Summary
Marjorie
Marjorie heard a boy calling out to her about tours of the Cape Coast Castle. She shouted back to him in Twi, saying she was from Ghana, but he still pursued her because he knew she came from America. Marjorie had come back to Cape Coast to visit her grandmother Akua, who had moved away from Edweso to be closer to the sea. People in Cape Coast called her Old Lady instead of Crazy Woman. Marjorie arrived at her grandmother's house and hugged her. The scars on her grandmother's hands now blended in with the wrinkles, and Marjorie thought about how the pain she knew her father and grandmother had experienced had made Marjorie never admit to pain she had, such as when she'd had a large ringworm on her leg as a young girl.
Akua had a house on the beach that Marjorie's mother and father had come back to Ghana to build. When they got back to the house, Akua had to remind Marjorie to speak Twi. At home in America, her parents spoke Twi to her and she spoke back in English; it had been this way ever since a teacher had written home about Marjorie's speaking skills in kindergarten. Akua and Marjorie took a walk on the beach together, as Marjorie loved to do. Akua asked about the black stone, which Marjorie now wore as a necklace. Marjorie knew how far it had traveled, from Maame all the way to her. Akua told Marjorie that she was in the ocean they were walking by; when Marjorie was born, her parents had mailed her umbilical cord to Akua, who had put it in the ocean. Akua talked about how the family was connected to Cape Coast and the Castle; she had put the umbilical cord there so Marjorie would know how and where to come home.
Marjorie returned to Alabama at the end of summer. She had gotten her period while in Ghana, and her grandmother had celebrated. Marjorie was entering high school now. She hated school in Alabama because the community was mostly white, and the black girls mocked her for her accent and for acting white. She recalled how white people were mocked in Ghana and how her father had had a talk with her about skin color and race when she was younger. The next day, Marjorie ate lunch in the teacher's lounge. Her favorite teacher, Mrs. Pinkston, talked to her and gave her a cookie. She asked if Marjorie liked Lord of the Flies, which she was currently reading, and followed that question with whether Marjorie felt the book inside her. Marjorie spent her next three years devouring the books in the school library.
One day, a boy talked to her in the library. His name was Graham, and his family had just moved to Alabama from Germany. From then on, they ate lunch together every day in the library, reading side by side. At home one day, Marjorie asked her father when he knew he liked her mother. He told her to focus on her studies and left. Marjorie's mom encouraged her to tell the boy she liked how she felt. Marjorie went to bed hoping for the courage to do so. Around the same time, Mrs. Pinkston began preparation for a black cultural event at Marjorie's school called The Waters We Wade In. She asked Marjorie to write something about her experience as an African-American. Marjorie replied that she is not African-American; as the child of recent African immigrants, she has a much closer relationship with Africa than African-Americans do. However, Mrs. Pinkston replies that all black people are treated the same in the United States. She gives Marjorie a cup of coffee, which Marjorie doesn't like.
That evening, Marjorie and Graham went to see a movie together. After the movie, Graham drove them to the woods and they drank whiskey. Graham pulled out a cigarette and a lighter, and he continued playing with the lighter until Marjorie asked him to stop; she was afraid of fire because of the stories she had heard about her family. They chatted blandly about the movie, and then Marjorie brought up Mrs. Pinkston's assembly. Marjorie thinks Graham is going to ask her to prom, but he doesn't. Later that week, a call came from Ghana saying Akua was getting weaker. Majorie immediately wanted to go to Ghana, and made Akua promise to her over the phone that she wouldn't die before she was able to come.
Graham and Marjorie went on another date, this time to a space museum. When Graham asked Marjorie if she would ever move to Ghana, she thought about the commotion and poverty and decided she wouldn't want to. Marjorie described how she didn't feel like she fit in in America or in Ghana. After she admitted this, Graham kissed her. School continued in the following weeks, but Marjorie was distracted by her grandmother's failing health. Instead of eating in the teacher's lounge or the library, Marjorie took to eating alone in the cafeteria. One day, Graham sat across from her. He asked her about how she was, but she replied curtly. A white girl came over to the table and asked Graham why he was sitting with Marjorie. She invited him to sit at her table. Graham refused, but then Marjorie told him he should go. She had expected him to fight back, but instead he looked relieved and left.
