'Connects To Plato's Allegory Of The Cave'

In the short story “Salvation” Langston Hughes describes his traumatizing experience at a religious revival as a twelve-year-old boy. The revival was a popular event that occurred in town for ongoing days and one his Aunt Reed had attended every night. On the final day of the event, the children of worshippers were invited to the congregation to receive salvation from Christ. Before the event, Aunt Reed had explained to young Langston that once he became saved he would see a light, meaning Jesus had come. Langston embraced this message as the absolute truth because he had often heard the other members mention the coming of “the light” as well. So, Langston sat there and waited patiently hoping for Jesus and the light that would bring his salvation. When the pastor began to give his powerful testimony, Langston …show more content…
“And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the cave and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them.” (WTR 2001) In “Allegory of the Cave” there are people chained in a cave who are facing a wall that projects shadow through fire. The people in the cave believe this to be the real world. The prisoners watch the stories of these shadows and believe them to be real things in the world since this is all they get to see. When one of the prisoners is freed from the bounds of the cave, he experiences a brief moment of fear and confusion. The prisoner realizes that the things he sees now are more real than the shadows he saw in the cave. He has made contact with real things and has accepted this as the true world beyond the cave. Similarly, as Hughes believed wholeheartedly that Jesus would come and save him, Langston was compelled to face the true realities of faith and religion in not receiving divine help in his moment of