Gyasi’s second novel possesses many similarities to her debut novel, Homegoing, despite being a stand-alone text— meaning the two texts are independent of each other. Both texts feature: Ghanaian immigration (albeit through different lenses, namely, voluntary migration vs. involuntary migration), titles that serve as major themes, and motifs that tie into each other.
Gifty’s mother, Gifty is the protagonist, wins the diversity lottery in Ghana and travels to Alabama with her husband “the Chin Chin Man”. This is in contrast to the character Esi in Homegoing whose capture leads to her enslavement, thus forced migration, to America.
To understand the theme of transcendence we have to know the meaning of the word. Transcendent possesses two meanings in the Merriam Webster Learner’s Dictionary (1) “going beyond the limits of ordinary experience” and (2) “far better or greater than what is usual : extraordinary.” Gifty’s brother, Nana, embodies the first meaning; so does Gifty’s research on reward-seeking behavior at Stanford University. Religion serves as the third way in which transcendence, in the first sense, is observed in the novel.
Nana grew reliant on Oxycontin after a basketball injury. As it goes with addictions, he was chasing a high and constantly seeking out the next one–a similarity shared with the mice in Gifty’s lab experiments. The mice were constantly chasing the high they got from the beverage Ensure. In the science field, there is the idea that man is the only animal that managed to transcend his kingdom (p. 21). Man tends to go out of his way to experience things not natural in his realm of being, and most of which require some level of danger. Religion, spirituality, the God experience, whatever you want to call it also plays a major role in the book. Raised as a pentacostal christian, Gifty witnessed people at religious ceremonies experiencing transcendence…she even experiences it on her own when she is moved to baptism. What I found more interesting was how the events in the book spoke to the second definition.
What was Gifty’s mother looking for in coming to America is not an extraordinary life? Something far better or greater than what Ghana had to offer? Of course her husband, the Chin Chin Man didn’t see America as an extraordinary place, and he decided to return to Ghana. The Alabamians saw Nana as an extraordinary soccer player, and later an extraordinary basketball player. Gifty works at being an extraordinary scientist: “I will always have something to prove and…nothing but blazing brilliance would be enough to prove it” (p. 61). This reflection comes after a racial slur incident at her brother’s soccer game. The incident moved her to become an ambassador of sorts for her race; to serve as a symbol that black people can excel academically, and have more to offer than their athletic ability. Of course in the context of antiracism she shouldn’t have to because Gifty and Nana are two different people. Their abilities, struggles, and triumphs are individual–no one can be an ambassador for their race because no racial experience is monolithic.
Some of the motifs I picked up on were: faith, identity, loss, and rebirth. Honestly, the way the book is written faith, religion, science, and identity are interlinked and for Gifty’s character in particular there is a lot of double-consciousness going on. Gifty is in a constant struggle between her pentecostal upbringing and her scientific expertise whether it related to people’s ability to control their own thoughts in the religious context to avoid sinning/sinful behavior or in the scientific context of addiction and the result of mental triggers that can be manipulated (75). The existence of an extraordinary being named God, or the use of religion as a way to manipulate people (88-89). Also, the idea that faith as an organized religion and faith in its pre-colonial form can co-exist and not necessarily be at odds with one another (90-91). Furthermore, the fact that religious interpretations and understandings are often at the mercy of translation and cultural context (126-127). Ultimately the idea that: “we read the bible how we want to read it. It doesn’t change, but we do,” is a revelation unto itself (128). Ultimately, Gifty sheds her old understanding of religion with its many mysteries for the comfort of science which provides reason (177).
Identity is a motif that runs throughout the chapters. Early on in the book, Gyasi brings up a sentiment Thoreau expresses in his work Walden “Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.” Who is Gifty? She may be the protagonist, but who she is and chooses to be seems to be inextricable from her elder brother. There’s a comparison, a fear, a sense of acceptance in not being the golden child. She seems to exist as an afterthought at least in terms of her position in her family. Gifty’s mother states: “I only wanted Nana, and now I only have you” (190). Nana was her family’s world, and in order for Gifty to find herself she had to reckon with his loss.
