2. Hughes's story is told very briefly because the brevity allows the reader to intake a certain amount of information before making assumptions of his own. A long and drowning story would defeat the purpose of Hughes's problems because if the story were to continue, then the audience would just think of it as another incident rather than a tragedy (as in Hughes's eyes). His guilt of him "really crying because [he] couldn't bear to tell [his aunt] that [he] had lied, that [he] had deceived everybody in the church" (par. 15). By condensing the story, the reader feels sympathy for Hughes and his situation, and a longer passage could have lost the effect.
2. Hughes's brevity makes the story more powerful because it concisely relates the feelings that he had during the "saving." The quickness conveys Hughes's sense of anxiety and deception. For him, everything is a confused blur as he is being hugged and pulled towards the platform. It also illustrates Hughes's feeling of guilt and deception because he had not really seen Jesus. A longer passage might have been less affecting because the audience could have been lost in the length and would not have related as well to Hughes. The audience would not have been as caught up in the action along with Hughes.
2. Langston Hughes's narrative aims to illustrate the first time any child realizes that a subject that they had such strong faith for is not real. He aims to show the audience the specific moment in which a child begins to question what he is taught. To do this, it is necessary for Hughes to make his experience a concise one. If his story were longer and more intricate, the reader would become lost in the elaborate backdrop on which Hughes sets up his story. In addition, Hughes wants his audience to feel the short amount of time that it took him to question faith, and Jesus. The moment in which Hughes's trust in those around him is destroyed occurs over a very short time period, and in order to depict that, Hughes shortens the original experience even more.
Ps. Is it just me that is considering purchasing glasses for my obvious eyesight problem? I still have to do the word verification at least 5 times before I get it correctly.
2. Hughes recounts his "salvation" briefly in order to set his story parallel to his confusion at the time and to his eventual disbelief in God. The brevity of this narrative is similar to the memory and mindset of a child, in this case a twelve year old boy: children's memories are often disconnected and disjointed, much like how Hughes was feeling in the church. Hughes understood the concept of salvation (as explained by his aunt)--that God would forever be in him once he saw "a light, something happened" (par.2), but he didn't understand why others were "saved" when they obviously hadn't seen Jesus yet, such as Westley. A question remained in his mind while he was kneeling there: Why hadn't God come? This question leads Hughes to disbelieve in God; nothing happened even though God had a divine aura and omnipotence.
2. Hughes keeps his story brief to prove to the reader that even a seemingly harmless event can be completely life altering. Drawing out the description of an entire day would cloud the message that Hughes is delivering: that this quick moment that was supposed to awaken his spirituality, ended up destroying his faith (although it may have only been temporarily). Making his story short puts emphasis on the fact that the length of an event doesn't matter, it's the significance of what takes place that leaves an impression on a person. Making the narrative short shows that what is being written about obviously took place in a small amount of time, but that even moments which, in comparison to the amount of time in a person's life, seem insignificant, they can actually be life-changing.
2. The brevity of Langston Hughes's story makes it so powerful for a number of reasons. First, because the story is so compact, every paragraph is important and adds extra imput to the overall understanding and significance of the story. For example, the majority of paragraph fifteen is incredibly touching. It is the wrap-up paragraph to the story and Hughes closes it with a concise description of how he is feeling as well as a few of his family members, which make the reader truly sympathize with Hughes at this time. We are aware of his lies and disbelief of Jesus, and because Langston does not actually see Jesus, he loses all faith and believe in Jesus because Jesus did not come to save Hughes himself. Also, as a child things occur quicker and are not as drawn out and detailed. Therefore, because Hughes is a child in this particular story, he expresses the child's innocence and age with a short story. A longer version may have also made Hughes seem more mature for his age, which would have been misleading to the reader. The brevity of "Salvation" makes the story quite powerful.
2. In "Salvation," Hughes relives and recites the past in as little words and phrases as possible, making the story very short and brief. He does this so that the reader may relate to the young Langston. In a child's memory, most of the boring and uneventful periods of waiting are often forgotten or condensed into shorter periods, leaving more time for actual events. As a result, the reader can relate to Langston's racing mind, filled with confusion and skepticism. Had the story been more drawn out, the reader would have lost the effect of being in Hughes's shoes and actually living the moment just as he did many years ago. In addition, more drawn out means more wordy, and the readers would have been lost in paragraphs and paragraphs of uneventful recounts of the sitting boy. Thus, the feeling's effect would have been majorly dampened due to the wordiness of a longer version. A more condensed version shared a more realistic account of the young Hughes, and helped the readers relate more to the young child by displaying his memory as a kid might have remembered it.
