My thesis statement is the following: The gravity of the narrator’s inner turmoil and confusion is expressed through the use of several types of irony throughout the short story. It is my plan, in order to further demonstrate the irony of “Salvation” by Langston Hughes, besides introducing examples of the different types of irony from the short story, to use the writer’s biography as reference, with emphasis on his relationship with religion, spirituality and the church. To gain sufficient and accurate information for this, I intend on using the Gale in Context database, as there is a quite informative biography on this site. I am still in the midst of my research for the best material for my secondary research but I trust, the Library’s databases won’t let me down.
Daily Archives: April 2, 2022
My essay is about Langston Hughes’ “Salvation” and how the adult narrative voice serves to highlight the youth of the narrator and the significance of his lie. Though I had not considered it before, looking at secondary sources will help to bring a new aspect into my essay: how the author’s actual life and own identities may have influenced their writings. For example, from “Salvation” one can infer that Hughes was not a religious man, due to the ending in which he professes a lack of belief in Jesus, for He had not come at a time of need. However, looking through the Gale in Context site, I was able to find a biography, and an essay on a conference about Langston Hughes and his works. Through connecting the biography of his life and the time-frame that “Salvation” was written, one can deduce more through what the author had experienced in their life to influence their works. Similarly, the conference essay has information about what historians were able to piece together from Hughes’ life, or rather, the pieces that they were able to glean, as evasive as he proved to be.
I am doing Langston Hughes “Salvation”. “This epiphany was a lot more than Langston just losing his faith, because his innocence left with it.” I think both biographical sources and Literary Critiques would both be helpful secondary sources for me. Biographical because “Salvation” is a true story from his childhood, and Literary Critiques because the way he tells the story is beautiful and complex, and also full of Dramatic Irony. I have looked at JSTOR because it’s my old faithful, and found some interesting critiques of not just “Salvation” but many other of his short stories and poems, and many people exploring religion in many of his works. And I explored the Biography in Context and found a few interesting biographies as well.
