Effia
Chapter Summary
The chapter on Effia Otcher opens with her birth during a night when a fire ravages her home in Fanteland. On that night and because of the raging fire, her father Cobbe Otcher predicts a curse that will befall his family and all his descendants to come. The villagers have similar beliefs, thinking that Effia herself is a cursed child as she was born of that destruction. Throughout her childhood, Effia is subjected to abuse by her mother Baaba, which only worsens once her mother gives birth to a son, Fiifi. As Effia grows older she becomes more beautiful, attracting the eyes and gifts of many suitors in the village, and once she begins to menstruate, she will be of age to marry a suitor. One of the village girls, Adwoa Aidoo, comes of age first and is married off by her father to a British soldier. The soldier compensates Adwoa’s family much more handsomely than they would have been by a member of the village, and Adwoa leaves to live in the Cape Coast Castle. When Effia asks her father about Adwoa’s marriage, Cobbe tells her that he has much bigger plans for Effia: that she will gain status within the village and be wed to the next in line for chief, Abeeku Badu.
One day, Baaba takes Effia aside to discuss her first menstruation. Baaba tells her that when it happens she must inform her mother immediately. Shortly after, Effia turns fifteen and gets her period, promptly informing Baaba who tells Effia that she must tell no one. Once the current village chief passes, Abeeku is designated as the new chief. Abeeku takes a first wife as required by his position, and after a while, a second wife. Later on, Effia learns from Fiifi that Abeeku is a part of the slave trade between the Asantes and the British. During a trade meeting between Abeeku and the British, Baaba takes Effia to Abeeku’s home. Her mother manages to get her introduced to one of the British soldiers while passing by to meet Abeeku’s wives. One soldier in particular, James Collins, takes a special interest in Effia and her beauty. James then approaches Cobbe to ask for Effia’s hand in marriage. Cobbe rages at the proposal as he intended for Effia to become village royalty; however, Baaba convinces him and Abeeku that Effia’s not menstruating yet could be a sign of infertility. Indeed, this marriage to the British man, James Collins, may be their only chance to marry her off. Both men give in and agree to the marriage. As Effia leaves, Baaba gives her the black stone, telling her it is a piece of her mother.
Effia and James are then married through a Christian ceremony at the Cape Coast Castle. Because the soldiers have wives and families in Britain, the women they marry on the Cape Coast cannot be considered their wives. Thus, the women are relegated to the position of “wenches.” James proceeds to give Effia a tour of the castle, which leads to her learning of the people kept below ground in the dungeons. At first, Effia feels slightly homesick, but as she recalls Baaba’s treatment of her, she grows used to life at the Castle. Effia’s feelings for James begin to grow over time, but when she fails to get pregnant, she worries that Baaba’s lie about her infertility may in fact be true.
Effia befriends some of the other “wenches” in the Castle, one of them being Adwoa. In seeking her advice regarding pregnancy, Adwoa tells her to place a certain root beneath her bed to help the process. Effia is warned against letting James discover it, or else the root will fail. That night, after Effia and James have sex, he sees strands of the root under the bed and questions her about it. James declares that there shall be no use of voodoo or black magic as they are heretical practices in the eyes of Christianity. Effia wonders about these distinctions, about white and black magic, but nonetheless acquiesces. Soon afterward, Effia discovers she is pregnant, and also receives news that her father has fallen very ill. Effia returns to her village swiftly to see her father one last time. Fiifi greets her and then tells her the truth about her lineage: while Cobbe is her father, her mother was a house girl who ran away into the fire that night she was born. All she left behind for Effia was the black stone.
Character Analysis
Effia Otcher
Effia is a major character in this novel as she is the head maternal line of the characters who remain in Africa. She is the daughter of the big man of Fanteland and it is first believed that Baaba, Cobbe’s first wife, is her mother. However later on in the chapter, we find out otherwise. Baaba is resentful that Cobbe forces her to raise another woman's daughter, and so she is harsh with Effia. She beats her and prevents her from becoming the first wife of the future Fante chief. Effia is promised to be wed to the heir of the village chief once she gets her blood; however, Baaba conspires a plan which ends up with Effia marrying a white man, a British officer called James Collins, and moving to the castle. When Effia marries James, Baaba tells her that she is not her child. Effia has a good relationship with her husband, even though he participates in trading slaves. She only returns to her village when her father dies. The chapter ends with Effia being pregnant with Quey.
As the novel goes on we meet her descendants over the next 300 years, following their stories and struggles. Her Stone necklace is passed on through the generations, which is what connects her family.
