After reading “On the Road” by Langston Hughes, I’m surprised by the critical scene when Sergeant, the protagonist, holds on to a stone pillar of a segregated “white” church, eventually bringing it down to pieces with his strength and perseverance. Subsequently, Jesus Christ, initially mounted atop a cross on the concrete walls of the church, is freed.
The liberation of Jesus serves as a literary jab by Hughes to the hypocrisy of religion during the Jim Crow period of America. The most significant line of the scene is by Jesus himself: “You had to pull the church down to get me off the cross.” The godly figure Christ is shown as being morally trapped by a façade of Christianity which goes against his teachings of service and acceptance. Throughout
The liberation of Jesus serves as a literary jab by Hughes to the hypocrisy of religion during the Jim Crow period of America. The most significant line of the scene is by Jesus himself: “You had to pull the church down to get me off the cross.” The godly figure Christ is shown as being morally trapped by a façade of Christianity which goes against his teachings of service and acceptance. Throughout