Homegoing Essay Questions

Discuss the importance of names in Homegoing. What relationship do names have to family, culture, and identity?

Names hold a lot of information about a person. A last name often identifies family, the given name may have a meaning in English or another language, and a middle or additional name may show a connection to religion or ancestors. In Homegoing, many of the main characters' names show their connection to Akan culture and to other characters in the book. A good example is Kojo, Ness and Sam's son. Kojo is a traditional Akan name meaning "Monday born" that is seen briefly in the beginning of the story as the name of Esi's father's eldest son. Kojo's name shows his connection to his African ancestors, and since he doesn't remember his parents, it is important that he keeps the name they gave him. It is also interesting that Kojo generally goes by the nickname Jo as an adult living in Baltimore, since this is a more traditional American name, which he may feel helps him blend into American culture.

How are women treated throughout the novel? What roles do marriage and motherhood play in the lives of the women depicted in the story?

Homegoing begins in the 17th century and spans until the early 21st century. Thus, not only does the treatment of Africans and African-Americans change throughout the story, but the treatment and roles of women also go through drastic changes. Gyasi uses the chapters that follow female descendants of Maame to depict and challenge the roles of women in Ghanaian and American history, both showing the negative effects of women being treated as property and the positive aspects of marriage and motherhood. The descendants of Esi must deal with forced marriage, absent fathers, and difficulty finding jobs due largely to their gender, and Effia's descendants living in Africa depend on marriage and motherhood to shape their lives.

Contrasting the lives of Willie and Akua, female characters living in the same time period in the United States and Africa, the reader understands that both women are limited in their ability to support themselves and their families because they cannot get jobs as easily as men. Though American society has a more industrialized economy at the time, Willie still finds herself cleaning to make money and struggling to care for her children. Both of these women also have sons who resent them for things the reader understands weren't their fault, a painful part of parenthood. However, in the end, Willie and Akua form strong relationships with their children and grandchildren, which gives them happiness and peace in old age.

Analyze the structure of the book. Why did the author choose to separate the book into chapters focusing on different characters? How might the book have been different if it was told with a different structure or narrative point of view?

Homegoing is structured with chronological chapters following descendants of Maame, starting with her daughters Effia and Esi. This structure allows the reader to learn about the history of Ghana and black history in United States from the 17th century to the 21st century while also observing themes and motifs around family, race, and culture. The book would be incredibly different if Gyasi had chosen to write about only one of the characters who has a chapter in the book; she would have been able to go deeper into that character's experiences, emotions, and development, but the reader would not be able to see the factors that led up to the character being born or having certain limitations and privileges. Gyasi could also have focused on only one family line, which would have eliminated the ability to compare the development of Ghana and the United States and the roles race and gender play in their history.

What does the author believe about the relationships between parents and children? How do the relationships change as the children grow and influence the decisions the children make about their lives and the raising of their own children?

Because of the multitude of main characters in Homegoing, Gyasi is able to paint a complex, nuanced picture of the effects parents can have on children. An important point to understand is that Gyasi includes non-biological parental figures who have a great impact on many of the main characters; the first chapter of the book focuses on Effia, who is raised by a woman she discovers is not her biological mother, but nevertheless has perhaps the biggest impact on Effia's life of any character. While Baaba's role in Effia's life is largely negative, other non-biological parents have positive, nurturing roles in the lives of main characters; for example, Kojo comes to consider Ma Aku, who saved him from slavery and raised him in the North, as his mother.

Gyasi shows that there are many kinds of relationships between parents and children, but all will affect the way those children grow up and the way they decide to raise their children. Sonny, whose father is absent for most of his life, is not present in the lives of his first three children, who he has with three different women. Though he always resented his mother for his father's absence, something makes him do the same thing, showing how parental behavior can be passed on to children. However, after Sonny gets off of drugs, with the help of his mother he is able to get involved in his fourth child's life and provide more than what his father provided for him. This shows that, though one's parents and upbringing will always have an effect, children need not be defined by their parents' personalities and decisions.

What does this story teach the reader about the nature of history? Use examples from multiple chapters.

Homegoing teaches first and foremost that the history one learns in school is likely not the whole, or even the correct, story. Yaw, a schoolteacher in 20th century Ghana, tells his class that "History is storytelling" (p.237). What he means is that a story will always be slightly different depending on who is telling it, and the stories that make up history are usually told by those who gained power. The way history is told will exaggerate certain aspects, probably the successes or goodwill of the successful party, and the stories of those who did not win will be lost. This is important to Homegoing because Gyasi attempts to highlight stories in African and African-American history that have been told from a white, Western point of view to many people in the world.

Another thing Gyasi teaches the reader in Homegoing is that history is complexly interwoven. Marcus, the final character in the book, tries to study the history of his own family for his graduate research at Stanford. However, he finds himself unable to untangle the story of his great-grandfather the coal miner from that of his great-great-grandfather the slave and his ancestors in Africa. Gyasi likely felt the same difficulty when deciding how far back in Ghana's history to begin her story and when choosing what moments in history to focus on. Marcus's chapter and Gyasi's book as a whole demonstrate the way people and events affect one another to create chain reactions that push history forward.