decided to attend the ceremony. The meaning of the autobiographical work “Salvation” refers to how the pressure of a family member in a young boy could destroy his faith in Jesus Christ. In the story “Salvation”, Langston Hughes describes the way he was introduced to church by his aunt at the age of thirteen, in which Langston said “My aunt spoke of it for days ahead. That night I was escorted to the front row and placed on the mourner’s bench with all the other kids, who had not yet been brought to Jesus”. However when the majority of kids went up, he observed how a kid called Westley remained seated just like he did, minutes later Westley said in a whisper “ God damn I am tired of sitting here. Let’s get up and be saved”. Once Langston was finally there, Jesus failed to appear, since he remembers that his aunt told him” You could see, hear and feel Jesus in your soul”, but Langston was expecting Jesus to showed up physically so he decided to lie in the church. During the night, Langston understood that he made a...
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...Salvation is a story from The Big Sea, which was written by Langston Hughes, an African American poet, playwright and fiction writer. He was one was the earliest innovators of the then new literary art form, jazz poetry. This is a story that took place during the author’s childhood, when he was going on thirteen. This story is about how he lost his faith as a child when during a revival meeting he remained the lone “young lamb” that did not see Jesus. In the end, the young Langston decided to deceive the whole congregation by pretending that Jesus had come to him. Hughes shows us how the thoughts and actions of the people around us can affect our actions, and how complete trust and innocence can result in a complete lost of faith. Hughes uses vivid imagery and simple language to convey a believable child’s point of view. Hughes starts his essay with two contradicting statements: that he “was saved from sin…but not really saved” (). This is a signal to the reader that the title Salvation does not mean what one would think it means. Initially the author went to a revival meeting at his aunt’s church with the full intention of being saved. She told him “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!” (). His use of exclamation marks punctuating these sentences portrays a picture of a child who was excited and enthused about this upcoming event. He completely believed his aunt and his...
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...Salvation As, a team we realized that Langston Hughes was bias when it came to his belief in faith. Langston was a young boy who was searching for things in his life and some things he had no understanding of. His father, James Nathanial Hughes, left his family and later divorced [Langston's mother], going to Cuba, and then Mexico, seeking to escape the enduring racism in the United States ("The Biography of Langston Hughes," n.d.). This was the beginning of a young boy who felt lost and confused. Hughes was looking for acceptance from a father who was in and out of his life, with little support of his dreams. “Salvation” has a tone of a young boy who was un-trusting of adults. During a church revival (refreshing, getting rid of sins, and being saved) Langston was surrounded by older members of the church, the congregations, and young lambs, who may have had prior experience of waiting on the Holy Ghost or Jesus to come save them. Langston didn’t get that experience, he felt as if he was being lied to about Jesus and what he does. This brought back memories of not being saved by his family. As, a team we can agree that as children, we are very innocent and trusting and always ready to please the "elders" because we know they are wiser. We want to be seen as good in their eyes. With this in mind, it's not hard to understand why Langston wanted so bad not to disappoint his aunt at church. Something that stuck out was when Langston says, "I'd better lie, too and say that...
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...Phong Nguyen 1/8/15 Salvation Reading Response The story, “Salvation” by Langston Hughes reminds me of a past personal experience of when I was a kid growing up in a religious environment. Growing up, I was often brought along with my family to temples to pray. I was raised to believe in buddhism. Without any knowledge of buddhism, all I knew was that there was once a man named Buddha, and that we must pray to him for good fortune. That was the basis of my knowledge of that religion. Like most kids I believed in what my elders told me and so therefor, I believed in Buddha. Similarly, Langston Hughes states, “I had heard many old people say the same thing and it seemed to me they ought to know.” This story reminds me of this old past experience because Langston Hughes implies how he blindly followed religion, without any knowledge of it, similar to what I thought of as a kid. Unlike the story, I had never had to prove my devotion to my belief. Langston Hughes explains how he had sat down waiting to see Jesus appear before his eyes, and walk towards the bench to be saved by god, “I sat there calmly in the hot, crowded church, waiting for Jesus to come to me.” This story had also got me thinking of how we as a society often value and require a single to religion to keep us going. With a single religion, whether it be through knowledge or blind belief, it gives us hope that the things we do in life have an impact in our after lives, and someday we will benefit from it. After all...
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...Nonfiction Reaction Paper The nonfiction stories I have decided to write about are; “Who Will Light the Incense When Mother’s Gone?” by Andrew Lam and “Salvation” by Langston Hughes. Both of these stories are about a significant event in the authors lives in which they choose to write about. “Salvation” is a story about the author trying to find his way into the church and finally see the light or Jesus so his soul will be saved and his sins forgiven. ; “Who Will Light the Incense When Mother’s Gone?” was a writing about his mother having a hard time with the American culture and how her son, the author Andrew Lam, will be when he leaves home and how the traditions she raised him on slowly will disappear along with her when she passes along. Both stories seem to send a message of events in the author’s lives where they wrote about them because of certain memories in their lives, and I will briefly go through each story in different ways. Summary of Strategies by the Authors I think Langston Hughes in “Salvation” tries to get the reader to imagine a hot sweltering church on a balmy Sunday morning. This would be the setting for the young boy at 12 years of age trying to see Jesus in another aspect because he is becoming of age for the church. The authors strategy is not to confuse the reader but to make the reader understand that Langston was not lying about seeing Jesus but in fact did not believe in Jesus because he left the boy by himself and did not rescue him from all the people...
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