Langston Hughes purposely writes a brief essay about attempting to enter into salvation for two main reasons: to show his juvenile side and to give the reader freedom to make his or her own assumptions about the situation. Since he is writing from the point of view of a twelve year old, his ideas are constantly confused. Even though he knows that he has not seen Jesus, he decided “that maybe to save further trouble, I’d [he’d] better lie, too, and say that Jesus had come, and get up and be saved” (par. 12). The essay tells the story in a straight forward way and fails to give much analysis of the situation. This forces the reader to think about his or her own perspective. The briefness of the essay clearly shows young, immature side of Hughes as well as giving the reader the choice to decide on his or her own views.
2. Hughes's story is told briefly to show how, in the eyes of the other church members, the revival was not such a memorable event. All of the children besides Hughes's either went to Jesus without giving it a second thought, or, in the case of Westley, lied without any feelings of guilt. The brevity of the story also reveals the irony of the situation. Coming to Jesus is supposed to be a landmark in a child's life, but to most of the children, the event seemed short and insignificant because they did not truly see Jesus and just went up to the altar because it was expected of them. Hughes is actually the most truthful and least sinful of the children because he is the only one that feels guilty about lying and submitting to the pressure of the other church members. Only for him was the event memorable, and in a twisted kind of way, by being truthful and not wanting to go up to the altar without really seeing Jesus, Hughes is the only child that really deserves to be "saved."
II. "Salvation" is as short as it is because that is the entire story. Anything else added on would have been unnecessary and distracting from the purpose of the story. His story takes place in a very short amount of time, so there would be no sense in trying to stretch it out into a longer story. Langston Hughes made "Salvation" so brief because his experience was brief. - Chase Cannon Wheatley
2. The brevity in Hughes’s essay “Salvation” is powerful because it places the reader in Hughes’s memory, allowing the reader to feel confused and anxious just like Hughes. By keeping it brief, the reader feels the vividness of the event, and can relate to how it is when one remembers something crystal clear because of the impact it had on that person’s emotions. Sitting alone of the bench, Hughes feels extremely perplexed, then when he finally stands up, he is swept to the alter, almost in a daze. Because he never really saw Jesus, it also shows Hughes’s thoughts of guilt and remorse. The condensed version makes his story very relatable to the audience. A longer passage would lose the effect of being in young Hughes’s mind because the audience would be caught up in the rest of the story rather than the moment of impact. Overall, the shortness of his essay allows the reader to connect more with the young Hughes, especially because he recalls the story as a kid would in child-like fashion.
In "Salvation," Langston Hughes tells his story very briefly in order to make his story more powerful. First, his brief story puts the reader more into the mindset of his twelve-year old self. Most twelve-year olds would likely not think of their salvation as that important of an event. Therefore, by making to story brief, Hughes makes the experience seem less significant and, thus, puts the reader in the mind of himself as a child. Furthermore, salvation is meant to be a defining moment in one's life. However, by making the story brief, Hughes suggests that this moment was actually not life-changing. Ironically, though Hughes is the most reluctant to go up to the platform and "be saved," he seems to be the most deserving. The other children go up to the platform because they're supposed to, such as Westley being saved because he's "tired o' sitting here" (204). However, though Hughes in the end goes up to be saved, he feels regret and recognizes his lying, since he did not see Jesus. A longer version of this story might have been less affecting because it would have made Hughes's salvation seem more significant. As a boy, his salvation could not have been that significant because Hughes did not feel that he was truly saved, and the brevity of his memory furthers this.
2. I think that Langston Hughes told the story briefly without going into a lot of detail because he wanted our powerful imagination to do a lot of the work. In "A Clack of Tiny Sparks", Cooper gave us as much detail as possible so we (the reader) can feel his situation as real as possible; however, Langston wanted this story to have a different effect. He never clearly describes the church, other than it was "hot [and] crowded" (para. 2). So it seems as if the church can be any church, even one that we may attend ourselves. By quickly going through the story, he lays a path that our imagination can follow, but he leaves the setting and destination of the path undefined. That way, we (the reader) can live the moment as ourselves in our imagination which would make the experience for us much more emotional than if we merely saw somebody else go through the same situation.
