Salvation by Langston Hughes

"Salvation" by Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes' short story "Salvation" is a good example of four critical strategies used in writing: formalist criticism, reader-response criticism, historical criticism, and gender criticism.

Formalist criticism places the emphasis on literature being an independent creation. That is the work, when read and studied should be taken as a single unit, not compared to the writer's life or a certain period in time. "Salvation" is not a story that would fall into a formalist critical strategy. In ways this story is the exact opposite. Langston Hughes opens the story with a specific period of time, "I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen," (Hughes, pg 351).

The story opens with an introduction into his life, the author's experience being saved from sin.

Reader-response criticism is the implication that the work is written by the author but the meaning or interpretation is developed by the reader. Langston Hughes leaves room for reader interpretation in "Salvation" with several references and phrases. One example are the phrases, "waiting for Jesus to come to me," (Hughes, pg 351) and "Still I kept waiting to see Jesus" (Hughes, pg 351). The reader is left asking the questions, "Does he know at this young age that Jesus is a spirit not a man?" and then as the reader encounters the second phrase it is apparent that young Langston is looking for a physical man to appear. The description of the old women with "jet-black" faces and the old men with "work-gnarled" hands was a classic presentation of the African American people from the slave and post-slave era. It is the connection to the sun darkening the skin as they picked cotton and the hands that had to slave and work to provide for his family. These phrases and others support this piece of work being critiqued as a historical piece of literature.

Historical criticism is when the work is studied from a historical standpoint, looking at what time and place in history it occurred, and most importantly the era. Several times on page 351, Langston Hughes mentions the mourners' bench. This is an item that was definitely used back in the older churches. Today, church goers generally sit on pews or benches. Langston Hughes was born in 1902, so almost thirteen, puts this event around 1914 or 1915. Slavery was abolished in 1865, meaning the old men and women in the church were former slaves. The religion, spirituality, and superstition believed and practices were at times considered extreme. Considering the amount of time young Langston and Wesley sat there is an example, which Wesley remarked when he said, "I'm tired o' sitting here. Let's get up and be saved," (Hughes, pg 351).

One part of the story that I feel gender