Prom's theme was The Great Gatsby. Marjorie didn't go. On the night of prom, Marjorie watched a movie with her parents; when she got up to make popcorn, she heard them whispering about her. Suddenly, the phone rang. Marjorie picked up, thinking it might be Akua, but it was Graham. He told her that he wished he could take her, but Marjorie knew that both his father and the school hadn't thought it was appropriate. Graham asked her to read her poem for him. She refused, telling him that he would hear it at the assembly, and quickly got off the phone.
On the day of the event, Marjorie stood backstage with Mrs. Pinkston as students filled the auditorium. When the assembly started, Marjorie started to get a bad feeling about what was going to happen. However, she went onstage when she was called. Her poem was about water, the Cape Coast Castle, and sameness. Her father showed up just in time to hear her read, and the poem made him cry. Soon after, Akua died in Ghana. Marjorie took the rest of the school year off and traveled to Ghana with her mother and father. Akua had wanted to be buried on a mountain overlooking the sea. Most of the people at the funeral had been crying for days, but Marjorie didn't. Marjorie meant to drop her poem in the grave before they covered the coffin with soil, but she forgot to. This caused Marjorie to fall to the ground crying. Her mother lifted her up.
Marcus was afraid of water, especially the ocean. When Marcus was growing up, his father Sonny used to tell him that black people didn't like water because they were brought to the United States on slave ships. When Marcus was growing up at Ma Willie's house, Sonny had always taught him about slavery, segregation, the prison labor complex, and modern racial injustice; this sparked Marcus's interest in studying American society in college. When Marcus was growing up, Sonny would do precisely the same routine every morning: drink orange juice, shave, get his methadone, and go to work as a custodian at the hospital.
Marcus was uncomfortably near to water now. He was at a pool party thrown by a friend at grad school to celebrate the new millennium. Marcus had decided to simply sit by the side of the pool, but his friend Diante complained that it was too hot. Diante left the party; he often did because he was looking for a girl he had met at an art museum once. Marcus left the party soon after. He was getting his Ph.D. in sociology at Stanford University in California.
Marcus called home once a week, on Sundays, when he knew his grandma, aunt, and cousins would be around the house. Sonny told him that his mother said hello, though Marcus knew this wasn't true; Amani hadn't been very involved in his childhood. Marcus asked if his father was clean, and his father said he was and just to worry about studying. Eventually, they got off the phone and Diante came by to take Marcus to the museum where he had met the girl. Marcus didn't like art museums much, and soon after getting there he left Diante to walk around by himself. He thought about once when he'd gotten lost in a museum as a child and wet his pants out of fear. After a while, Diante found Marcus and they left.
Marcus had been ignoring his research because his project had become overwhelming. He had wanted to write about the convict leasing system that his great-grandfather H had been subject to, but the story kept getting more complex as he thought about the political, economic, and social factors that tied into the treatment of blacks in the United States. He thought about how, at his grandmother's Sunday dinners, he sometimes imagined an even larger family in the room with him — relatives or ancestors from Africa. Ma Willie told him these were visions. He decided to pursue the idea intellectually rather than spiritually.
Soon, Diante had dropped his quest for the girl from the museum, but he still dragged Marcus out to parties and events. One night, they went to a gallery night and Afro-Caribbean dance party where steel drums were being played and female performers were singing along. Art, including a piece made by Diante, was displayed on the walls. Diante poked Marcus repeatedly to get his attention and then told him that the girl from the museum was at the party. They looked over and saw two women, one with light skin and long locks, the other with blue-black skin, large breasts, and an afro. As they walked over, Marcus wondered which one Diante was interested in. As soon as they got near, the light skinned woman recognized Diante. Diante introduced Marcus; Ki, the girl from the museum, introduced her friend Marjorie. Marcus remembered when once, as a child, his mother had stolen him for a day. She lured him away from home with the promise of an ice cream cone and then made him walk around all day, showing him off to her friends. When Willie and Sonny finally found them, Willie slapped Amani in the face. The feeling Marcus kept from this memory was that of being found, and he got the same feeling from meeting Marjorie.
Months later, Diante and Ki were not together, but Marcus and Marjorie had become close friends. Marjorie taught Marcus about Ghana, and they revealed their fears of water and fire to one another. Marjorie showed Marcus her necklace and told him that she hadn't been back to Ghana in fourteen years since it was so painful losing her grandmother. She said her Twi was so rusty that she probably couldn't get around, but when she laughed it was full of sadness. Marcus continued avoiding his research for the rest of the school year, and then he and Marjorie went to Pratt City. Marjorie's research was in African and African American literature. In Pratt City, they met up with a blind man who said he had known H, and Marjorie let him feel her arms and face. While walking around Pratt City, Marcus tried to explain his feeling that it was only chance that he had been born at a time when he could be alive, free, and out of jail. Marcus instead explained to Marjorie that he was afraid of the ocean because he can't see where it begins or ends. Marjorie suggested that he might like to see Cape Coast and, on a whim, he agreed.
