Love Through Hardship in Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Throughout Homegoing, Esi’s family line progresses in a more positive and family oriented direction through her family line juxtaposed to Effia’s African family lineage. Through suffering, discrimination, and slavery, Esi’s family lineage learned to build off one another and to try to give their child a better. With the lack of respect for the human condition, Esi’s family strived for a better life for their children.

Esi, daughter of Madame and half sister of Effia, was sold into slavery in Ghana and was shipped to America. Ghana slave trade consisted of “ between twelve million and twenty-five million people living in present day Senegal and Angola were caught, and half died en route to the Americas.” (Polgreen). From the 16th century to the 19th century “10-12 million enslaved Africans were transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas”. While being such a powerful business, “it was the second of three stages of the triangular trade, in which arms, textiles, and wine were shipped from Europe to Africa.” (Lewis). Esi faced the hardships of the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean and survived long enough to have a daughter in America. Ness was born into slavery and never saw her mother smile, even when she was being taken away from her mother Esi. “A slave was considered by law as property, and was deprived of most of the rights ordinarily held by free persons”. Ness is, in a sense, battle hardened by her experience in slavery and displays little to no reaction when faced with a problematic action. A skill learned from her mother. Ness endure beatings and losing love ones through cruel and unusual deaths, but stills remains resilient by what Ness learned from her mother. To show no emotion and to keep working is what Esi demonstrated to Ness. In the future, when Ness gives birth to Kojo, she tries to give Kojo something she never received when she was a child, and that was a chance at a better life.

Throughout Homegoing, there was numerous of traits that a parent lacked while raising their children. Whatever trait the parent lacked, the child emphasized with his or her children. It is “consistent throughout the story that parents work harder so that their children will have a better life”. By trauma being passed down from generation to generation, slavery and discrimination impacted Esi’s family in a negative, but yet a positive way as well. For example, “Family is used to trace family connections and empathize with the sacrificing that characters make for each.” Such as Ness’s sacrifice so Kojo could gain freedom as a runway slave (LitCharts). While family is the main theme through the novel Homegoing, it is also the most important possession the characters obtain throughout the novel. On the other hand, characters such as H longed for a family as he desperately missed while working in the mines as a convict. Furthermore, most characters “family became the only means of achieving a better life”. It is the reason why Kojo has so many sons and daughters.

Through being a slavery, segregation, social injustice, or even just being discriminated against for so long, people begin lose their identity and sometimes will morph into a person is who trying to fight back or into a person that believes their critics. Although slavery initially ended after the 13th amendment outlawed slavery, there were other ways for racist people to get what they want. The slavery only transformed into a different system, but in other words “Evil begets evil.” Resilience is a big factor through the destruction of the African and African American identity. To thrive after living and suffering through the hardships of slavery and discrimination from generation to generation requires amazing resilience as a whole, but still is an “ongoing battle and may negatively affect their identity development.” Through writings from a slave, a man named John Jacobs stated, “To be a man, and not to be a man- a father without a husband and no protector - is the darkest of fates.” Black people did not just battle against their hardships physically, but as mentally as well. During slavery and a little while after slavery, “the condition of “former slave” and “freeman” did not occur simultaneously for many slaves, psychologically or in reality.” Slaves did not have the chance to create a self identity. Their human conditions were thrown away and regarded as property. Similar to the Iliad when Chryseis in the Iliad, she had her shaman condition stripped away from her by the Greeks and was treated as a prized possession or treasure found during war. Furthermore, after slavery African American dealt with stereotypes and discrimination which “continued to find themselves portrayed in a negative light and misrepresented by the popular culture reinforces stereotypes against blacks.” (Ross et. Al). For example, H was imprisoned and sentence to 10 years in a coal mine. While in the mine, H lost his self-identity. He was told what do and if he didn’t do it they would beat him. He had no way of expressing himself, but by only mining coal. By being in the coal mine, H “lacked a solid foundation of self- identity” which left him “susceptible to feeling more isolated and disengage.” From society itself (Ross, Andrea, et.al). H was not a slave, but now called a convict and “the convicts working the mines were almost all like him. Black, once slave, once free, now slave again.'

In conclusion, Esi’s family essentially suffered and died for one another so that their child could have a better life. Through pain and agony, their relationship with their children was strengthened. Esi’s family knew that “strength is knowing that everyone belongs to themselves” (Gyasi 38).

References

1. Andrews, William. On Being a Slave, African American Identity during the Period of Slavery, African American Identity: Vol. I, 1500-1865, Primary Resources in U.S. History and Literature, Toolbox Library, National Humanities Center, nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/identity/text1/text1read.htm.
2. Gyasi, Yaa. Homegoing Vintage Books. 2016.
3. Lewis, Thomas. “Transatlantic Slave Trade.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 7 Sept. 2018, www.britannica.com/topic/transatlantic-slave-trade.
4. LitCharts. “Racism, Slavery, and Systemic Oppression Theme Analysis.” LitCharts, www.litcharts.com/lit/homegoing/themes/racism-slavery-and-systemic-oppression.
5. Polgreen, Lydia. “Ghana’s uneasy embrace of slavery’s diaspora.” The New York Time, nytimes, December 27, 2005.
6. Ross, Andrea, et.al. “Self - Identity: A key to Black Success”. Vistas online, Drs Garry Walz and Jeanne C. Bleur, Article 64, January 28-29 2016.
7. Hellie, Richard. “Slavery.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 22 Jan. 2019, www.britannica.com/topic/slavery-sociology.