Langston Hughes tells his story very briefly to focus only on this scene of salvation. Rather than elaborately telling the story, where a reader's mind could wander and think about other things, Hughes just reveals his feelings and gets to the point without extending the scene and adding more detail. The brevity of the story also reflects how quickly Westley decides to just get up and be saved, how quickly Hughes decides to lie and just be saved, and also how quickly Hughes loses his faith in Jesus. --Steph
2. Hughes keeps his story brief to emphasize the fact that it's how a child would tell the story. Children don't tell very long stories, and even though he adds in well thought out commentary--it's still from a child's point of view and the brevity keeps that. I agree with Lauren in the sense that it lets the reader take in the story with extra thought, and I also agree with Chase because his situation was brief to a certain extent--it doesn't have much more to add in terms of complexity; yet it's so powerful because although you can almost hear the naivety in the reader's tone, the story line may be much more complex than the narrator felt at the time, but still establishes this sympathy that the reader feels for the narrator.
In "Salvation" it all comes down to emotion. The compact nature of the story means that the authors shifts from describing one emotion to another very quickly wihtout the slow transition of a more prolonged novel. The quick shift from eagerness to see Jesus and then bewilderment to guilt and then finally horrible regret for lying creates a more effective juxtaposition so his emotions come across alot stronger. If this were a much longer story then there would be a much longer description of the flow between these emotions and the quick comparison of the two would be lost, thereby dulling its power. -Kelsey
By keeping the essay short, Hughes not only keeps the readers at the same hastened pace he felt he was at during the "revival," but also makes sure that every detail has more significance. Hughes is rushed through his salvation so much so that he doesn't even have time to digest the circumstances, the details, and the very event itself. Rushing the narrative puts readers in his shoes, forcing to feel the same unease of rashness that he felt. Also, because the story runs so quickly, at the end readers go back to ponder the significance (or at least that's what I do) and discover that every detail adds on to the suspense and tension carried throughout the essay. Each detail, small as it may be, carries even more weight when the narrative is condensed. It's almost like poetry, as opposed to a novel. When you're dealing with such few words to express ideas or emotion, each word naturally has more significance because it has to operate on different levels, ideas, meanings, and emotions since space is too limited.
In "Salvation" Hughes is trying to show the first moment when he starts questioning what others tell him instead of readily believing everything. It is important for the story to be short because it is a small instance in his life that caused him to start questioning things and that he didn't need something big to happen for him to begin questioning what other people told him. Also, if the story were longer and full of details it would take the focus away from the simplicity of the event.
2. The brevity of Hughes's story serves to magnify the power of the single moment. If Hughes went on and on about the buildup and what happened afterward and everything else, we would begin to forget about the few moments that really mattered to the story. A longer version would have diluted the power of this one event.
Langston Hughes' "Salvation" is told very briefly in order to exemplify the power of the moment. Essentially, Hughes' wants to pinpoint an exact moment in his life. The entire essay, in essence, is leading up to and describing his "epiphany". Hughes' essentially learns a brutal and cold truth about life, and thus, he tells it to the reader in a short way (ignoring excess and flowerly language). He tells his version of the truth very bluntly as he bluntly was forced to deal with the fact that there is no Jesus.
R.B. Puri
P.S. Did anyone else get the feeling that we've read this before?
2. The briefness of the story puts greater emphasis on the point alone, whereas a longer story would have diluted the message. In "Salvation", since the tale is fairly brief, readers are more likely to remember every detail expressed. In this way, he makes the story much more memorable and absorptive to any individual. The conciseness of the remarks leaves only the base of the conversation to tell the story, yet this method works because his emotions become more tangible when the other specifics are simpler. A longer version might have had more detail about the appearance of the church and the other children, which would probably take away from the story being solely his emotions and his actions, rather than those of others. Since he was a child, a lack of subtleties is reasonable and gives the piece the feeling of being told from a younger perspective. With less description compared to narration, "Salvation" better conveys his frustration and sorrow in this period of his childhood.
2. Langston Hughes uses brevity because the conciseness makes it so the reader has less to look at and so that the reader can focus on the main point of the essay and nothing else. Hughes wants to make sure that whoever reads this essay knows the inner turmoil that he was dealing with and did not want to sugar coat anything with unnecessary details that would only weaken the intensity of his emotions. Because it is so short, the story can be simply understood and the reader can see everything that he goes through Hughes’s head. Really, there is no need to incorporate extraneous details when all that the reader needs to know is in the little snapshot provided by Hughes.