Cobbe Otcher
Cobbe is the father of Effia and Fiifi. As Big Man he has multiple wives, the first being Baaba. In the Fante village, men are allowed to have multiple wives; however, Cobbe has an affair with one of the maids, which leads to the birth of Effia. He intends for Effia to marry the heir of the village chief, which would raise her status in the village. He therefore does not agree to Effia marrying a white man, but he is later convinced by Baaba.
Baaba
Baaba is Cobbe’s first wife, mother to Fiffi and step-mother to Effia. She raises Effia even though she is not her mother, but she abuses her. This leads to her husband abusing her back. She conspires against Effia’s marriage to the heir to the village chief because she does not want Effia to stay in the village and be known as the Village Cheif’s wife. This leads to Effia marrying a British officer.
Fiifi
Fiifi is Effia’s paternal half-brother, Baaba’s son. He has a minor role in this chapter; however, he later becomes the village’s chief.
Adwoa
Adowa is the first woman in the Fante village to marry a white man. She ends up moving to the castle to live with her husband. Effia’s family are the people who show Adwoa’s husband around town the first time he visits. Effia and Adwoa become friends when they both lived in the castle, which leads to Adwoa offering Effia the roots that she puts under her bed to help her get pregnant.
James Collins
James is the British officer, who ends up marrying Effia. Effia is not his first wife; he has a wife and kids back in England that he communicates with via letters. He participates in the slave trading business happing in the Castle, though he is gentle with Effia.
Abeeku
Abeeku is next in line for village chief, and he is the man Effia was promised to marry. When he becomes village chief, he takes multiple wives making Effia wish she was his first wife. They do not end up marrying each other because Baaba’s plan. Abeeku is a powerful leader that has a role in the slave trade as he makes an alliance with a neighboring village and the white slave traders. He gives his blessing for Effia to marry James.
Anne, Emily, and Jimmy
Anne is James’s first wife and Emily and Jimmy are her children. They live in England and James gets letters from Anne with no strict schedule. They are only briefly mentioned in relation to James.
Arekua the Wise
Arekua the Wise is Abeeku’s first wife. He marries her as he prepares to become the chief of the village when the current chief is ill. When the white men come to visit Abeeku, she is the one who prepares the feast. She is also the one who asks Abeeku if Effia and Baaba can stay when they visit during the white men’s stay.
Millicent
Millicent is Abeeku’s second wife, who he also marries as he prepares to become chief of the village. Millicent’s mother is from the village; however, her father is a white man (who gave his wife a new name) and because of that Millicent is light skinned. We first hear about the castle from Millicent’s mother. When her father died, her mother moved out of the castle and back to the village because he did not leave any money for them in the will.
Eccoah
Eccoah is one of the women who married a white man and lived in the castle. Hee husband calls her Emily because he cannot pronounce her name. She complains that her husband comes up from the dungeons “stinking like a dying animal” (p.24).
Sarah
Sarah is the “wench” of Sam York; she also lives in the castle. Her father was a soldier and she lived in the castle when she was younger; however, her mother moves them back to the village when Sarah’s father died.
Major Themes and Symbols
Inheriting one's forefathers' sins
Inheriting one's forefathers' sins is a major theme in the chapter. It is portrayed that the fate of an individual is set by the sins of his/her ancestors' lineage. The theme first surfaced when Cobbe was saying farewell to Effia on her wedding day, "knowing that the premonition of the dissolution and destruction of the family lineage” (20). The theme also resurfaced at the end of the chapter when Cobbe was on his deathbed and Effia visits to say goodbye. Effia knows why her father insisted on her visit: “His unrest had kept him alive, and now that unrest belonged to Effia. It would feed her life and the life of her child” (30). Effia knew that her father’s sin, which hunted him all his life, would now hunt her while her father would be relieved from it. The impacts of the sin, however, will not stop at Effia as they will hunt her child and her descendants. The sin is the slave trade and the slave trade would hunt the descendants of those who participated in it. This sin would hunt the rest of the family line and would be passed from one generation to another: “Ancestors, whole histories, came with the act, but so did sins and curses” (24).
