Langston Hughes Salvation

Novelist, Langston Hughes, in his short story, “Salvation,” recounts a religious experience where his views are altered on the existence of a god and describes the guilt that comes with a faked saving. Hughes purpose is to portray how religion is forced on children of society with no say of the child. He adopts a confused, but guilty tone in order to gain recognition regarding forced religions in society. Hughes begins his short story by addressing the complications that come with forced religion and how the effect on children can be life changing causing mixed emotions some of which become negative. Hughes appeals the conflicting emotions of the audience by saying “he was saved from sin” at the young age of thirteen but arguing that he was “not saved”. He states this in order to reveal that all along he hasn’t been saved when he was put on the front row with all the other “young lambs”. The conflicting emotion from Hughes conveys the forced religious traditions of his church and foreshadows the unsuccessful saving. Hughes than moves to his experience and the complications that came with the saving itself. He describes the loss

Hughes examines his situation as being very distressful and unwanted deceit of his family when he states he “had lied” and that he “had deceived everybody in the church”. He conveys this idea of deceit in order to describe the negative feelings he felt toward himself and his actions when the saving was faked, and without justifiable cause, the blame fell on Jesus when Hughes states “he didn't come to help me”. He cries during this time of regret to show the pain he felt after lying, but also to show that he had a loss of faith for a deity who his family had believed in for generations. This relates to those with any situation where a there has been a loss of faith whether it being religion based or