Why Did Langston Hughes Want To Be Saved?

Hughes started crying at the end of the story because he lied to everyone in the church, saying that he had seen Jesus and he had been saved. Hughes was the last “young lamb” on the mourners’ bench, waiting to be saved from sin. He was told many things would happen to him and that he could hear and feel himself being saved by Jesus. When he was kneeling on the mourners’ bench, his mind and soul was blank, and he felt nothing.

Hughes was not really ready to be saved. Throughout the narrative excerpt, Hughes never states that he wants to be saved. The elders in his community are telling him what being saved is like, however, they do not know what he really wants. Possibly, Jesus did not come to him because he knew that Hughes was not ready to