Langston Hughes wrote two kinds of conflict, man vs. man and man vs. society. We see the man vs. man conflict mostly through interior thought, “So I decided that maybe to save further trouble, I’d better lie, too….” Throughout the story he was confronted by the people in the Church to see Jesus and be saved, however he couldn’t see Jesus. The actual scene may have been less than a minute long, but that was enough time to see the internal struggle with this dilemma. He was confused on why he wasn’t able to see Jesus and why the other children in the church did. He got more confused when Westley, the last person besides him who was sitting down, told him, “I’m tired o’sitting here. Let’s get up and be saved.” The internal conflict was him lying to himself to please others.
The more visual conflict was man vs. society. During his internal struggles, he had to face with the external conflicts of the church congregation singing and moaning to him. The minister directed his attention to him, “Why don’t you come? My dear child, why don’t you come to Jesus?” His aunt sobbed and cried to him to see jesus. He wrote a powerful image displaying emotions that was around him and his inner struggle of coping with the whole thing.
I did find it peculiar though that his decision was based on time then the things that were going on around him and not being saved, “Now it was really getting late. I began to began to be ashamed of myself, holding everything up so long.” He went through all of this as a kid and it was very fitting that his decision was based like a child.
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