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Hughes and Salvation: When Religious Metaphor Fails

© Linda Sue Grimes

"Salvation" is a chapter in The Big Sea, one of Langston Hughes' autobiographies. The ironic title foreshadows Hughes' loss of faith: " . . . now I didn't believe there was a Jesus any more, since he didn't come to help me." Hughes' experience demonstrates how adults confuse children when they don't explain the religious metaphors.

Auntie Reed is primarily responsible for Langston's loss of faith. Instead of explaining to the young Langston that Jesus' words as they appear in The Sermon on the Mount serve a useful guide for living one's life, she told him that "when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened to your insides!" This figurative description had no meaning for the boy, because he took these metaphors literally. He expected literally to see a light and literally to feel something happen to his insides. He believed his aunt's descriptions of salvation, because he had heard "a great many old people say the same thing."

During the last meeting of the revival when the children were to be saved, Langston gave up believing in Jesus, because he saw no light and did not feel Jesus had done something to his insides. As he sat on the mourners' bench with another young sinner named Westley, he felt guilty as the adults encouraged him to come and be saved. His confusion magnified when Westley finally got up and was "saved." Langston knew Westley had not experienced Jesus. So when Langston finally stood up to be saved, he lost his faith, because he knew the act was a lie. He had not seen a light and had not felt something happen. Westley had lied too and even said, "God damn" and didn't seem to be suffering for sins.

That night when Langston cries because he lied and deceived everybody, he shows that he is a good person. He didn't want to disappoint the adults. He knows he lied because he pretended to accept that metaphor when he did not even understand it. He suffered because he lied, which demonstrates that he was a good Christian who accepts the commandment against lying. But as a child the young Langston does not understand his own goodness. Auntie Reed is lost in the metaphor and completely misreads Langston's feelings. When she hears him crying, she explains to her husband that Langston experienced the Holy Ghost and saw Jesus.

Adult ignorance of a child's literal mind causes children to suffer loss of self- esteem. Adults become entangled in their metaphors and do not realize that those metaphors need to be interpreted for children. If Auntie Reed had explained that loving

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