Homegoing is the story of two sisters, Effia and Esi, who were born in two different villages without knowing of each other. The novel highlights the transgression of slavery and bondage through a lineage of people. Homegoing gives an outlook on the horrid treatment Africans and African Americans suffered. Homegoing provides an account of narratives from those captured, enslaved, and oppressed that may be forgotten but reappears through a work of fiction (Charles). Throughout the course of the novel, the author highlights the intergenerational disparities in African and African American people.
Foremost, the audience is met with the concept of colonization which is later met with slavery. The author presents the idea that the British, whom is colonizing a majority of Africa land, could have something to offer to the native civilizations. Throughout Effia’s life she is told that she is cursed and born of fire. “The villagers began to say that they bay was born of the fire, that this was the reason Babba had no milke”(Gyassi 3).The audience is presented with the idea of Effia’s life being surrounded with traumatic experiences and violence. Effia marries James, a British man, who becomes the governor of Cape Coast. “His name is James Collins, and he was the newly appointed governor of Cape Coast Castle. Within a week, he had come back to the village to ask Baaba for Effia’s hand in marriage (Gyasi 14)”. Now, the author has an underlying postulation regarding how Effia’s existence is controlled by the politics of the slave trade.
Again, the audience is met with an intergenerational disparity, which is Effie being offered to James and not being able to marry Abeeku, a Fante man. “She is all but promise to Abeeku!” “Yes. But Baaba arranges the two because of her resentment towards Effie. However, Baaba’s does not realize the impact her decision, she just wishes Effie were sent away from the village. Nonetheless, the audience is able to see Baaba remain true to Effia in a small sense when she gives Effia the black stone pendant that once belonged to her mother. Although Effia resides in the castle with her British husband, she still endures a human chattel experience. As generations continue throughout Effia’s family, they must still encounter the harsh subjugation by white people.
Esi, Effia’s half-sister is a representation of life under colonization; imprisonment and enslavement. Effia, provides an outlook of what life is like as chattel property in the castle, and Esi provides what it is like to be imprisoned unwillingly. The displacement of Esi will show how the generations to come will face the same traumatic experiences as their ancestor. Esi experiences a traumatic event in the dungeon when she is raped “He put her on a folded tarp, spread her legs, and entered her. She screamed, but he placed his hand over her lips, then put his fingers on her mouth. (Gyasi 48)” This event in particular highlights the unrelenting culture of white men to subjugate African and African American woman. Effia is married off to the British colonist and experiences what it is like to be chattel property. Esi undergoes horror and is unable to fight off what is pervading her. Both occurrences show how unrelenting white dominance against black woman contaminate each generation. While being transported to the new world, Esi loses the necklace that once belonged to her mother. “No, my stone!… remembering the golden-black stone her mother had given her. She flung herself to the ground and started to dig and dig and dig, but then the soldier was lilting her body, and soon all that she could feel instead of dirt in her steadily moving hands was air and more air. (Gyasi 48).” In a sense, losing the necklace becomes a concurring theme throughout slavery; loss of home, self, and belonging. However, descendants of Esi attempt to foster the idea of belonging, but often turn out to be unattainable.
Next, readers encounter how trauma has transferred through generations, especially when Yaw travels back to Edweso. Akua, Yaw’s mother, informs him of her dreams. Akua has dreams that began to appear during the war between the Asante and the British. “Akua couldn’t remember the first time she’d seen fure, she could remember the first time she’d dreamed of it. It was in 1895, sixteen years after he mother, Abena, had carried her Akua-wollen belly to the missionaries in Kumasi. (Gyasi 177). In a similar sense to Effia’s account, Akua is informed by a man that she carries evil in her ancestry. Most importantly, readers must note that the evil that she is told that she possesses does not belong to her. Essentially, Akua’s dreams represent the trauma and invading thoughts that Africans and African American endure and experience through an intergenerational experience of trauma. Africans and African Americans trauma originate from the colonization on native African land, through slavery, into the civil rights era, up until modern day.
Throughout the novel the audience is faced with Africans and African Americans being displaced due to colonization and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Not only are Africans and African Americans being displaced in Africa but they are also experiencing displacement in the Americas as well. Later on in the novel, the text provides the accounts of the African diaspora in America being dispersed from the Great Migration, slavery, or through prison. Marjorie gains a sense of belonging when she is given the necklace that is considered the family heirloom, in some way, she is now connected back to her ancestors through the necklace. “I haven’t been back since my grandmother died… She gave me this. A family heirloom I guess. (Gyasi 294). Marcus and Marjorie are an example of how blacks constantly have to hurdle the obstacle of finding belonging. The only way Marcus and Marjorie could restore a sense of their belonging would be by traveling back to the coast of Ghana and witnessing some of the spectacles attached to the acts of the Transatlantic slave trade. “From the outside, the Castle was glowing white. Powered white, like the entire thing had been scrubbed down to gleaming, cleansed of any stains. (Gyasi 298)”. Marcus and Marjorie’s perception of this castle highlights how certain aspects of history regarding the mistreatment of Africans and African Americans have tried to been washed away however, there are still aspects of evidence still left around. The landmarks and stories represent how the oppressor failed to keep those displaced and oppressed, silent.
The novel highlights the complications and tragedies of the British slave trade and how it impacted African ancestors that reign from Ghana (Charles). Esi and Effia begin the journey of disparity that transcends for many generations. Homegoing displays how the slave trade tainted a culture and its people. Noticeably, the novel highlights how missionaries come into villages as aid but alter the natives perception of religion. The fetish man who encounters with Akua, is dubbed as odd or weird because he still practices the traditions of his ancestors. “They call him a fetish man because he had not given up praying to the ancestors or dancing or collecting plants and rocks and bones and blood with which to make his fetish offerings. He jhd not been baptized. She knew he was supposed to be wicked, that she would be in a sea of trouble if the missionaries knew that she still went to see him (Gyasi 181).” Now, the readers encounter a switch in roles between the oppressors and the missionaries. The impact of the missionaries is not as significant but it is noticeable, that they have a say in the lives of those living in Edwosa. Missionaries rob the native people of that culture that they had, and convinced them that it is impure or in this case that it is wicked.
Homegoing offers a variety of topics that readers could ponder. Readers are presented with slavery, the trading of African women to British colonizers, as well as the robbing of culture and history from native people. Through the text readers are able to analyze and detect the impact of the British Slave trade to Ghana. These acts that are presented in the text offer readers the option to even research deeper especially if the audience hold African heritage. The novel is an outlet that could be used as a connecting source for those present day African Americans who still struggle to find a sense of belonging due to the impacts of real events that impacted those enslaved.