The author of the story "salvation" is a young African American narrator who narrates on how he got saved though he leaves a suspense and says that ‘not getting saved" at the age of thirteen. He had accompanied his aunt Reed, to attended church revival. During the rival people engaged in singing, dancing and praying. He pastor and deacons called some people among which were young children to be saved and live a life free of sins. His aunt had informed him that when a person is saved, he sees the light and something happens to them. Besides, she had told him after being saved; you can see Jesus and fell the spirit of God within you (Baldwin 981)
Hughes believed since he had heard it several times from the old people. Therefore, he stayed in
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He employs tactics of a child to make sure that the readers feel as if the child was telling the story. For instance, he writes that ‘I felt confused that Jesus could not come, I wanted something to happen, but nothing yet happened ‘also he put across the theme of sadness in the story through his language. This is evident when e said I cried because I could not bear the pain of not seeing Jesus yet I lied I had seen him (Emanuel 268).
Hughes incorporates the sense of humour in his story to catch the attention of the readers. This is evident in that; he says that "the pastor held arms around all the young sinners, the small girls cried while others jumped up to reach Jesus straight away". Therefore, he uses childlike language, which makes the story much interesting and funny for the reader to keep reading.
The author uses repetition to emphasise the sarcasm of his story about salvation and religion. Some of the words commonly repeated is the ‘going to Jesus, and getting saved'. The pastor, for instance, says, "Why don't you proceed? My beloved child, why don't you come to Jesus? Jesus is expecting for you. He needs you. Why don't you come?." (Baldwin 981)This shows the sarcasm of the story as Hughes expected so see the mentioned Jesus, but he did not see