2. Hughes recognizes what's part of the story and what isn't. It's commendable that he opts out of using any excess details and just sticks to what's important. The story takes place over only a few hours, and so its length reflects the brevity of the story itself. The length of the story is also so short that it makes the reader surprised that there isn't anything more to tell, like Langston was surprised with his faith. He went through the motions in church only to find that "that was it." He listened to everyone hype up the experience of salvation, just like the reader experiences Hughes building up this story, only to disappear as quickly as it arrived, like his moment in the light.
2. The brevity of the story gives it more power because its gives the read no time to feel anything but sympathy for him. The reader can only truly connect with him in a quick snap shot in his life because most people seem to always collect and remember more in a quick narrative then a dragged out story. Also, Hughes wanted people to be thrown into the situation just as much as he was. He wants the reader to feel the pressure of trying to figure out what was going wrong. A long narrative would have given the reader to much time to make opinions for themselves and it would then lose its power and true meaning.
2) The briefness utilized by Langston Hughes has numerous positive effects on his story. First, the emphasis of the story is on an event, not the details of an event. The lack of detail not only "prunes" the slightly less interesting details from the story, but it shortens the distance between the beginning and end of the essay, thus not giving our thoughts about the stated events enough time to subside and thus encouraging them to overlap. In addition, Hughes is recovering memories from his childhood, a process that is usually quite vague and almost invariably results in a concise yield. The brevity of the essay fits the way in which it is told; it is conceivable (at least more so than had the essay been longer) that Hughes is telling us the story himself.
Langston Hughes' story is much more powerful and moving because of its brevity. The author simply writes about what happens to him and how he feels about it; he leaves the assumptions and the thoughts up to the reader. By not providing lengthy descriptions and lots of dialogue, Hughes makes the reader focus on that single point in the story when he cant see Jesus. The reader feels greater sympathy and emotion towards Hughes then.
30 comments:
2. Hughes's story is told very briefly because the brevity allows the reader to intake a certain amount of information before making assumptions of his own. A long and drowning story would defeat the purpose of Hughes's problems because if the story were to continue, then the audience would just think of it as another incident rather than a tragedy (as in Hughes's eyes). His guilt of him "really crying because [he] couldn't bear to tell [his aunt] that [he] had lied, that [he] had deceived everybody in the church" (par. 15). By condensing the story, the reader feels sympathy for Hughes and his situation, and a longer passage could have lost the effect.
--Lauren Taniguchi
2. Hughes's brevity makes the story more powerful because it concisely relates the feelings that he had during the "saving." The quickness conveys Hughes's sense of anxiety and deception. For him, everything is a confused blur as he is being hugged and pulled towards the platform. It also illustrates Hughes's feeling of guilt and deception because he had not really seen Jesus. A longer passage might have been less affecting because the audience could have been lost in the length and would not have related as well to Hughes. The audience would not have been as caught up in the action along with Hughes.
--Emily Liang
2. Langston Hughes's narrative aims to illustrate the first time any child realizes that a subject that they had such strong faith for is not real. He aims to show the audience the specific moment in which a child begins to question what he is taught. To do this, it is necessary for Hughes to make his experience a concise one. If his story were longer and more intricate, the reader would become lost in the elaborate backdrop on which Hughes sets up his story. In addition, Hughes wants his audience to feel the short amount of time that it took him to question faith, and Jesus. The moment in which Hughes's trust in those around him is destroyed occurs over a very short time period, and in order to depict that, Hughes shortens the original experience even more.
-Emily Ottke
:) happy weekend to everyone
Ps. Is it just me that is considering purchasing glasses for my obvious eyesight problem? I still have to do the word verification at least 5 times before I get it correctly.
2. Hughes recounts his "salvation" briefly in order to set his story parallel to his confusion at the time and to his eventual disbelief in God. The brevity of this narrative is similar to the memory and mindset of a child, in this case a twelve year old boy: children's memories are often disconnected and disjointed, much like how Hughes was feeling in the church. Hughes understood the concept of salvation (as explained by his aunt)--that God would forever be in him once he saw "a light, something happened" (par.2), but he didn't understand why others were "saved" when they obviously hadn't seen Jesus yet, such as Westley. A question remained in his mind while he was kneeling there: Why hadn't God come? This question leads Hughes to disbelieve in God; nothing happened even though God had a divine aura and omnipotence.
