Langston is curious and impressionable, eager to learn about the concept of being saved from sin. He has heard many old people talk about the experience and wants to see and feel it himself. However, despite his aunt’s assurances and the intense revival meeting he attends, Langston is left disappointed and unfulfilled, as he doesn’t feel that Jesus has entered his life. Langston decided to lie about his own experience in order to fit in when he got up to be saved saying he saw Jesus but he didn’t. By the end of the story, Langston has changed by becoming more aware of his own beliefs and starting to question the societal norms surrounding religion. Langston is a curious, impressionable boy who undergoes a transformation from a sincere seeker to a conflicted and disillusioned individual. The words that describe Langston at the beginning of the story include: curious, impressionable, sincere, and eager. The words that describe Langston at the end of the story include: disillusioned, conflicted, emotional, and unsure.
Daily Archives: February 11, 2023
“Salvation” is a short story by Langston Hughes that describes the experience of a young boy named Langston who is taken to church by his aunt to be saved from sin. The boy has a skeptical but honest nature. Even though everyone around him is so deeply engrossed in their faith, he believes in rationality i.e. he kept waiting to see Jesus, and eventually went along with the crowd so as not to disappoint them, but eventually gets overcome by his grief for deceiving others. Despite his disappointment, the child keeps going to the revival service in the hopes of finding the redemption he seeks. But as the night wears on, he comes to the bitter and furious realization that he has not been rescued. The fact that his aunt is informing everyone that he has been saved, even if the child is aware that this is not the truth, just serves to fuel his grief. He understands that the spiritual experience he was looking for is not what he had anticipated, and that churchgoers are only acting religiously without actually experiencing salvation.
In “Salvation” by Langston Hughes the younger boy can be described as hopeful, enthusiastic and zealous about Jesus coming into his life and seeing him and getting to know him after his aunt has talked greatly about Jesus and being saved. At the end of the story, he was different and felt immensely different about this religion he was always around and watched others praise along with worshipping someone that he was eager to know about. When the other little boy that he was left with at the alter realized that nothing was happening and he told Langston that he was tired and just going to say he got saved and the longer he stayed there he decided that he should too and was very conflicted by what he did and was upset.
The young boy in the story “Salvation”, by Langston Hughes can be described using various words, based on his characteristics and events that took place throughout the story. In the beginning Langston and his aunt are at the big revival that is taking p[ace in the church. The aunt describes how Langston would feel, see, and hear Jesus and so Langston has taken that personally and seriously. Therefore, Langston eagerly awaits for Jesus to come, portraying characteristics of being naïve and gullible. This shows how Langston is inexperienced and is easily persuaded by the members of church. During the middle of the story, Langston faces a conflict of his own and lies to the member of the church and his aunt that he saw Jesus. When in fact he had no such encounter with Jesus and was almost pressured into claiming this with the heavy devotion and religious influence in the church and on salvation. The young boy finally gave in and went up to fit in with the rest of the children who Jesus had “seen”. This was almost like a defense mechanism for Langston as he did not want to deceive everybody in the church, including himself. This results in Langston feeling a huge loss of faith and connection with Jesus and almost self doubts. By the end of the story, Langston has changed from being a naïve and gullible young boy to finally realizing what was promised was not promised in a sense. The best words to describe the young boy towards the end of the story would be disappointed, confused, despair, and even heartbroken. The lack of truth into how and what his aunt had said to him has caused him to feel this way. After all, he thought and was almost described to that meeting […]
After reading “The Handsomest Drowned Man” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I feel that this story was assigned to us as the first story of the course to demonstrate how strong imagination is. (Maybe some stories we read will be focused on imagination). In this story I took notice of how strong the idea of “Esteban” was. Many people gravitated towards him, many wanted to be him, and many wanted to be with him. Without knowing him, everyone glorified him and placed him on a pedestal, only based on stories that they heard, through the power of imagination. Very often in death, people bring out the best of the person, and this is how they commemorate them. In “The Handsomest Drowned Man”, Marquez made it important to showcase “Esteban” as a god-like figure, in my opinion. A god is someone who is worshipped, or looked up to, by others. Everyone in the story was making Esteban seem as a role model, or the person to be, or be with. This was all done through imagination which, to me, made the story seem like a “realistic myth” that was told back in the day.
