English Narrative Test – Flashcards
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The author, Langston, narrates the story, it is told from a first person point of view and as if the event is taking place at this moment. It is as if we are there when this event took place.
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Salvation: Who narrates the story? From what point in time is it told?
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He expects to see a light, symbolizing Jesus, and something to happen to him on the inside. He is expecting Jesus to come into his life, literally. He believes that he will be able to see and hear and feel Jesus inside his soul. But in reality nothing happens to him, he sits there on the bench and feels no sensations.
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Salvation: What does the narrator expect to happen when he is saved? What does happen?
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He cried because he couldn't bear to tell his Aunt that he had lied, that he had deceived everybody in the church, that he hadn't seen Jesus, and that now he didn't believe in Jesus.
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Salvation: Why does the narrator cry at the end of the story?
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When it first happened he was devastated, and at the time he wrote this selection the event was still painful but he accepts that it happens and has moved on. The first sentence says that he was saved, but not really, and this reflects that change in attitude because in the sentence he is not really upset that he was not "saved" thus he has moved on from that dramatic childhood experience.
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Salvation: What was Hughes's attitude toward his experience when it first happened? At the time he originally wrote this selection? How does the opening sentence reflect that change in attitude?
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Salvation: Why did Hughes not tell the story in the present tense? How would doing so change the story?
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Salvation: How much dialogue is used in the narration? Why does Hughes not use more?
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Salvation: Why does Hughes blend telling with showing in the story?
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Salvation: How much time is represented by the events in the story? Where does Hughes compress the time in his narrative? Why does he do so?
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The effect of using child-like sentence structure is to fit the theme of "being in the past". Since the essay is a flashback of Hughes's revival that happened to him two decades prior, Hughes wanted to set the tone and mood to fit the time for better understanding and comprehension of his feelings during that time and the effects they had on him before and after. The sentence structure of an adolescent child only adds onto the effect of setting the scene of being a twelve-year-old boy in anxious arrival of an icon. The effect of the short sentences and the beginnings of the sentences with the word And, emphasize the idea of this being a child. This allows the reader to truly feel as if a child were telling the story, which would take the reader back to that time that event took place. Overall, this adds to the credibility that the story is in fact that of a confused and vulnerable child.
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Salvation: What is the effect of the short paragraphs? How does Hughes use paragraphing to help shape his story?
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Salvation: How much description does Hughes include in his narrative? What types of details does he single out?
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Salvation: What is the effect of the exclamation marks used in paragraph 2?
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Salvation: Try to identify or explain the following phrases: the ninety and one safe in the fold, the lower lights are burning, a rounder's son, and knickerbockered legs.
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people who have experience disappointment, not just religious disappointment
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Salvation: Audience?
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to recreate a traumatic experience from his childhood. His purpose was not just to express his feelings prompted by a significant event. His purpose was to expose that he finally came to terms with himself, his uncertainty, and his religion through all the doubt and pain two years prior.
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Salvation: Purpose?
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informal (he uses short sentences and contractions, first person, colloquial language such as see the light which is slang)
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Salvation: tone?
