Analysis Of Langston Hughes Salvation

We are vulnerable at a young age. Our minds are open to all the ideas and beliefs the world has to offer. Specifically, we are most vulnerable to those ideas and beliefs of those closest to us: our family. As kids, we want to be a part of such beliefs and willingly mold to the ideas that our family attempts to instill in us. However, it does not always work. 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 …show more content…
Hughes is going on thirteen and believes he is going to see Jesus at his Auntie Reed’s church. He shows the anticipation felt within the church with phrases such as, “Every night for weeks there had been much reaching, singing, praying and shouting” and “My aunt spoke of it for days ahead” because the church was in such a cheery mood preceding the event. As a child, if everyone around you is excited for an upcoming event it is only natural for you to be just as ecstatic and so Hughes uses such phrases to show an anxious excited tone. Additionally, Hughes uses exclamatory sentences to convey his eagerness to the reader. His aunt had told him that once you saw Jesus “something happened to you!” and then that “Jesus came into your life!” Hughes strategic use of exclamation points shows the reader the excitement he felt leading up to the moment he was to be saved from sin. Furthermore, Hughes continues through the first scene of the piece to emphasize the excitement he felt with heavy imagery and repetition. He uses pleasing pairings of words such as “reaching, singing, praying, and shouting,” “preacher preached,” and “sang a song.” These pairings appeal to the reader's pathos due to their rhyming and alliteration and make the scene appear pleasing, thus adding to the lighter tone Hughes begins with. The impact of beginning the lighter, eager tone sets up the reader to be excited for what is to come; little knowing it won’t be what they