Porky Pig
SAMPLE JOURNAL
Journal #1
“Salvation” by Langston Hughes
14 September 2011
Coming to Jesus
Hughes in his short work entitled “Salvation” creates a past experience of a true to life drama
of guilt, deception, and grief. He recounts in narrative form his childhood experiences of being
“saved” and later the bitter disappointment he felt in himself for lying about this new found faith.
He only responds to the invitation to “come to Jesus” at the urging of his friend Westley who
had already done so and his own growing impatience of being the last on the “mourner’s bench”
not to have seen Jesus. He lies in an attempt to speed things along and delude all into thinking he
had indeed had a conversion experience. The language or word choices Hughes uses is
particularly rich in this story. Hughes uses many church phrases like “seeing Jesus,” the Holy
Ghost had come into my life, and because I had seen Jesus” and “a see of shouting.” The story
seems to hinge on the incidents surrounding the boy at the time of his supposed salvation. Was
he “saved”? The climax came as the boy reveals while laying in his bed considering the events
that transpired that he in fact was a fraud-- for he had lied about his salvation. For a young boy
he had the hard pill of shame and guilt to swallow for beguiling his aunt and uncle, who thought
he was crying for joy over his new-found faith. The story really specks of outside pressures on a
boy who wants to please himself as well as well as those around him. He does not know why he
can not see Jesus while on the pew, but due to his immaturity, he succumbs to the pressure around
him and says he too “saw Jesus” when in fact, he had not.. When the boy considers his
deception, he is deeply grieved and disappointed in himself. This is a story of a boy who fails
himself and his family and when he comes to that understanding it causes him deep conflict and
pain. This character has a real initiation into life.