When they got to Cape Coast, a boy again approached, marketing tours of the Castle. Marjorie was hesitant to go, seeing it as a tourist trap, but Marcus wanted to. They put down their things at the resort and then went to the Castle. Marcus noticed that everywhere they went, people welcomed them in Twi or Fante. The tour of the Castle began, with the tour guide describing how some local women married British soldiers and sent their children off to be educated in England while others were kept down in the dungeon and then, after months, led through a door to the beach to be loaded onto slave ships. Marcus thought about how they didn't know the names of any of these people, and, without thinking, he ran through the door. He ran and ran down the beach until he came to a big fire; he stopped there and heard Marjorie approach. He helped her approach the fire, and then she ran and jumped in the ocean and he followed her. In the water together, Marjorie took off her necklace and put it on Marcus. Marjorie splashed him and swam back towards the shore.
Analysis
That Marjorie and Marcus meet is one of the great ironies of Homegoing. Though Marjorie and Marcus do not acknowledge their relation, their meeting defies the curse Esi's slave girl alleged when she said, "In my village we have a saying about separated sisters. They are like a woman and her reflection, doomed to stay on opposite sides of the pond"(p.45). Not only are the two sisters symbolically reunited, but Marcus and Marjorie are drawn back to the Cape Coast Castle, where the sisters existed to close to one another before having their families torn to "opposite sides of the pond"(p.45). The fact that Marcus and Marjorie return to the castle as equals, while their ancestors had such different social positions when they coexisted in the castle, provides the reader with a hopeful message about the righting of wrongs with the passage of time.
It is likely that Gyasi identifies deeply with both Marjorie and Marcus. Obviously, Marjorie and Marcus live in the same time period as Gyasi, so she is able to use her own experience to create a rich setting for their chapters. Gyasis's own life story is closest of Marjorie's of any character in the book; like Marjorie, Gyasi came to the United States from Ghana as a baby and returned after college to reconnect with her ancestors and history. Marjorie and Marcus study literature and history as graduate students, combining the passions that led Gyasi to write Homegoing. And, like Marcus, Gyasi obviously felt that she could not tell just one story about Ghanaian or American history without getting into the way the stories entangle and stretch backwards in time.
While Marjorie is very similar to Marcus in some ways, her experience also has parallels to the chapters on Marcus's ancestors. Marjorie must grapple with the fact that she is not entirely accepted in either the United States or Ghana, and her immersion in American culture, especially as she gets older and loses her grandmother, lead her to not keep pursuing a connection with the place. Like Esi, Ness, and Kojo, Marjorie faces conflicting pressures to speak English and Twi with certain people. Like Willie, Marjorie's dark skin tone makes her stand out even compared to other black people in the U.S. Marjorie's story shows something many American readers may not understand: being African in the United States entails a distinct set off difficulties on top of being considered black.
One small but meaningful moment in Marjorie's story is when Marjorie's father Yaw calls her Abronoma. Gyasi writes, "She had always hated it when her father called her Dove. It was her special name, the nickname born with her because of her Asante name, but it had always made Marjorie feel small somehow, young and fragile." (p.286) Abronoma is also the name that Esi's family gives to their slave girl. This slave girl sets many things in motion; she is the one who reveals to Esi that her mother was once a slave and that she has a sister, and she also sets in motion the attack on Esi's village that leads to Esi being taken as a slave. Though Marjorie's father uses the name to tease her, perhaps the young woman grows into her name in Marcus's chapter, when both must allow themselves to be vulnerable when learning about Ghana and facing their fears.
When Marcus runs out of the castle at the climax of he story, he sees a row of boats with different flags: "Each boat had a flag of no nationality, of every nationality. There was a purple polka-dotted one beside a British one, a blood-orange one beside a French one, a Ghanaian one next to an American one."(p.315) While neither Marcus or Marjorie seem to take notice of this, Gyasi places this information at the climax to show that foreign interests still play a large role in contemporary Ghana. However, the tone of this comment is hopeful, implying coexistence and a blending of world cultures.
