Analysis of Some Major Themes and Images

The Stone Pendant 

In the novel, the two black stones are a symbol of the connection to a heritage. Maame, the matriarchal head of the two lines gives one each to her two daughters. The first daughter, Effia, has her stone turned into a pendant and wears it around her neck. She passes it on to her descendants and it thus becomes a family heirloom. The second daughter, Esi, loses her stone in the dungeons of the Castle the very day she gets shipped off to the Americas and sold into slavery. Far from her home and never able to return, Esi is cut off from her homeland and so are her descendants. The loss of her stone is thus symbolic of that rupture. Indeed, though the familial line is also ruptured in Effia’s line– the one that remains in the Gold Coast–the stone continues to symbolize the root that connects the characters to their familial and cultural origins. This becomes clear in the shared connection between Marjorie and Marcus. Though Marjorie does not quite know the history of the stone beyond that it belonged to her grandmother, Akua’s mother Abena,  it weighs her with a sense of security and belonging that she then willingly gives to Marcus. 

Fire and Water (or lineage and separation)

Homegoing tells the story of two lineages, from two sisters, Effia and Esi, affected by the transatlantic slave trade. Effia’s lineage was associated with fire because the night Effia was born, her biological mother Maame starts a fire that burns her rapist’s source of food– his yams. Thus, Efiia is called “the child of the night’s fire” (9), and the fire becomes a premonition for the evil that is about to ensue. Indeed, Effia’s descendants are referred to “the fire children'' (24). Akua, who is a descendant of Effia, is haunted by dreams of a firewoman, leading her to set her own hut on fire, killing her two daughters and severely burning her son, Yaw. Majorie, Effia’s last descendant in the novel and Yaw’s daughter, inherits an intense fear of fire, though she herself has not directly been affected by it. 

Esi’s line, on the other hand, is associated with water. When Esi is captured, she is transported to the United States on a slave ship that crossed the seas. Kojo, Esi’s descendant, worked on building ships, and Esi’s last descendant Marcus was terrified of water, especially the sea. Although Esi’s descendants were not aware of her, water comes to symbolize the profound separation; whether because of the sea that separates them from Africa or the forced separation of slaves from their children (a recurring tragedy in Esi’s line). Physical separation also results in cultural separation as well as a rupture in familial heritage– traditions, rituals, and memories. 

Intergenerational Trauma

Generational trauma is another theme that sweeps both sisters’ lines of descendants. Although they take on different forms, the ordeals faced by the parents, starting with the two sisters, extends over the generations and comes to dictate their descents’ lives. While Esi’s struggles start off in a straightforward manner with her capture and future as a slave, Effia battles with her sense of belonging and identity as she is married off to a white man and must adapt to life away from what she knows as home.

We see these translate to the future, as Ness, Anna, H, Willie, and Sonny all endure the residual troubles inherited from Esi’s initial capture and enslavement – from slavery and kidnappings to racism and poverty – the cycle seems to renew itself with each new generation, perpetuating the need to survive in any way possible, often in subpar conditions.

Paralleling her sister’s line, Effia’s initial displacement is reflected in the lives of Quey, James, Abena, and Akua as they all exhibit a sense of loss and uncertainty. Regardless of Quey’s local royalty, he shares a distaste for the actions of his family with his son James, who takes a stance and escapes the life he believed was laid out for him. Nonetheless, his daughter and granddaughter too suffer from the unending questions and experience their ancestors’ plight in ways relevant to their own lives.

Dehumanization

In Homegoing, the dehumanization of characters is an apparent theme throughout the novel. For instance, in the chapter on Effia, slave owners treat Africans as cargo by kidnapping and “storing” them at the Cape Coast Castle, both objectifying their bodies and refusing their humanity. There, they are “inspected” and piled on top of one another, further refusing their humanity. In the chapter on Ness, TimTam is described as a simple commodity, a gift to the Tom Allan family. This objectification of TimTam betrays the normalization of such dehumanization and thereby of slaves. The theme of the dehumanization of characters is highly significant throughout the novel since it reveals how slavery was justified and normalized.

Motherhood

Motherhood is a theme that is prevalent throughout the novel especially as the novel begins with a matriarch and not a patriarch. The novel constantly puts into question the nature of motherhood, particularly in the context of the brutal history of the transatlantic slave trade. Examples include the separation of Maame from Effia, Baaba’s cruelty, Ness’s loss of Kojo and adoption of Pinky, Ma Aku’s adoption of Kojo, Willie’s forced abandonment of Sonny to earn money by going to look after another family’s son, and Akua’s killing of her daughters. Indeed, the novel highlights how problematic biological motherhood is in this brutal history, and legitimizes the importance of other forms of motherhood. 

Bodily Scars

In Homegoing, bodily scars is a major theme. Many characters in Homegoing have physical scars, a tangible form of dehumanization and generational trauma. Scars show family connections as well as discrimination as physical scars cause characters to become feared, hated, or ostracized. For instance, Ness was unable to become a house slave as the master of the plantation told her she is too ugly to look at because of the scars on her body, which she received when she tried to escape her old plantation, “Hell”. Similarly, Ness’s grandson H receives scars working at the mines, and that causes people to look down on him as “it had been nearly twenty-five years since the end of the slavery, and free men were not supposed to have fresh scars on their back, the evidence of a whip” (167). 

Two characters who are connected by physical scars are Akua and Yaw. Akua is Yaw’s mother, and she is haunted by dreams about a fire woman. Eventually, the dreams lead her to put her family’s hut on fire and kill her two daughters and injure her son, Yaw. Yaw grows up with a prominent scar on his face, one that causes him trouble throughout his life, both socially and romantically. Later when he becomes a teacher, he finds he has to explain the scar on his face. However, later on, when Yaw visits Akua, he feels an immense connection with his mother when he sees her scarred hand and “recognized her skin in his own” (242). Yaw and Akua’s matching scars from the fire display the connection between their lives, and Yaw seeing his mother helps him feel at peace with himself.

Menstruation

Periods were seen as a very important moment in the transition to womanhood amongst the Fantes and Ashantis, particularly early in the novel. It did not matter what age the girl was; once she got her period, she would be regarded as a woman and would immediately be considered for marriage. It is prominent, for instance, in the conflict of chapter one. Baaba threatens Effia not to tell anyone when she gets “her blood”, which prevents her from marrying Abeeku. Later, a similar iteration of this takes place between James and Akosua. Finally, this theme is brought back full circle in the chapter on Marjorie. When she goes to Ghana to visit her grandmother Abena, Abena holds a celebration for her when she starts menstruating. This dispels the negative connotations that became associated with menstruation over the seven generations and restores it as something to be celebrated. This theme is closely linked to the theme of fertility. 

Fertility

Fertility is one of the major themes of this book, especially in Effia’s line. It is repeated throughout the chapter across different characters and depicts life. The lack of fertility would cause dishonor to the village, family, and the future generations of the person. Not only is fertility seen as the conception of life through the womb, but through the soil as well. Fertility signifies life and the ability to conceive babies would mean that the village is growing and that children can contribute to the village when they are older. Fertility in plants would mean that by being able to grow your own crops, you are able to feed your family. This is clear in the chapter on Effia and Baaba’s curse and the chapter on James, “Old Man,” and his daughter Abena, who fears her own infertility. Ohene Nyarko also fears his relationship with her will impact the fertility of his land, and he places the condition of an abundant harvest on their ability to marry. One's status in the village is thus based on their contribution to the community. The worth in this case lies in the ability to increase the population and nourish it.