Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi: The Impact of Heritage on Identity

Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi, demonstrates the oppression brought on by colonialism, imperialism, and slavery. The novel follows a family’s lineage dating back to the eighteen century. Gyasi illustrates the struggles faced by each generation in the family, which further establishes the cycle of oppression. “Homegoing maps the multigenerational trajectory of two sisters who experience the impact of slavery in vastly different ways”. The novel is about two half-sisters, Esi and Effia, who are born into two different villages, both unaware of the other. One marries an Englishman and leads a life of relative comfort in the Cape Coast Castle. The other is captured in a raid in her village, imprisoned in the same castle, and then sold into slavery. Homegoing shows the two different paths the sisters are set on and how their descendants are affected through eight generations. Gyasi shows the parallel between life on the Gold Coast to the oppression in America. Esi and Effia were Maame’s children and when Effia was born her village was set on fire. For this essay, I will focus on one sister and how her descendants and their identities were affected. The novel shows how the legacy of both sisters plays a role in constructing the identity of their descendants for eight generations.

Identity is not only constructed by what people create and maintain for themselves, but it also consists of identification and understanding through heritage. The connection that exists between people is sometimes hindered by conflicting history and heritage. Effia and James (James Collins is Effia’s husband) have a mixed-race boy named Quey. He was one of the many children in the Gold Coast who is mixed-race.

Quey had wanted to cry but that desire embarrassed him. He knew that he was one of the half-caste children of the Castle, and, like the other half-caste children, he could not fully claim either half of himself, neither his father’s whiteness nor his mother’s blackness. Neither England nor the Gold Coast.

Quey’s biracial heritage prevents him from claiming his own identity. He begins to feel discomfort with his own identity, which primarily is a result of colonization, he doesn’t feel that he belongs to the Fante land or to the British. Colonization affected his identity because it separated him from his origin. Quey is neither inside his lineage nor outside he is stuck in the middle because of his status as a biracial child. “Cudjo held his hand out and demanded that Quey do the same until they were standing arm to arm, skin touching skin. ‘Not like me’ Cudjo said”. Quey being called white by a Fante reveals how colonization is a factor in determining the identity of a person who is a product of such system. His light skin places him outside of the Fante land. This sense of not belonging anywhere prevents Quey from figuring out his own identity, instead, his identity is constructed through his father’s and mother’s lineage. He chooses to continue his father’s legacy of slavery and accepts his role in the slave trade even though he does not approve of it. His participation in the slave trade stems from colonization and his need to please his father. “He would not be weak. He was in the business of slavery, sacrifices had to be made”. Quey’s acceptance of his role in the slave trade eventually leads him into constructing an identity for himself he originally did not approve of, but because of his heritage, he is stuck with it.

James, Quey’s son has an identity crisis because of his father’s decision to take part in the slave trade and to marry for power. However, James rejects his father’s ideas and lineage. He questions his family’s involvement in the slave trade and tries to create a different and better life for himself compared to the one he inherited. During a visit to his mother’s village, an Asante girl decides not to shake James’ hand because he participates in the slave trade. This causes James’ to question himself and even though James had no direct involvement in the slave trade. “That was my father and grandfather’s work. It is not mine”. His heritage defined who he is as an individual even though he did not take part in his family’s practice. After his encounter with Akosua James begins to question his own identity and wants to break free from his lineage. James tells his grandmother about his desire to create his own identity and gets motivated by her response.

“This is how we all came to the world, James. Weak and needy, desperate to learn how to be a person. But if we do not like the person we have learned to be, should we just sit in front of our fufu, doing nothing? I think, James, that maybe it is possible to make a new way”.

James uses Effia’s story in order to shape his own identity through his heritage. James separates himself from his family and from his inheritance in order to create his own identity and live an honest life. James’ fakes his own death during a battle in order to escape his family and moves to a different village with the same Asante girl who caused him to question his identity.