Another instance of identity appears in the description of her maternal grandmother, and the pride she has in her cultural heritage: “My grandmother was a Fante woman from Abandze a sea town, and she was notorious for despising Asantes, so much so that she refused to speak Twi, even after twenty years of living in the Asante capital. If you bought her food, you had to listen to her language” (8). Her maternal grandmother refused to assimilate to city life and culture and pretty much asserted her identity. Then there’s the identity of the ever present ever absent Chin Chin Man, Gifty’s father.
The Chin Chin Man grew tired of American racism and returned to Ghana to rid himself of the constant humiliation, and suspicion he underwent as a tall, black man in America. When thinking about her father and who he was, Gifty commented, “memories of people you hardly know are often permitted a kind of pleasantness in their absence” (46). The Chin Chin Man, like all humans, is a character with flaws–his abandonment of his first family being the most salient failure. Despite this, as a reader I don’t hate him. He tries to stay as connected as possible with his phone calls, and through his clumsy conversation when Gifty must join him temporarily for the summer. This has the effect of removing the magic of his ghostly absence in America, and replacing it with a more authentic human being. Gyasi also uses quotes from established writers to bring up identity in her reference to Shakespeare’s King Lear: “we are not ourselves when nature, being oppressed commands the mind to suffer with the body.”
The identity of a person suffering with addiction or depression is not the same as the identity of the person before the illnesses set in. The most relatable quote on identity is perhaps when Gifty thinks to herself: “I didn’t want to be thought of as a woman in science, a black woman in science. I wanted to be thought of as a scientist, full stop.” It can be difficult to exist as our truest selves, when the societies in which we live form their own definitions of who we are and what we are capable of without giving us the opportunity to decide and show it for ourselves.
Then, of course, we have our identities that become altered when we are put into certain contexts. For example, Gifty’s mother is sensitive about her English speaking ability. Therefore, when Gifty’s mother has to communicate with others in a language she lacks confidence in speaking, she is not her truest self. Gift commented: “she just never figured out how to translate who she was into this new language.” How many of us who speak more than one language also feel that way? In a sense, this is one of the ways imposter syndrome plays out in the book. Another incident of imposter syndrome involves the Ghanain attire at Nana’s funeral (185). Ultimatley, Gifty decides: “I will figure out a way to be myself, whatever that means” (254).
What’s an immigrant tale without racism, discrimination, and white supremacy? Even though Gifty’s mother goes through verbal abuse in the workplace by her employer Mr. Thomas, Gifty writes that her mother hardly ever acknowledged its racial origin (27). Then there’s the American pentacostal church Gifty’s family attends in Alabama that’s mostly white, and their preconceived notions of what success for a black person looks like, sports not academics(111), and their racist notion that black people are more inclined to addiction that other races–confirmation bias (173)…which reminded me of Dave Chappelle’s joke about the opioid epidemic, but I digress. In my opinion, there is no healthy religious instruction at a place that damns people by virtue of who they are, and where they live like the pastor at Gifty’s church does with his arrogant and thoughtless response to hypothetical questions about salvation (98-99). I mean, if another member of the congregation also tries to box you into their own small-mindedness like Ryan who states: “better if you’d tried sports like your brother” to Gifty…then is there really a space for you at that church, and are the members really the best representatives of God’s message(152)? Racial politics at her church is part of the reason why Gifty’s relationship with religion is so complicated. She muses: “Where was God if he was not in me? If my blackness was a kind of indictment” (174).
In the end the question that was truly plaguing Gifty was not a question of control over our thought, it was not a matter of religion vs. science, it was a question of our ability as human beings to exercise restraint (164). She found her answer, yes. She also came to the conclusion that there is no battle between religion and science (as her younger self once thought) they can both coexist as religious orthodoxy and mysticism can for Gifty’s mother.