Salvation: The Power of Personal Essay to Explore Disillusion
Good story telling is an art. The story teller has to relate to the reader, and build a relationship with him/her in order to create a great essay that makes a good point and touches the reader emotionally. In The Art of the Personal Essay, Phillip Lopate gives instruction on ways that a writer can create a good essay, which does those things. He specifically gives examples of, or introduces strategies like: relating to the reader, entering into dialogue between characters, and being honest, among others. These can all be seen in “Salvation,” by Langston Hughes. Hughes’s short story tells the reader about the speaker’s introduction into the Christian faith. The author goes forward seeking the “light” and a “savior” but instead only loses what little big of a relationship he had with Christ, because he does not receive the salvation he expected. The author's main argument is that salvation is not as his aunt described it to him, in that he seeks physical, and not spiritual salvation, and is so disappointed in salvation when it is not like he thought it would be. This is evoked through the personal essay, according to the strategies described by Lopate.
The first major feature of a personal essay, which is used in the Hughes text, is the development of a private relationship with the reader. By creating a kind of secrecy and a sense of familiarity between the reader and the speaker in the text, Hughes is able to increase the reader’s investment in the character’s emotional experience. This is specifically accomplished according to Lopate, by drawing the reader into thoughts, memories, and desires. Lopate states: “The hallmark of the personal essay is its intimacy. The writer seems to be speaking directly into your ear, confiding everything from gossip to wisdom” (1). In the case of “Salvation” it is clear that the speaker has a strong desire to experience his faith in a physical way. For example, he states “I kept waiting to see Jesus,” and “I wanted something to happen to me” (Hughes, 1). Sharing these incidences, and the thoughts that are related to them, helps the speaker project the sense of anticipation, and of seeking that accompanied his desire to physically experience Christ. The way that salvation had been described to him involved being physically joined by Jesus, and seeing him as a physical, not an emotional, manifestation. As such, it is logical that he anticipated that Christ would have the power to physically redeem him as well, as a result of his faithfulness. This sharing of his anticipation and his desire opens the reader up to the speaker, and provides a foundation for the personal relationship, or the sense of intimacy that is described by Lopate. We know what the congregation does not, that he is looking for a physical sign from Jesus, waiting for it, because of their specific description of what “seeing the light” was like (Hughes 1).
Hughes also uses dialogue effectively as described by Lopate. Lopate cites critic Stuart Hampshire, who states that “It is natural to enter into dialogues and disputes with others” (Lopate 2). He also notes that even when a writer “takes himself as his subject,” as is the nature of a personal essay that it is important to use dialogue, and introduce conversation between characters (3). This “places objections in the mouth of the reader” which gives the text greater balance, and also works to further establish the “intimacy with the audience” that we already established as the basis, or hallmark, of the personal essay genre (Lapote 3). Hughes dies this extremely effectively, and it does, as described by Laopte, give the counter arguments in the story, and increase the tension, or pressure that the speaker feels. It is clear that the speaker goes forward to be saved because of pressure from the older members of the congregation. The reader gets to experience the rising tension that happens as a result of this pressure almost entirely through dialogue. Hughes wrote:
I heard the songs and the minister saying: ‘Why don't you come? My dear child, why don't you come to Jesus? Jesus is waiting for you. He wants you. Why don't you come? Sister Reed, what is this child's name?’‘Langston,’ my aunt sobbed.‘Langston, why don't you come? Why don't you come and be saved? Oh, Lamb of God! Why don't you come?’. (2)
This writing has a strong emotional effect on the reader just like it does on the main character in the story. The repetitiveness of the language, and he use of multiple speakers adding pressure, or encouraging the main character to go forward demonstrates the pressure. It also increases the intimacy between the reader and the main character because the reader is experiencing the increase of pressure along with the character. It also makes clear the position of the “opposition” as described by Lapote. It is clear that the opposition, or the members of the congregation strongly believe that it is time of the main character to be saved. They are pressuring him into accepting Jesus, in spite of his own beliefs. Understanding this tension or opposition is very important, as it sets the stage for another major writing strategy described by Lapote.
It is this tension that creates an opportunity for honesty, which Lapote claims is another major feature, or significant writing strategy for creating a strong personal essay, and for creating a sense of intimacy for the reader. Honesty is essentially creating a moment that only the reader and the main character totally know about or understand. Lapote writes that after “the writer has caught the readers attention in a conversational manner” which we have described above, that the “essayist must make good on it by delivering or discovering as much honesty as possible” (3). This is first visible in Hughes ability to share a secret with the reader, when he says:
Now it was really getting late. I began to be ashamed of myself, holding everything up so long. I began to wonder what God thought about Westley, who certainly hadn't seen Jesus either, but who was now sitting proudly on the platform, swinging his knickerbockered legs and grinning down at me, surrounded by deacons and old women on their knees praying. God had not struck Westley dead for taking his name in vain or for lying in the temple. So I decided that maybe to save further trouble, I'd better lie, too, and say that Jesus had come, and get up and be saved. ( Hughes 2).
This passage is so important because it both becomes emotionally honest, in his description of how he is feeling and his admittance to being ashamed, and it his confession that he lied. These are both huge moments of honesty that drive forward the major revelation, or turning point that resolves the story as a whole. His honesty takes down any barrier that remained between the reader and the writer, and aligns them in a dark secret. In some ways it makes the reader an accomplice in his lie, and a sympathizer to his situation. It also prepares the reader for the most intimate, candid moment of the text, which is full of emotional weight and honesty, in the last passage of the essay when he reveals that he not only lied, but he lost all faith “now I didn't believe there was a Jesus anymore, since he didn't come to help me.” (Hughes 3). This is the major moment of the essay, when the whole point of telling it is revealed, because we understand what he was really expecting from Jesus, and how he believes Jesus failed him. He was looking for a physical savior to rescue him, and instead received not even a sign, and he is crushed as a result. However, were it not for the writer’s honesty that would not be known, and if he had not built the intimate relationship with the reader, the reader would not empathize with his loss in a meaningful way.
Works Cited :
Hughes, Langston. “Salvation” Available online at : ENTER WEBSITE YOU USED
Lopate, Phillip. The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. New York: Anchor, 1994. Print.