Derek Lee
2. Hughes keeps his story brief to prove to the reader that even a seemingly harmless event can be completely life altering. Drawing out the description of an entire day would cloud the message that Hughes is delivering: that this quick moment that was supposed to awaken his spirituality, ended up destroying his faith (although it may have only been temporarily). Making his story short puts emphasis on the fact that the length of an event doesn't matter, it's the significance of what takes place that leaves an impression on a person. Making the narrative short shows that what is being written about obviously took place in a small amount of time, but that even moments which, in comparison to the amount of time in a person's life, seem insignificant, they can actually be life-changing.
Shani Gilmour
2. The brevity of Langston Hughes's story makes it so powerful for a number of reasons. First, because the story is so compact, every paragraph is important and adds extra imput to the overall understanding and significance of the story. For example, the majority of paragraph fifteen is incredibly touching. It is the wrap-up paragraph to the story and Hughes closes it with a concise description of how he is feeling as well as a few of his family members, which make the reader truly sympathize with Hughes at this time. We are aware of his lies and disbelief of Jesus, and because Langston does not actually see Jesus, he loses all faith and believe in Jesus because Jesus did not come to save Hughes himself. Also, as a child things occur quicker and are not as drawn out and detailed. Therefore, because Hughes is a child in this particular story, he expresses the child's innocence and age with a short story. A longer version may have also made Hughes seem more mature for his age, which would have been misleading to the reader. The brevity of "Salvation" makes the story quite powerful.
2. In "Salvation," Hughes relives and recites the past in as little words and phrases as possible, making the story very short and brief. He does this so that the reader may relate to the young Langston. In a child's memory, most of the boring and uneventful periods of waiting are often forgotten or condensed into shorter periods, leaving more time for actual events. As a result, the reader can relate to Langston's racing mind, filled with confusion and skepticism. Had the story been more drawn out, the reader would have lost the effect of being in Hughes's shoes and actually living the moment just as he did many years ago. In addition, more drawn out means more wordy, and the readers would have been lost in paragraphs and paragraphs of uneventful recounts of the sitting boy. Thus, the feeling's effect would have been majorly dampened due to the wordiness of a longer version. A more condensed version shared a more realistic account of the young Hughes, and helped the readers relate more to the young child by displaying his memory as a kid might have remembered it.
Langston Hughes purposely writes a brief essay about attempting to enter into salvation for two main reasons: to show his juvenile side and to give the reader freedom to make his or her own assumptions about the situation. Since he is writing from the point of view of a twelve year old, his ideas are constantly confused. Even though he knows that he has not seen Jesus, he decided “that maybe to save further trouble, I’d [he’d] better lie, too, and say that Jesus had come, and get up and be saved” (par. 12). The essay tells the story in a straight forward way and fails to give much analysis of the situation. This forces the reader to think about his or her own perspective. The briefness of the essay clearly shows young, immature side of Hughes as well as giving the reader the choice to decide on his or her own views.
2. Hughes's story is told briefly to show how, in the eyes of the other church members, the revival was not such a memorable event. All of the children besides Hughes's either went to Jesus without giving it a second thought, or, in the case of Westley, lied without any feelings of guilt. The brevity of the story also reveals the irony of the situation. Coming to Jesus is supposed to be a landmark in a child's life, but to most of the children, the event seemed short and insignificant because they did not truly see Jesus and just went up to the altar because it was expected of them. Hughes is actually the most truthful and least sinful of the children because he is the only one that feels guilty about lying and submitting to the pressure of the other church members. Only for him was the event memorable, and in a twisted kind of way, by being truthful and not wanting to go up to the altar without really seeing Jesus, Hughes is the only child that really deserves to be "saved."
II. "Salvation" is as short as it is because that is the entire story. Anything else added on would have been unnecessary and distracting from the purpose of the story. His story takes place in a very short amount of time, so there would be no sense in trying to stretch it out into a longer story. Langston Hughes made "Salvation" so brief because his experience was brief.
