The Intro
As my index finger swiped the kindle screen to the left, my eyes were greeted by the Akan proverb: “The family is like the forest: if you are outside it is dense; if you are inside you see that each tree has its own position.” Family. Does it begin with our nuclear unit: the mother who bore us, the father who provided for us, and the siblings who played with us? Or does it start like a forest– the solitary tree whose seeds the wind scatters about the fertile ground? In Gyasi’s novel Homegoing it is the latter, and the latter was shaped by the former although neither had properly met.
The Retell
Maame was the solitary tree. From that tree two seeds were sown, Effia and Esi, two daughters. Unfortunately, the two daughters never met. Esi, who grew up with Maame having raised her, became an enslaved person. As a reader, we follow her journey from her native land of Ghana to the United States. Gyasi paints vivid pictures of the atrocities of the transatlantic slave trade. My heart broke for Esi and the other enslaved persons who traveled with her. I wept for the child who died of starvation on a slave ship. I gagged at the description of the scents and sensations on that ship. From the United States forward we follow Esi’s family line, and the struggles that accompanied her descendants.
Meanwhile, back in Ghana, Effia is married off to a white colonist and lives in a castle. We follow Effia’s family line: from the castle to a humble village, from a humble village to exile, from exile to immigration to the United States (not as a slave, but as an educator), and from the United States back to Ghana. Each chapter in Gyasi’s novel serves as a vignette about one member from Maame’s family line.
The Analysis
At first, I thought that this would be too many characters to keep track of, but as I continued reading I realized I didn’t feel like there were too many characters; in fact, I felt like there were too few pages! I simultaneously wanted more because I was invested in the characters, and felt guilty for wanting more because the characters’ lives were so miserable. Admittedly, I had to follow up reading this book with something less heavy, but nevertheless I would recommend it.
The motifs I picked up on were: fire, home, duality, loss, and rebirth. Fire appears multiple times in the text. Maame sets a fire, which we learn was actually meant to serve as a distraction to facilitate her return to her native village (from which she had been taken). This incidentally is the first example of returning home that I picked up on. Maame did leave a piece of her behind, the first loss, her daughter Effia. Effia is left in the hands of an evil woman known as Baaba. Baaba raises Effia, if you can call constant abuse and scheming to dispose of Effia raising a child. To balance out Baaba’s wickedness there’s Cobbe’s pleasantness, Cobbe is Effia’s father. Effia isn’t the only daughter tormented by wickedness. Esi lived a charmed life up until a warring tribe attacked her village to rescue the girl Esi’s family had taken as their slave (Abronoma). The rival tribe rescued Abronoma and enslaved Esi.
Duality is woven throughout the book. First by the two sisters separated by circumstance. Second, in the identical pair of precious stones that Maame left each daughter–which incidentally takes on more meaning with the progression of the story. Namely, the stones and their whereabouts reflect the characters’ journeys. Next, we observe duality in Effia’s child, Quey. Quey is the result of the union between Effia and a white colonist named James. Quey struggles primarily stem from his sexual orientation (which gets him shipped off to England). Upon returning, Quey marries a Ghanaian highborn woman– who was stolen from her home to form a political marriage against her will. Quey’s son James is tormented by his families’ ties to the slave trade, and fakes his own death to live a life of his choosing in a remote village. James’ daughter, Abena, grapples with the dual sense of belonging/not belonging to her village. Her neighbors believe her family to be accursed. Additionally, Abena is in a holding pattern of an engagement with her longtime friend (Ohene Nyarko). Once Abena is with child, she decides to leave her village and live elsewhere. Abena gives birth to a girl named Akua (who is also troubled by fire). Abena dies, from a botched baptism against her will, and the missionary who killed her raises Akua (in the you’re a heathen, repent for your sins kind of way). Akua is an innocent child, but she is perceived to be wicked because she was born out of wedlock. Akua’s life is an exercise in B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning. Akua constantly being hit by a missionary and being told she’s bad, while hearing from fellow Ghanaians that the missionary is bad, leads her to inaction when a mob burns another missionary alive (return of the fire motif).
Rebirth presents itself differently for each character in Maame’s family line. A few examples include: James, Abena, H, Willie, Carson (a.k.a. Sonny), Yaw, and Marjorie and Marcus. James disassociates with the Collins’ (white colonist) side of his family to become a man of no name in a remote village. Abena leaves her village out of a combination of shame stemming from a never ending engagement, her fellow villagers’ perception of her, and wanting to give her unborn baby a chance at a life where it will be accepted. Abena is also baptized against her will, and baptism is a symbol of rebirth into a life in Christ. H was a freeman in utero when he and his mother are removed from the security of their home (I’d characterize my memory as a bit porous here). As an adult H is jailed, sent into forced labor in the mines, and upon completing his prison term moves to find work in the mines as a paid worker. H’s daughter, Willie, marries a light skinned black man. A man so light he can pass for white, and indeed chooses to do so. Willie was a singer, her dreams were crushed by colorism in the New York music scene. She lost her desire to sing until the end of her chapter, after she realized she forgave her first husband for the shit that went down and led to their uncoupling. Carson, Willie’s son from her first marriage to Robert, falls into a life of drugs. However, Carson is able to somewhat pull it together and lead a regimented life that’s seconds away from collapse. Yaw, who was badly burned as a child, experiences rebirth after he reconciles with the mother who gave him the scar he bears on his face. Tears did fall (re-enter the idea of baptism by water). Marjorie and Marcus are the last descendants from Maame’s family line. Marjorie came from Effia’s side of the family tree (the side that remained in Ghana the longest), while Marcus descends from Esi’s side of the family tree (the sister sold into slavery). Marjorie has had a fear of fire. Marcus has a fear of water. Both descendants meet in the U.S. and travel back “home” to Ghana where they overcome their fears.
As the Akan proverb goes: “The family is like the forest: if you are outside it is dense; if you are inside you see that each tree has its own position.” Effia, Esi, and their descendants were trees that formed a forest. Although the forest was divided by an ocean and history, each member was affected by the actions, or inactions, of their predecessors until the divergent paths converged. Even though neither tree knew it, the forest was made whole.