Langston Hughes Salvation Summary

In his work “Salvation”, Langston Hughes, as a young African-American child, decided to describe a life-changing experience that occurred in his beliefs. At the age of twelve years old, Hughes describes that he has come to the point in his life that gained him the opportunity of being “saved” by Jesus. Just like all the other children, he was expected to accept Jesus’ into his life, and by doing so, he would be saved. Therefore, when the time came, Langston was escorted to the front row, and placed with the other children that were ready to also be saved. As the ceremony started to commence, the children were greeted with sermons, prayers, and moans from the clergy. One after another, Langston became aware that more and more children began …show more content…
He stated that he still kept waiting to see Jesus. Wesley eventually gave up and went up as if he felt saved, but Hughes refused to do so until he saw Jesus. He was able to continue to do so for awhile, until he reached the point of exhaustion. From there, Langston decided to just suck it up and lie as if he were saved. Following this response, of course, the clergy cheered loudly, and cried tears of joy. However, Langston didn’t feel the same as they did. In fact, he began to question if there was even a Jesus anymore. His story not only explained why Langston chose to lie, but it also illustrated the power that outside influences had upon making his decision. And although this is clearly understood through his detailed experiences, I found that this shouldn’t be the overall …show more content…
When Langston was sitting in the row with the other children, he began to become attentive to all of his surroundings. He found himself distracted with moans, prayers, and shouting from the preacher. All of this, which ended up possibly distracting him from the overall purpose of the ceremony. Not only was he distracted by other people, he was also focusing on the wrong idea of being saved. Hughes continued to sit there until he “saw” Jesus, and would go up unless he did so. He quickly became confused because he noticed other children started to get up, while he continued to not see anything. Though the crowd continued to pressure him into making his decision, the problem in the first place was that Langston started off with the wrong idea of being