Langston Hughes Salvation Essay

In his story “Salvation,” Langston Hughes talks about a time when he was supposed to be saved from sin, but wasn’t. Hughes is thirteen, and it is roughly 1915, in a church that his Aunt Reed attends. There is a revival taking place, where they save sinners and being them to God. In the story, Hughes demonstrates how easy it is for adults to pressure children.
Hughes begins with his Aunt Reed telling him: “...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!” (Hughes 182) Hughes’s use of exclamation points highlights his aunt’s excitement about God and Hughes’s anticipation of being saved. These both add to Hughes’s anxiousness and disappointment when he does not see God during the revival. In the same paragraph, he writes: “I believed her. I had heard a great many old people say the same thing and it seemed to me they ought to know.” (Hughes 182) The first sentence is short and simple to demonstrate how quick and easy his decision is. If she and the other elders had seen it, then to a twelve-year-old, it would not require excessive thought to decide it must be true.
During the revival, Hughes remarks, “...prayers and song swirled
Why don't you come and be saved? Oh, Lamb of God! Why don't you come?” (Hughes 183) The repetition of the phrase “Why don’t you come?” suggests that it is something that Hughes should be doing, and he is being guilt-tripped for not doing it. The phrase “Lamb of God” being capitalized implies that it is a group, and Hughes belongs in that group, and he is doing wrong by not joining that group. The minister plays with Hughes’s emotions by insinuating that he is acting immorally in the eyes of everyone in the church, including God himself. This, combined with the large age gap between him and the adults, causes Hughes feel ashamed of himself for not acting the way everyone believes he