Use of Fantasy in Langston Hughess On the Road Essay -- On The Road e

Use of Fantasy in Langston Hughess On the RoadLangston Hughess short story On the Road begins and ends realistically enough his protagonist, Sargeant, bring downs a strange town one winters night during the Depression and finds himself without shelter, as many did during this era. Hughes gives Sargeant the additional burden of being an African-American in the white part of town therefore, he faces the perfectly plausible obstacles of shelters that drew the color line and racist police officers who beat and imprison him. But despite the realistic beginning and ending of the story, Hughes places an elaborate magic segment involving Sargeant talking to a stone Christ who has broken off the cross in the storys middle. Hughes uses this fantasy segment to condemn the hypocrisy of many alleged(prenominal) Christians. That the towns Christians are hypocrites is established by Hughes before the fantasy sequence. Hughes foreshadows the Sargeant-Christ conversation by having the townspeople reacting in a very un-Christian, racist manner to Sargeants desire to enter t...