Salvation: The Irony Of A Title.
“Salvation” by Langston Hughes is
anything but what the title says. Salvation is part of Langston Hughes’ memoir The Big Sea. This part of his memoir
focuses on a coming of ages experience he had when he was twelve years old. The
essay begins with Hughes explaining how he was “…saved from sin when I was
going on thirteen.” This first sentence of this memoir briefly defines the
concept of what salvation is, salvation means “preservation or deliverance from
harm, ruin, or loss.” but that’s just one definition, another definition of
salvation in the concept of theology is “deliverance from sin and its
consequences, believed by Christians to be brought about by faith in Christ.”
thought the title can be viewed as any of these definitions it mainly focuses
on the second definition as the setting of the essay focus mostly on a church
as well as the main conflict of the essay.
Hughes begins to explain how there
was there has been a big revival at his auntie’s church. If you’re a Catholic
or a Christian, you might have had to go to at least one revival in your life but for those who are not Catholics or
Christians, revivals are a restoration of the church itself as well as a
relationship with God after a period of moral decline. One of the “activities” that
happen during this period of revival is
mass conversions of non-believers, which is what Hughes focus on his memoir.
As the revival period came to an end
the church decides to do a special meeting where they would, “…bring the young
lambs to the fold.” In other words, they would be officially converted to
Christians. When Hughes heard this, he was excited to be converted like the
memoir indicates, “My aunt told me that when you were saved you saw a light,
and something happened to you inside! And Jesus came into your life! And God
was with you from then on! She said you could see and hear and feel Jesus in
your soul. I believed her. I had heard a great many old people say the same
thing and it seemed to me they ought to know. So, I sat there calmly in the
hot, crowded church, waiting for Jesus to come to me.” Even though the church
was uncomfortable he remained sitting waiting to see and hear Jesus. But as the
preacher finished his sermon, he asked
the children “Won't you come? Won't you come to Jesus? Young lambs, won't you
come?” and while some children stood up immediately, most of them stayed
sitting on the bench but little by little, probably by the pressure of the
singing and praying people they stood up and went to the altar. Until it was only Westley and Hughes
sitting on the bench, after a few minutes Westley gets tired of sitting and
goes to the alter leaving only Hughes behind. Now,
this worries all the members of the church including the preacher and his aunt,
the preacher even asking him “Langston, why don't you come? Why don't you come
and be saved? Oh, Lamb of God! Why don't you come?” But the reason for this is
because Hughes hasn’t seen Jesus yet and this worries him as he has been told
that he sees a light and all of that but
nothing of that happens, almost taking it to a literal level instead of
symbolic but then again, Hughes is only 12, he’s still a child who’s concept of
symbolism is quite little so when his aunt told him he would see a sign, he
thought he would see a literal sign, but it never came.
Feeling ashamed of himself for
holding the revival up, Hughes stood up and went to the altar as he has finally
seen Jesus. As he walks to the altar everyone begins to celebrate since he has
found Jesus, everyone believed it except Hughes himself. Later that night,
Hughes begins to cry in his bed, his auntie believed he was crying tears of joy
as he had seen Jesus, but it was the complete opposite. Hughes was crying
because he had not seen Jesus or like he says, “I hadn't seen Jesus, and that
now I didn't believe there was a Jesus anymore
since he didn't come to help me.”
Like I mentioned earlier this memoir
is an excellent example of what a coming of age story is, as Hughes, a boy who
wanted to believe and see Jesus slowly loses
his faith as he neither showed up in the church nor did he help Hughes at his
time of need.
Works Cited
Pittman, Cynthia. Class assignment reflection
from story "Salvation" by Langston Hughes
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