James’s granddaughter, Akua, is also affected by the Fante legacy. She is plagued by nightmares about the fire which eventually leads her to the point where she tries to kill her own children by setting her hut on fire. Akua’s nightmares are about the fire which is shaped like a woman holding two babies. “In her dreams, the fire was shaped like a woman holding two babies to her heart. The firewoman would carry these two little girls with her all the way to the woods of the inland and then babies would vanish”. This refers to her ancestors Effia, and her unknown aunt Esi. This shows how her heritage extends into her life and starts to define her. Even though Akua believes those dreams are because she witnessed a man being burned, it is clear that the relationship between the dream and Akua is her heritage. Even though Akua did not know anything about her lineage, she was still affected by it. She is handling the effects of her ancestor’s actions while her family had to suffer the consequences of what was sown generations ago. During one of her dreams, Akua burns down her hut with her children in it. “The wailing women were behind the men. ‘Evil woman!’ some of them cried ‘wicked one,’ said others”. Akua must bear the burden of her family’s heritage creating an identity of a madwoman for her. She has to live with the guilt of killing her children because of her family history. Akua is affected by her family’s history even though she never knew her family, her heritage still played a major role in shaping her.

Marjorie the youngest descendant of Effia’s family tree who is raised in a different country, yet centuries later her identity is affected by her ancestor’s actions. She is stuck between being American or Ghanaian, just like her uncle Quey was stuck between being Fante or British. In America, Marjorie’s blackness was defined differently compared to other African Americans in America due to her cultural background. The girls in her school made her feel alienated in her own home because of her background. “Now, keeping her head down and fighting back tears as Tisha and her friends called her ‘white girl,’ Marjorie was made aware, yet again, that here ‘white’ could be the way a person talked; ‘black,’ the music a person listens to”. Marjorie’s teacher explains to her that in America “it doesn’t matter where you come from first to the white people running things. You’re here now, and here black is black”. Marjorie’s feeling of alienation due to her background explain her identity crisis. However, Marjorie is able to find her identity and shape herself because of her ancestors. She writes a poem about how her family’s history helped her shape her identity. “The waters seem different but are the same. Our same. Sister skin”. Marjorie’s poem helped her understand her identity struggle.

Towards the end of the novel, Marjorie Effia’s descendant meets Marcus Esi’s last descendant. When Marjorie and Marcus meet, it allows the separation of the two family’s to finally come to an end. Both descendants take a trip to Ghana and visit the Cape Coast Castle which helps them understand their heritage. The tour of the Castle shows how the separation of two sisters resulted in a massive effect on the heritage of six generations. Marcus’s distress about water helps Marjorie to face her fear of fire, which they both inherited from their ancestors. At the end of the novel, Marjorie helps Marcus face his fear and welcomes him home, which represents the final reconciliation of the two families. This helps Marjorie feel a sense of identity and being in Ghana helps Marjorie feel at home.

Homegoing examines how heritage shaped and constructed an identity for Effia’s and Esi’s descendants as well as define the eight generations. Quey’s decision to participate in the slave trade later affects the extended family in the novel. It leads to an identity crisis for his family members and descendants. The first sentence in the novel shows how one incident was going to affect many generations to come. “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 continues”. The fire from that one night haunted one generation after another. Marjorie and Marcus’ realize their intertwined history and find themselves at home in Ghana next to the water and the fire that separated them. 

Works Cited

1. Gyasi, Y. (2016). Homegoing. Vintage.
2. Brooks, D. (2016). Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and the slavery of trauma. Postcolonial Text, 11(2), 1-18.
3. Davies, C. (2018). Telling Ghana’s history through fiction: A study of Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing. Journal of West African History, 4(2), 45-61.
4. Dodson, E. (2017). Homegoing and the afterlives of slavery. Avidly, 1(6), 1-9.
5. El-Tobgui, C. (2017). Re-membering the past: Historical trauma and narrative redress in Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing. Studies in the Novel, 49(3), 381-399.
6. Karim, A. (2018). The past is present: Historical trauma and ancestral connections in Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing. Callaloo, 41(4), 1073-1089.
7. Lartey, J. M. (2019). The impact of the slave trade on family structure in Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing. West Africa Review, 42(1), 1-21.
8. Lemke, T. (2018). Slavery and cultural memory in Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing. Journal of African Cultural Studies, 30(2), 183-199.
9. Lim, S. (2019). Homegoing: Inheritance and the search for identity. Cultural Dynamics, 31(2), 169-186.
10. McGehee, T. (2017). Homegoing and the power of storytelling. World Literature Today, 91(4), 58-61.