Langston Hughes Salvation Analysis

Decent Essays
The majority of children in the world grow up believing that life is a wonderful thing, that nothing bad will ever happen to them and that everything they wish for will come true, but they do not know that is all a big fat lie. One of the hardest things that a human has to go through in their life is getting disappointed; the worst would probably have to be the first time, because you have such high expectations and all the sudden you feel like your life is just a lie and you don’t know what to believe anymore. In “Salvation” Langston Hughes faith is tested, Hughes learns that everything he believed was not true, “and that now I didn’t believe there was a Jesus any more, since he didn’t come to help me” (Hughes, 300). Life will disappoint

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    The short story “Thank You Ma’am” by Langston Hughes and “The Six Rows Of Pompons” by Toshio Mori have a common theme which is with a good leader leads to responsibility. In both of the stories the to people that teach the two younger kids in the story how to be more responsible. In “Thank You Ma’am” by Langston Hughes the main character Roger Gets taught respect. A quote that shows he got taught responsibility is “The boy wanted to say something else other than “Thank you, m’am” to Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, but he couldn’t do so as he turned at the barren stoop and looked back at the large woman in the door.…

    • 293 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Change in Views Overtime Langston Hughes had a rather difficult life in post-war United States, as with the United States being a rather racist society, excluding and handicapping all races besides white. Hughes, being partially African American, White American, and Native American, Hughes experienced the worst of the worlds firsthand. He was under the stereotypes all the time, it be African American stereotypes, or Native American stereotypes. As a result of this racism he endured, Hughes poems was directed towards American society and towards the ruined dreams of people that were suppressed by the racism.…

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mr. James Mercer Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. His parent’s names were James Hughes and Carrie Langston would soon separated after his birth. Primarily his grandmother Mary raised Langston until her death when Langston was sent to live with his mother in Cleveland, Ohio. During this time was when Hughes took his first hand in writing poetry. Hughes was a major contributor to his high school’s literary magazine.…

    • 349 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The famous Omega Man I chose to write about is Langston Hughes because I feel that we have a connection, seeing that we both have had a poor relationship with our biological fathers. Langston Hughes was a poet from Joplin, Missouri. He was the son of teacher Carrie Langston and James Nathaniel Hughes. He is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. His father abandoned the family and left for Cuba, then Mexico, due to enduring racism in the United States.…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    "Salvation" is an essay in which Langston Hughes, the author, presents the loss of faith. Hughes, the main character, who was about to turn thirteen, attended church with his Aunt Reed. He hoped to see God in the revival since all the adults told him that he would see God at some point. He suffered a series of emotions but at the end, he says he sees Jesus. He experienced the lack of self-confidence.…

    • 262 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    For American poet and novelist Langston Hughes, he once felt the desire to be molded by his family’s religious ideals. In his autobiography, Hughes writes the piece “Salvation” as a reflection on the time he was to be “saved from sin;” a situation that shaped him differently than his family had hoped. Hughes retells this defining moment of his childhood through shifts in tone and variation…

    • 1678 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Langston Hughes is the author and speaker in the poem “Theme for English B.” Hughes uses the title of his poem to question the task given to him in English class. The task was simply to “Go home and write/a page.” The class instructor challenges Hughes to write the “truth.” Instead of making the title more specific to give us a better understanding of the poem, or what Hughes writes his one page about, he simply titles it “Theme for English B.” Hughes uses the title to tell us that he created his own theme for the assignment because the instructor directions were unclear.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What does “Making America Great Again” mean? Donald Trump's version of "Making America Great Again" is to kick out people who are not American, racially profile people, and to hate. This relates back to legacy by talking about this.…

    • 393 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    "Salvation,"an essay by Langston Hughes about his experiences of seeking and losing his faith in Jesus as well as religion. The essay serves as Hughes observations on his expectations and disappointments on the topic of religion as a whole. The irony in title to the final line of the essay features the central subject of the paper: expectation and disappointment. In order to make this happen, many writing styles and techniques were used. Two of those techniques are the use of subordination and dramatically short sentences.…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After decades of persecution through sharecropping and Jim Crow laws, as well as agricultural misfortune in the American South, millions of African-Americans left the southern states in hopes for decent jobs and higher quality of life in the more urbanized, industrialized sections of the United States (“Great Migration”). All of the sudden, a whole new world of business, art, multiculturalism, intellectualism, and nightlife was in front of a people who had been held captive, both in the literal sense and the spiritual sense, by a culture that did not allow equal participation or recognition within society. The North to many African-Americans symbolized equality, freedom, and haven from the old racism of the South. Out of this new world came…

    • 915 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With most children, nine times out of ten, will not be able to understand the meaning of or true reason for salvation. “General exposure to religion when you are young is not a bad thing, as long as you are also offered the tools to question it. Hughes did not have that option - if he had not stood up, or if he stood up and walked way - that would be the end of him. Unfortunately, that is not just "a sign of the times", and that there are many children who are rejected by their friends and families for a lack of faith.” (Rodin).…

    • 1435 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Langston Hughes Salvation

    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Salvation Twentieth century poet/writer Langston Hughes shares the account of a boy who deceives others in church about his having been saved by Jesus. All children are meant to rise upon their seeing of The Lord, but the boy who does not truly witness the event, rises as a way to escape the pressure. This account, entitled “Salvation,” comes from Hughes’s autobiography The Big Sea, signifying the boy to be a young Langston Hughes. The story denies condemnation of Langston for his deceit by indicating his literal yet curious nature. Intent on being obedient, Langston trusts all of what he is told, basing all of what he knows off this trust.…

    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “Salvation,” Langston Hughes narrates his own life about when he was searching and seeking Jesus. God convicts Langston Hughes in love when he is thirteen by making him aware of his sins. During this time, Hughes said that he is saved, but in reality he was not saved. Hughes makes in explanation in the story when he attends his aunt’s church by putting on a false disguise in front of her and the entire congregation that he envisioned Jesus and receives the Holy Spirit. Hughes expresses his concerns that his church family had a high expectation of receiving Christ as his Savior.…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Langston Hughes short story Salvation is a story of a young boy who despite immense amount of pressure and encouragement lied to everyone about discovering Jesus. But he was not the only one who lied to end everyone else pressure. Yet, he was the only one who was under emotional distress because of his lie. Many people in our world lie every day, but some of us respond to it like nothing and other cannot help but break down like the young boy in Langston Hughes’s Salvation. But is being this emotionally connected to your lies a bad thing?…

    • 1043 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Salvation by Langston Hughes depicts one boy’s search for religion and his eventual abandonment of it after this pursuit ends in failure. In the story, Hughes explores the high expectations that accompany religion, and the crushing disappointment wrought by failure to achieve such lofty goals. The essay takes the form of an anecdote in which he was presented in front of his church in order to be “saved from sin”. However, the actual outcome of the experience strays far from this anticipated result as it leads him to question the foundation of religion and the very existence of God. The contrast between the contents of the story and the title establish a sense of irony, as in no way did he achieve “salvation” but rather he is made victim of…

    • 1040 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays