Comparing Superman And Me By Sherman Alexie And Salvation By Langston Hughes

Reading another’s life experiences is like accidentally picking up a stranger’s coffee at Starbucks. It’s unexpected and perhaps delightful experiencing and tasting another’s caffeinated concoction. In the case of my memoir, it was bland coffee so I spat it out and asked for a new drink. However, receiving sips of my peers’ selected memoirs was eye-opening and exhilarating, almost like drinking a pumpkin spice latte for the first time. It was so entertaining and engaging that I plan on ordering some of my peer’s choice of coffee (and read a few of the memoirs my peers presented).

'Salvation', by Langston Hughes is part of an autobiographical work written in 1940. The author narrates a story centering on a revival gathering that happened in his childhood. During the days leading up to the event, Hughes' aunt tells him repeatedly that he will be 'saved', stressing that he will see a light and Jesus will come into his life. He attends the meeting but when Jesus fails to appear, he is forced by peer pressure to lie and go up and be 'saved'. Hughes uses his story to illustrate how easy it is for children to misinterpret adults and subsequently become disillusioned.

While Alexie states his voice by using metaphor, he emphasizes the meaning of reading repeatedly in his essay. He stresses how he strives to read variety of books, and he records that,” I read the books my father brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes… I read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs” (18). Alexie lists out all the material he has read with the same sentence structure, yet he does not conclude all these things in one sentence. He exemplifies his passion to reading, for he tries to save his life. Due to his parallel repetition, Alexie impresses the audience by these

Throughout this essay, Alexie uses an extended analogy. Alexie’s analogies help the reader understand the purpose of a paragraph. He realized that “a paragraph was a fence that held words. The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose.” He compares a paragraph with a fence which brings clarity to his understanding of a paragraph. From this understanding, he began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs. For example, “Our reservation was a small paragraph within the United States. My family’s house was a paragraph, distinct from the other paragraphs of Labrets to the north, the Fords to our south and the Tribal School to the west.” He uses this idea that each paragraph is an identity and inside those identities are smaller ones. Alexie even says that his family is like a seven-paragraph essay, each different but linked by genetics and common experiences. This allusion allows the audience to see Alexie’s point of view on the world.

Langston Hughes’ short essay, “Salvation,” is a controversial yet interesting story that brings many conflicts between people in society. He discusses his personal point of view about his religious experience. Although religion has impacted many people throughout the years, it is still an extremely debatable topic. Many people believe that if you go to church you’ll be good for the rest of your life and just because you convince them as kid to behave a certain way, it will stop them from making poor choices, but it does not always work that way. Religion has historically been a problem for so long; it has divided humanity in so many ways. This story represents how much religion can use fear to gain power, but it also brings a sense of hope

Langston Hughes wrote a poem that some believe is in response to a poem Walt Whitman made. Walt Whitman’s poem “I hear America Singing” is basically a description of the people who made up America at the time. The mothers, the carpenters, the masons, the shoemakers, the wood cutters, etc, were all the different types of people that made up what America, said of the poem. With Langston Hughes's poem “I, Too, Sing America”, the poem is making a sort of claim that Hughes’s and blacks alike also have a right to feel patriotic towards and be a part of America. Both poems are pretty similar to what they’re subject is (America), but they are quite different when it comes to what exactly the two poems are mainly focusing on.

In most people's lives, there comes a point in time where their perception changes abruptly; a single moment in their life when they come to a sudden realization. In Langston Hughes' "Salvation", contrary to all expectations, a young Hughes is not saved by Jesus, but is saved from his own innocence.

As he grew up to become a writer, we see pain in the story he tells. “I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life” (pg.18). Alexie wanted to be someone greater than what others expected him to be. People would put him down constantly, but he fought back just as much. He tried to save himself from the stereotypes of being just another dumb Indian. He had more determination to prove others wrong when it came too exceeding in reading to further excel in his daily life.

Salvation is defined as the deliverance from sin and its consequences. In a Christianity sense, salvation is when a person accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior, and they believe the fact that he died for the sins of Christians. The term of salvation is often referred to as being “saved”. Salvation is when one delivers not only their body in a physical to the church and God, but it is also a committee to Jesus mentally and spiritually. Getting saved can be a very pressuring and life changing decision. That is sometimes forced upon young adolescents. Ultimately it can cause one to question their spiritually sometimes even damaging their belief in Jesus. In Langston Hughes’

What provokes a person to write about his or her life? What motivates us to read it? Moreover, do men and women tell their life story in the same way? The answers may vary depending on the person who answers the questions. However, one may suggest a reader elects to read an autobiography because there is an interest. This interest allows the reader to draw from the narrator's experience and to gain understanding from the experience. When the reader involves him/herself in the experience, the reader encounters what is known and felt by the narrator. The encounter may provide the reader an opportunity to explore a

“Salvation” is a wonderful narrative by Langston Hughes explaining his first time attending church. The story is portrayed in both a book and film version. Both versions do their jobs by explaining how Langston felt when he falsely claimed he was saved by Christ. Each version has different strengths and weaknesses, but the book is dull compared to the film. The film gives a better insight into Langston’s life;therefore, the film version is superior to the book.

Black and white, old and young. Opposite, yet so alike. Similarities and differences determine the grouping of people and objects. From racial segregation in the 20s, genocide in the 40s, and slavery over hundreds of years, this separation and comparison can be seen all throughout history. Much of the information and records about such events in history originated from literature such as diaries overflowing with the emotions and thoughts of those living through the events. The diction in the poems “Cross” by Langston Hughes, “35/10” by Sharon Olds, and “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop develops the author's purpose of emphasizing the differences between two groups.

When reading literature, the reader expects to be transported into a world of compelling stories and equally transfixing characters. Literature means, to many people, artistic writing in the form or language, voice, structure, and development. These ‘literary’ aspects are things that people expect when reading a novel, but they often expect it significantly less when reading a nonfiction piece. This is due to these biases that people bring into reading autobiographies and memoirs, nonfiction is often not seen, even by literary experts, as being literary, despite the fact that life narratives often consist of fascinating stories with equally captivating characters in many similar, if not identical, ways to the ways in which fiction does. By

To analyze, Langston most likely wrote this autobiography to express a significant event that happened in his childhood, and used his writing skills to vent and admit his beliefs and virtues; being that he doesn’t believe there is a god after that occurrence. Langston might not of had the opportunity to confess

At a young age Alexie came across to comic books, and at three he started to read them. Although, Alexie came from a poor indian family, he was always surrounded by his father’s books. In which as a result, he started to learn a lot about reading and writing. Personally, I think it’s amazing that his background, economic status and age didn’t push him back from doing what he enjoyed. The importance that Alexie had in paragraphs is wonderful, the way how he connected them to fences, and that everyone and everywhere has their own paragraph. Over all, I think Alexie is an individual that doesn’t hold back from showing who he really is, for example when he was the only one in his classroom who didn’t hide his knowledge. Because all of his indian