Motherhood
Contrary to how motherhood is often represented, motherhood in this chapter is not warm, nurturing, or loving as Baaba does not love Effia, who we think is her daughter, “as though love were as simple an act as lifting food up from an iron plate and past one’s lips” (9). Moreover, she resents her for being cursed, that she does not even do the basic things mothers do for their daughters in the village, such as taking her to be blessed: “she did not take her to be blessed as all the other mothers did for their daughters.” What complicated motherhood in Effia’s chapter is that Baaba is not her biological mother, she is her stepmother and was forced to raise her. Meanwhile, Effia’s actual mother was absent from her life, as her mother was a house girl that got pregnant with Effia as a result of rape. When Effia was born, her mother, later revealed to be Maame, escaped and abandoned her. The complexity of motherhood is that Baaba abused Effia her whole life, degraded her, and beat her, but that is the mother she had. That is who she believed for most of her life was her mother. Baaba is the mother tied to her memories of home and family. But that mother is also the one who cut her off from that home and family by having Effia marry a British man instead of the future village chief, Abeeku. On the other hand, Maame, Effia’s actual mother, of whom she has no memory, she experiences as an act of kindness because of the stone she left her. Nevertheless, because Effia only knows of Maame as an absent figure, the connection Effia shares with Maame is not as strong as the connection she shares with Baaba. Therefore, Effia has a strong connection with Baaba as her mother and her home, but it is associated with abuse and mistreatment.
Abuse Cycle
A theme portrayed in the chapter titled "Effia" was abuse cycles in families. Baaba, the mother, would abuse Effia, the daughter, who is weaker and more vulnerable. Then when Cobbe, the father, would find out about the abuse, he would in turn abuse his wife Baaba, “For each scar on Effia’s body, there was a companion scar on Baaba’s, but that didn’t stop the mother from beating daughter, father from beating mother” (10). The abuse Baaba faces from her husband does not stop her from abusing Effia; instead, it fuels her resentment toward Effia, leading her to abuse her more. Inevitably, this results in Cobbe abusing Baaba even more, and so the abuse cycle continues “And so the cycle began. Baaba beat Effia. Cobbe beat Baaba” (10).
Black Magic
This theme is most relevant when James finds the roots Effia placed under the bed for fertility. James panics and calls it black magic. This confuses Effia. She does not understand why anything that does not align with the British soldiers’ beliefs would necessarily be categorized as good or bad or be undesirable, unacceptable, and prohibited. As a result, so-called “black magic” ends up being practiced in secret, if at all, risking the erasure of cultural rituals and practices. Moreover, associating “black” with evil and prohibition makes anything "black" unpleasant and undesirable. Thus, “black” skin color also becomes unpleasant and undesirable. Such labels would have vast generational consequences.
The Fire
The chapter opens with a fire burning the yam fields on the night Effia is born. It is later on disclosed that the fire was started by Maame, Effia’s biological mother. Maame started the fire to escape from the captivity of Effia’s father, who raped and impregnated her. The fire symbolizes the pain and suffering that would impact Effia and her descendants. The suffering starts with Effia “the child of the night’s fire” (9) and would be passed down to her descendants. This was highlighted when Cobbe was checking the fire that started following Effia’s birth “the memory of the fire that burned, then fled, would haunt him, his children, and his children’s children for as long as the line continued” (9). The fire could also symbolize the wrath inflicted upon the family, which actively participates in the slave trade. The wrath and pain are passed down through the generations of the family that participated in the slave trade, even if the individuals themselves did not participate in the trade. They become the “the fire children” (24).
Blood
Blood in this chapter symbolizes two things: womanhood and violence. Blood symbolizes womanhood when Effia was checking constantly for her period blood: “Every day, Effia checked for red, but the palm fronds came out greenish-white as always” (14). Blood also symbolizes violence when Baaba pinches Effia’s tongue and makes it bleed, “She released Effia’s tongue, and for the rest of the night, Effia tasted her own blood” (15).
The Black Stone With A Golden Shimmer
The stone is a symbol of heritage and belonging. Effia’s black stone from her mother is a symbol of how culture and belonging are passed from parents to children. That Effia’s mother gives her the stone that she wears around her neck, “a piece of [her] mother” (20), makes it both attached to her and visible. It is thus a symbol of belonging but also how our pasts follow us wherever we go. It is also a visible statement of who we are born to. In Effia’s case, she is Fante, despite living in the Castle. The colors of the stone are also a symbol themselves. The black color symbolizes the dark history of colonization and slavery while the golden shimmer symbolizes the specs of beauty and hope. Throughout the course of the novel, Effia and her descendants keep the stone; nevertheless, with each new generation, the connection with the past decreases. This symbolizes the individuals that were not enslaved and remained in their home country, but how, despite this, their connection to their heritage decreased over time.
The Castle
The castle is a physical reminder of the slave trade. The slaves were kept in the castle’s dungeons and the castle was the last place the slaves saw before being shipped off as cargo. The different levels of the castle highlight the parallel lives of those above the basement and those below the basement live, highlighting the sinister nature of the trade. Those who are under the basement are out of sight and therefore those above pretend the slave trade is not happening, that humans are not being treated as cargo and cattle. The castle is the symbol of the absolute evil of the slave trade. The castle also embodies a turning point in history.