- Chase Cannon Wheatley
2. The brevity in Hughes’s essay “Salvation” is powerful because it places the reader in
Hughes’s memory, allowing the reader to feel confused and anxious just like Hughes. By keeping it brief, the reader feels the vividness of the event, and can relate to how it is when one remembers something crystal clear because of the impact it had on that person’s emotions. Sitting alone of the bench, Hughes feels extremely perplexed, then when he finally stands up, he is swept to the alter, almost in a daze. Because he never really saw Jesus, it also shows Hughes’s thoughts of guilt and remorse. The condensed version makes his story very relatable to the audience. A longer passage would lose the effect of being in young Hughes’s mind because the audience would be caught up in the rest of the story rather than the moment of impact. Overall, the shortness of his essay allows the reader to connect more with the young Hughes, especially because he recalls the story as a kid would in child-like fashion.
In "Salvation," Langston Hughes tells his story very briefly in order to make his story more powerful. First, his brief story puts the reader more into the mindset of his twelve-year old self. Most twelve-year olds would likely not think of their salvation as that important of an event. Therefore, by making to story brief, Hughes makes the experience seem less significant and, thus, puts the reader in the mind of himself as a child. Furthermore, salvation is meant to be a defining moment in one's life. However, by making the story brief, Hughes suggests that this moment was actually not life-changing. Ironically, though Hughes is the most reluctant to go up to the platform and "be saved," he seems to be the most deserving. The other children go up to the platform because they're supposed to, such as Westley being saved because he's "tired o' sitting here" (204). However, though Hughes in the end goes up to be saved, he feels regret and recognizes his lying, since he did not see Jesus. A longer version of this story might have been less affecting because it would have made Hughes's salvation seem more significant. As a boy, his salvation could not have been that significant because Hughes did not feel that he was truly saved, and the brevity of his memory furthers this.
Audrey Virginia Proulx
2. I think that Langston Hughes told the story briefly without going into a lot of detail because he wanted our powerful imagination to do a lot of the work. In "A Clack of Tiny Sparks", Cooper gave us as much detail as possible so we (the reader) can feel his situation as real as possible; however, Langston wanted this story to have a different effect. He never clearly describes the church, other than it was "hot [and] crowded" (para. 2). So it seems as if the church can be any church, even one that we may attend ourselves. By quickly going through the story, he lays a path that our imagination can follow, but he leaves the setting and destination of the path undefined. That way, we (the reader) can live the moment as ourselves in our imagination which would make the experience for us much more emotional than if we merely saw somebody else go through the same situation.
-Alan Tuan
Langston Hughes tells his story very briefly to focus only on this scene of salvation. Rather than elaborately telling the story, where a reader's mind could wander and think about other things, Hughes just reveals his feelings and gets to the point without extending the scene and adding more detail. The brevity of the story also reflects how quickly Westley decides to just get up and be saved, how quickly Hughes decides to lie and just be saved, and also how quickly Hughes loses his faith in Jesus.
--Steph
2. Hughes keeps his story brief to emphasize the fact that it's how a child would tell the story. Children don't tell very long stories, and even though he adds in well thought out commentary--it's still from a child's point of view and the brevity keeps that. I agree with Lauren in the sense that it lets the reader take in the story with extra thought, and I also agree with Chase because his situation was brief to a certain extent--it doesn't have much more to add in terms of complexity; yet it's so powerful because although you can almost hear the naivety in the reader's tone, the story line may be much more complex than the narrator felt at the time, but still establishes this sympathy that the reader feels for the narrator.
Oops, forgot to sign my name
--shayma
In "Salvation" it all comes down to emotion. The compact nature of the story means that the authors shifts from describing one emotion to another very quickly wihtout the slow transition of a more prolonged novel. The quick shift from eagerness to see Jesus and then bewilderment to guilt and then finally horrible regret for lying creates a more effective juxtaposition so his emotions come across alot stronger. If this were a much longer story then there would be a much longer description of the flow between these emotions and the quick comparison of the two would be lost, thereby dulling its power.
-Kelsey
By keeping the essay short, Hughes not only keeps the readers at the same hastened pace he felt he was at during the "revival," but also makes sure that every detail has more significance. Hughes is rushed through his salvation so much so that he doesn't even have time to digest the circumstances, the details, and the very event itself. Rushing the narrative puts readers in his shoes, forcing to feel the same unease of rashness that he felt. Also, because the story runs so quickly, at the end readers go back to ponder the significance (or at least that's what I do) and discover that every detail adds on to the suspense and tension carried throughout the essay. Each detail, small as it may be, carries even more weight when the narrative is condensed. It's almost like poetry, as opposed to a novel. When you're dealing with such few words to express ideas or emotion, each word naturally has more significance because it has to operate on different levels, ideas, meanings, and emotions since space is too limited.
