How Does Langston Hughes Create Suspense In Salvation

In Langston Hughes’ “Salvation”, he demonstrates a technique of generating suspense, plotting and pacing the narrative, and reveals a significant personal event his in life and how the event taught him an important lesson.
Hughes starts the narrative off capturing the reader’s attention by directly stating what his narrative is about, him being “saved”; then creating suspense by stating that he was “not really saved.” Hughes uses this technique to get the readers thinking about what he means. He goes on to further explain how the event began. He starts off by telling the reader the basics of the event; how his Auntie Reed took him to church and there was a “special meeting” at the end of revival for the children. Hughes continues to create suspense by using certain words like “special” to emphasize the significant event. He then goes on to talk about how the preacher began to sing and some of the children got up instantly and how most of them continued to sit there; he was one of them. After a while, he and this other little boy, Westly, were the last two still sitting on the bench; but then Westly gets up and gets saved, leaving Hughes all by himself. He says his Auntie Reed and the whole congregation began to pray for him; this makes you wonder if he is going to get up. The preacher continued to sign and talked to young Hughes; asking him “why don’t you come and be saved?”. Hughes
Writing at a steady pace kept the narrative interesting. He did not rush into talking about the climax of this event. Not only does he pace his narrative, but he plots it as well. Everything is going along fine until the problem arises, he feels the pressure to get up like the rest of the children even though he did not see Jesus, and it leads him to feel bad about lying to his aunt and the congregation. Due to this, it leads us to further understand why this was such a significant moment in his