Ripe Mango
Mangos are symbolic of fertility and prosperity: “Effia soon realized that she was pregnant. It was spring, and the mango trees outside the Castle had started to drop down mangoes” (28). It also could be a symbol of womanhood as womanhood is associated with fertility, as in childbearing and nourishment: “When she was twelve, her breasts arrived, two lumps that sprung from her chest, as soft as mango flesh” (10).
Key Quotations
Cobbe had lost seven yams, and he felt each loss as a blow to his own family. He knew then that the memory of the fire that burned, then fled, would haunt him, his children, and his children’s children for as long as the line continued. (9)
Cobbe thinks this as he attempts to rescue all he can from the fire that burnt the night Maame ran away and left him with the newborn Effia. The loss of seven yams marks the start of the curse that will affect his descendants for seven generations to come.To this society, yams are a source of both subsistence and livelihood and destroying them means destroying their chance of living prosperously. This also foreshadows what happens with James’s land. Whenever he tries to grow using his seeds, the land rejects it and “the earth spit[s] up rotted plants or sometimes nothing at all” (124). That shows the curse and bad luck that would be passed down. For many generations, Effia's family will be haunted by the image of fire that was started by Maame herself.The reason that Maame set the fire that night was to escape enslavement in Fanteland. The fire here stands as a very important symbol as it shows the suffering that the characters go through because of their family’s involvement in the slave trade. This is also why Maame eventually resurfaces as the fire woman who haunts Akua's dreams.
It was only when Effia didn’t speak or question, when she made herself small, that she could feel Baaba’s love, or something like it. (13)
When Effia is thinking about what kind of woman Abeeku Badu would love, she starts to think about the moments when she feels loved by Baaba. It demonstrates how Effia could only ever feel Baaba's affection if she took care to keep quiet and suppress her own voice. It also reveals that the relationship Baaba desired for them to establish was more similar to that of a slave and owner than a mother and daughter. This also ties to one of the major themes of the novel, which is slavery.
His lips formed a thin line. “Now, Effia, I don’t want any voodoo or black magic in this place. My men can’t hear that I let my wench place strange roots under the bed. It’s not Christian. (26)
When Effia and James finish having sex and Effia is laying on Jame’s shoulder, he realizes that there were three strands of roots coming from under the bed. Racism and stereotype are both evident within this. Jame Collins and the white men believe that black magic is a dark thing that is used within their villages. The fact that he refers to a cultural practice as "black" magic suggests a number of things. It suggests that "black" is undesirable and is therefore implicitly related to skin color. That further demonstrates how there is racism rooted in this. It also implies that Effia's culture contains evil and unacceptable elements that should not be practiced. Additionally, all of these implications have broad generational ramifications.
The need to call this thing “good” and this thing “bad,” this thing “white” and this thing “black,” was an impulse that Effia did not understand. In her village, everything was everything. Everything bore the weight of everything else. (26)
After James confronts Effia about the roots, she starts to think about what he said. The categorization of "white" and "black" implies that black is undesirable and is associated with skin color. This is contrary to what Effia believes. For her, anything that happens affects everyone else, even though people may not be connected. So, in that sense, everything bears the weight of everything else, including guild and responsibility. This also foreshadows the generational trauma that is experienced by the rest of the characters.
What about the human beast? What was he worth? (28)
When she hears her husband, James Collins, set a price on a captive that has been brought in for trade, Effia tries to guess the worth. She ponders the value of the “miserable” prisoners that are held in the dungeon of the Cape Coast Castle. The irony is that she is unaware that one of the slaves in the cell waiting to be transported to America was her own half-sister.
Baaba hacked from her throat, spit on the ground before Effia’s feet, and said, “You are nothing from nowhere. No mother and now no father.” She looked at Effia’s stomach and smiled. “What can grow from nothing?” (30)
When Effia walks out of the compound where Cobbe died, she wants to say something to Baaba and maybe apologize. However, Baaba spits and does not give her the chance to say anything. Spitting is a major motif that happens throughout the novel symbolizing distaste and even contempt. That passage refers to the night of the fire and Baaba's claims that the fire has cursed Effia. It shows that the consequences from that night of the fire have come to haunt Effia. As she did not have a mother before and now she does not have a father.
