“Salvation” by Langston Hughes shows how 12-year-old Langston changes from the beginning of the story to the end. In the beginning, he believed his aunt that when you are saved, many great things happen to you. The author included many exclamation points when describing what his aunt was saying. I feel like this enhanced how positive she was about Jesus saving you. You are able to see a light and you would feel Jesus with you after that (Sharpe). He believed this so much that when he was waiting to get called, he expected all these great things to happen. Langston saw everyone get saved and was the only one who hadn’t. He saw someone he was sitting next to get up, but Langston knew that the boy hadn’t gotten saved either. He eventually got up to pretend to be saved by Jesus. Langston lied and pretended because he felt ashamed and didn’t wanna get in more trouble. This made Langston feel guilt and brought him to tears that night. He stopped believing in Jesus because he didn’t come to help him. At the end of the story, you can see that he definitely doesn’t feel positive about getting saved, he feels sad and betrayed.
Powered by:
top
2 thoughts on “Araceli Cortez Discussion 3”
Araceli, I like your remarks about the exclamation points. This is a really good observation that speaks to how a writer’s word and punctuation choices affect meaning. Your comments address the prompt well in their discussion of the boy’s altered emotions.
He does not feel positive about being saved because he lied to the church and to his aunt. He was just trying to please everyone and not realizing how this would have affected him. I think this exist in today’s society. Parents/ adults expect children to be apart and do the same even if they do not have the same insight and if disobeyed can cause guilt to the child, the feeling that they are not good enough. No one wants to be a disappointment but, in the end, you end up hurting yourself mentally. Do you think it was right what Hughes did? Would you have done the same?
To answer the same question, I would have done the same thing just to please my parents even if it is not right.