Sarina Bhandari
In "Salvation" Hughes is trying to show the first moment when he starts questioning what others tell him instead of readily believing everything. It is important for the story to be short because it is a small instance in his life that caused him to start questioning things and that he didn't need something big to happen for him to begin questioning what other people told him. Also, if the story were longer and full of details it would take the focus away from the simplicity of the event.
2. The brevity of Hughes's story serves to magnify the power of the single moment. If Hughes went on and on about the buildup and what happened afterward and everything else, we would begin to forget about the few moments that really mattered to the story. A longer version would have diluted the power of this one event.
Langston Hughes' "Salvation" is told very briefly in order to exemplify the power of the moment. Essentially, Hughes' wants to pinpoint an exact moment in his life. The entire essay, in essence, is leading up to and describing his "epiphany". Hughes' essentially learns a brutal and cold truth about life, and thus, he tells it to the reader in a short way (ignoring excess and flowerly language). He tells his version of the truth very bluntly as he bluntly was forced to deal with the fact that there is no Jesus.
R.B. Puri
P.S. Did anyone else get the feeling that we've read this before?
2. The briefness of the story puts greater emphasis on the point alone, whereas a longer story would have diluted the message. In "Salvation", since the tale is fairly brief, readers are more likely to remember every detail expressed. In this way, he makes the story much more memorable and absorptive to any individual. The conciseness of the remarks leaves only the base of the conversation to tell the story, yet this method works because his emotions become more tangible when the other specifics are simpler. A longer version might have had more detail about the appearance of the church and the other children, which would probably take away from the story being solely his emotions and his actions, rather than those of others. Since he was a child, a lack of subtleties is reasonable and gives the piece the feeling of being told from a younger perspective. With less description compared to narration, "Salvation" better conveys his frustration and sorrow in this period of his childhood.
2. Langston Hughes uses brevity because the conciseness makes it so the reader has less to look at and so that the reader can focus on the main point of the essay and nothing else. Hughes wants to make sure that whoever reads this essay knows the inner turmoil that he was dealing with and did not want to sugar coat anything with unnecessary details that would only weaken the intensity of his emotions. Because it is so short, the story can be simply understood and the reader can see everything that he goes through Hughes’s head. Really, there is no need to incorporate extraneous details when all that the reader needs to know is in the little snapshot provided by Hughes.
2. Hughes recognizes what's part of the story and what isn't. It's commendable that he opts out of using any excess details and just sticks to what's important. The story takes place over only a few hours, and so its length reflects the brevity of the story itself. The length of the story is also so short that it makes the reader surprised that there isn't anything more to tell, like Langston was surprised with his faith. He went through the motions in church only to find that "that was it." He listened to everyone hype up the experience of salvation, just like the reader experiences Hughes building up this story, only to disappear as quickly as it arrived, like his moment in the light.
2. The brevity of the story gives it more power because its gives the read no time to feel anything but sympathy for him. The reader can only truly connect with him in a quick snap shot in his life because most people seem to always collect and remember more in a quick narrative then a dragged out story. Also, Hughes wanted people to be thrown into the situation just as much as he was. He wants the reader to feel the pressure of trying to figure out what was going wrong. A long narrative would have given the reader to much time to make opinions for themselves and it would then lose its power and true meaning.
Matt
2) The briefness utilized by Langston Hughes has numerous positive effects on his story. First, the emphasis of the story is on an event, not the details of an event. The lack of detail not only "prunes" the slightly less interesting details from the story, but it shortens the distance between the beginning and end of the essay, thus not giving our thoughts about the stated events enough time to subside and thus encouraging them to overlap. In addition, Hughes is recovering memories from his childhood, a process that is usually quite vague and almost invariably results in a concise yield. The brevity of the essay fits the way in which it is told; it is conceivable (at least more so than had the essay been longer) that Hughes is telling us the story himself.
Langston Hughes' story is much more powerful and moving because of its brevity. The author simply writes about what happens to him and how he feels about it; he leaves the assumptions and the thoughts up to the reader. By not providing lengthy descriptions and lots of dialogue, Hughes makes the reader focus on that single point in the story when he cant see Jesus. The reader feels greater sympathy and emotion towards Hughes then.
-Carole
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