In the narration of “Salvation” by Langston Hughes, I related to him also as a kid in church expecting a miracle or Jesus to arrive. During my childhood to teen years my mother had me attend church most Sundays. So I’m familiar with the atmosphere within a church. To point out Langston Hughes gave a good description of what happens in church. “A great many old people came and knelt around us and prayed, old women with jet black faces and braided hair, old men with work-gnarled hands”(Hughes). A sight and experience that I have seen and felt many times. Being surrounded in church with hands placed on you, everyone praying asking Jesus to touch you. The feeling of waiting for something to happen, waiting to feel something different, waiting to see Jesus right in front of you. Its a feeling that I have also felt like the narrator. As a kid its hard to really feel or believe in what you can’t see or really understand.
Daily Archives: February 7, 2024
In what way do you personally relate to the young narrator in “Salvation” or “Araby?” I personally relate to “Salvation” , All the pressure come up for him, because he believed on his aunt and all the elder’s lie. He was embarrassed for the naive, he was mad on the traitor of god ‘Westely’,and he was sitting on the chair and acting like a man who was just meet with the god. In my hometown China, I was “saved” too. There is hundreds temple, every new year we will went in to the temple and blow the candle to try to having good luck for next year. My mother, she told me when i light up the candle, I will meet with gods, they will tell me how will the life go on correctly. Every child were exciting for the meet with god, that will represent them are the “Choice”,that mean god chose them to be the future. I didn’t meet with god, but I lied, like Langston, We have no choice but to accept the cruel reality.
In the story salvation I personally relate to Langston. I relate to Langston because in the story he has a very naive understanding of his religion. He takes everything literally and at face value. In the story the author mentions that Langston is around the age of 13 when the incident of him being saved took place. I also was “saved” around the same age and i also had the same view as Langston. I thought that being saved was a massive sacred holy event where i would really be meeting god. After the entire ceremony took place I was disappointed that I felt the same way as before the event took place. Growing up I also heard a lot about peoples experiences with being saved and i was confused on why i felt like i didn’t get the same experience similar to Langston. As i grew older and now looking back I realized how silly it was taking everything I was hearing so literally.
In what way do you personally relate to the young narrator in “Salvation” or “Araby?” I personally relate with the young narrator of ¨Salvation.¨ I believe that this narrator’s voice is more relax that the one used in ¨Araby.¨ I relate with this narrator because the way he tells the story makes you feel engaged from the beginning, that catches your attention right away and makes you want to keep reading to see what is going to happen. I relate with this narrator because he expresses the excitement of this kid of having a big experience by being ¨saved by God.¨ I think that we all can relate to having that idea of God as we discussed in class. I also relate with the way of how the young boy immediately believes everything that the older people around him say. To me, that is his way to be a respectful and ingenuine young boy.
We read “ The most handsome drown man” as our first story of the semester. I think the reason why we having this story as a starting is because in the story, there is a lot of Imaginary thinking inside the story. Everyone was falling to the another world while they are imagining. In our life, we are also falling to another world while imagining. We using this story as starting point of our course is because we are going to learn from the story, to excavate our imaginary depth. And we can get in to the story by our imaginary, as deeper we get more involved in the readings, the understanding of the story will become to deeper. To think before we write any article, to imagine how will reader think before we write down our work.
I think that Professor Conway assigned ” The Most Handsome Drowned Man” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as the first story of the course because she wanted us to see other people’s perspectives on how a character would describe someone and the details they would show from it. Also shows how the villagers are captivated by the man’s extraordinary beauty and decide to give him a burial, as if he were royal figure to them.
One way I personally relate to the young narrator in “Salvation” or “Araby?” was when he was excited the whole week to go to the fair and was expecting it to be something super big and grand, and overall had high expectation just for all those expectations to be let down on the day he was supposed to go on the fair. It reminds me of when I was smaller and would ask my mom or dad to buy me like a toy or candy when they came back from work or the store, and they would say okay. So, the whole day I was super excited and made plans of what I was going to do with my new toy. But when they came home, they said they forgot to get it and then just like the narrator at the end of the story I was sad, angry and disappointed.
In “The Most Handsome Drowned Man”, the coming of Esteban’s body transformed the village from a gray and desolate place into a more vibrant and grander location. The villagers were unaware of any part of this drowned man’s life, but were able to show enough compassion towards him to celebrate his end of life, which made way for a new perspective. In comparing the outcome of this story to our class, the stories we are about to read and dissect will allow us the same chance to uncover fresh viewpoints. We could easily fall in love with these new characters in literature just as the villagers fell in love with Esteban through their empathy and compassion. We can also learn from their choices or circumstances in a way that can transform our own. Therefore, through exploring new ideas and human experiences, we ourselves can reframe our mindset to make way for other concepts we did not know previously.
Breaking beliefs is soul crushing, especially when it comes to people you love or thought you knew. In Langston Hues “Salvation”, this was Jesus and the holy spirit, whereas in my case, it is my mother. Growing up, I idolized her, thinking she can do no wrong and that she was the end all to be all. Even if it was a small part of the story, the boy In James Joyce’s “Araby” had to wonder what his caregiver would be like when they walked through the door due to a lack of sobriety. I relate to this strongly as my mother shares the same affliction as his uncle. In truth, I relate to the young boy in “Araby” in the same way that his perception of people and situations do not work out in his favor when he so badly hoped they would. I too would constantly put others on a pedestal and create perceptions of them when they never had my best interest in mind. When I finally defined what kind of emotional stress my mother was putting me through and decided to set real boundaries, I reacted similarly to Hues in “Salvation”. Surprisingly, it was more cathartic than I expected
