In Salvation, Langston Hughes recounts the story of how he lost his fate, which changed him by the end of the story. In the story, 13-year-old Hughes attends a church revival with his Auntie Reed. Hughes’ Aunt told him that he will see Jesus during the revival, and he literally expected to see Jesus. You can also tell how optimistic Hughes was at the beginning by the way he adds exclamation points in his writing. Hughes was sitting there at the church with a group of people, and one by one they would go up to the altar until it was just him and a boy named Westley. Eventually, Westley gives up and lies about being saved, leaving Hughes alone. Hughes by that point starts to feel ashamed of himself for holding everyone up, so he ultimately decides to lie about seeing Jesus. You can clearly see how disappointed he was. The amount of guilt he was feeling was too much for him that he cried alone in bed that night. Hughes does not only feel betrayed by Jesus, but also by his elders who lied to him.
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To begin with, forcing children into accepting a religion of any denomination can potentially lead to opposition of faith and higher beings entirely. This happens to Langston Hughes after being coerced into going to a revival at his aunt’s church, “I hadn’t seen Jesus, and that now I didn’t believe there was a Jesus anymore, since he didn’t come to help me” (Hughes). His aunt had told him when Jesus would come to him that he would see a light and feel different internally. Neither of which happens to young Langston. This notion that one will emotionally be overwhelmed with positivity in the presence of a higher being crosses over into various faiths.