Langston Hughes Research Paper

“Langston Hughes was esteemed as “Shakespeare of Harlem,” a sobriquet he borrowed for the title of a 1942 volume of poems” (Sundquist 55). He went to Mexico in an attempt to flourish his relationship with his father but it didn’t end up happening. Instead, the Mexican experience was influential, mostly because of the culture’s straightforward acceptance of his brown skin, and the fact that Hughes had links to the Hispanic literary world during his life. This sort of background confirmed that matters of the skin color and social class were built-in his consciousness based off what he was experiencing. The different attitudes toward race and class became obvious to him; therefore he recognized socialism and primitivism, popular in the 1920s and 1930s, where he viewed dark-skinned people more directly in touch

He even had “great many old people say the same thing and it seemed to [him] they ought to know” (280). Aunt Reed expressed to him how it would feel to have Jesus in his life after being saved and saying that it was a magnificent feeling to have, the best in the world. She also told him he would feel him in his soul so he believed everything she was saying therefore he “sat there calmly in the hot crowded church, waiting for Jesus to come to [him]” (280). He believed in reaching salvation. Langston was disappointed in the church because they did all that praising and he didn’t end up reaching his goal of Jesus coming to him. He was really disappointed in Jesus because he had heard all the stories of old people reaching salvation but when it was his turn to reach it, Jesus never showed. Because of that, Langston cried because he didn’t believe in Jesus anymore. He rejected the notion of salvation because Jesus didn’t come to him like his Aunt Reed said he