Historical Context & Additional Resources
The Cape Coast Castle is a European-built fortress on the coast of western Ghana. The Castle serves as UNESCO World Heritage Site to commemorate the four centuries of Slavery and European presence in West Africa (Apter). The Castle was one of the dozen fortresses built by European Colonial powers around the west coast of Africa to facilitate trade in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Cape Coast Castle was built in 1653 and named Carlousburg after King Charles X of Sweden (Anquandah 49). This trade involved minerals, vegetables, and humans. According to Roth (para. 5), throughout the 18th century the Castle served as a “grand emporium” of the British slave trade. Thousands of slaves lived down in the dungeons of the Castle until they were shipped to the Americas. However, not all Africans were victims of the Castle and the slave trade. Many local chiefs of villages were eager to make as much profit as possible, and that included getting involved in the slave trade. The local chiefs used to raid neighboring villages for captives and exchange slaves for imported European products (Maier). The Fantes were no strangers to the Europeans and their ways in trade, and they helped with the transatlantic slave trade.
The Fantes were known as the rulers and traders of the Fantee Country, which was the entire stretch of coast between Elmina and Accra. Many of the Fante gained enormous wealth and power by collecting a large amount of money from European traders buying slaves (Shumway). While the Fante were a coastal coalition whose primary concern was the relations with Asantes, they also had close relations with the European traders with whom they used to trade slaves. Unlike the Asantes, the Europeans did not present any military threat to the Fante; instead, the Europeans were essential to the coalition’s defense against the Asante as they used to trade firearms and gunpowder with the Fantes.
In the first chapter of Homegoing, Effia is part of the Fante, born into the “heat of Fanteland” (3). We first get a glimpse at how the Fantes function as a community when they first start asking Cobbe, Effia’s father, for her hand in marriage. Effia receives gifts like palm wine and fishing nets as soon as she becomes twelve. However, the first relationship we see between the British and the Fante is when Adwoa Aidoo became the first girl in the village to be proposed to in 1775. The white man married Adowa offered fabric, millet, gold, and iron carried on the backs of Asantes, which not only shows us how the white men were putting the slaves that were sold to them to use, as historically Fantes used to sell Asantes to Europeans, but also what was seen as valuable to the Fante. The first acknowledgment of the Castle in the book happens when Cobbe asked Effia if she understands what happened after the white man brought goods with him from the Castle and came to pay respects to Adowa’s mother. Cobbe then tells Effia that the white men live in the Cape Coast Castle as they trade goods with their people, the Fante. Cobbe adds that they get iron and millet, but they “must give them things in return” (7), which would be human slaves.
We also get a glimpse into how things worked between the British and the Fantes. When Effia asks Abeeku, the future chief, if he will work for the British when he becomes village chief, he specifies that they work with the British, not for them, which goes back to the way village chiefs used to work with the Europeans and supply them with slaves. Later on, Fiifi also tells Effia that they help the British and the Asantes with their trade and that they help Asante sell their slaves to the British after they allied with one of the most powerful Asante villages. Fiifi’s explanation of the trade goes back to the relations between the British and the Fantes and how they used to trade with each other and form alliances to become the strongest.
One form of alliance between the British and the Fantes was marriages, and we learn that when James Collins asks for Effia’s hand in marriage. Baaba tells Cobbe that the white man will marry Effia regardless of whether she can bear him children or not, and Effia finds out that James was willing to pay thirty pounds up front and twenty-five shillings a month in tradable goods as a bride gift, more than Abeeku could offer. For Abeeku to think it was his idea, Baaba emphasizes how evil Effia’s spirit is and that “something evil lurks in her spirit”, therefore she cannot bear him children. However, Baaba advises Abeeku that if the white man marries Effia, he will “think fondly of the village” and that “trade will prosper from it” (16). Abeeku replies that if the white man wants her, he may have her and that this marriage will be better for the Fante business with the white man and the village. Effia and James’ marriage shows us how the Fantes and the British used to form alliances with each other.
After James and Effia get married, we get a glimpse of how the Castle was built. The Cape Coast Castle had apartments, warehouses, a hospital, and everything else they needed. To add, it was used as a way to store “cargo” (18), which was human slaves. The human slaves were not kept in good conditions, which caused them to cry out, and we can see Effia hearing them and asking James what’s below and if there are people down there. Following that, Effia proceeds to cry out, how could they keep humans down there, and say that her father warned her about the ways of white people. Afterward, Effia also sees cargo ships from the window of her and James’s quarters. The cargo ships Effia sees are the ones that were used to transport slaves across the transatlantic, those who were in the dungeons for months. We see another acknowledgment of the dungeons that held slaves when Eccoah informs the other so-called wenches that her husband comes up from the dungeons stinking like a dying animal, he smells like feces and rot and looks at her like he has seen a million ghosts. We know from the history of the Castle that the reason behind the smells is the inhumane conditions the slaves were put in, causing them to be forced to live with their feces to suffer and die because of how cruel it was in the dungeons of the Castle.