A Critical Response to Langston Hughes' Salvation

A Critical Response to Langston Hughes' Salvation

In Langston Hughes' Salvation, Hughes illustrates himself as a little boy, who's decisions at a church one morning, reflect the human races instinctive tendency to conform and in a sense, obey. That morning in church, Hughes is indirectly pressured to go up to the altar and “be saved” by seeing the light of god.

Hughes was a young and impressionable boy who wanted “salvation” and to see Jesus so badly that when he couldn't see Jesus and the others could, he found himself in a position of disappointing himself as well as others in his community. Hughes “saved” himself by pretending to see Jesus. He was saved not by his love for Jesus like the congregation had probably hoped, but instead by his desire to conform, obey and please. What would have happened if he did not step forward and claim to be saved ? Regardless, it is evident that he was frightened by rejection. Because of his fear of rejection, Hughes fell into his own trap of trying to please everyone, and instead met the needs of nobody because of his deception of all the other people attending church that day, not to mention himself.

In paragraph eleven Hughes says “So I decided that maybe to save further trouble, I'd rather