Summary
Willie was in church singing, having just come from cleaning a house. Her son Carson sat in the audience, bored and sulky; he wanted to go to school, but Willie couldn't let him until her younger daughter Josephine was old enough as well. When they left the church, Willie suggested to Carson that they walk for a while. They walked through Harlem, and Willie even got a smile out of Carson when she gave him a nickel to buy ice cream. Willie was the daughter of H, the coal miner, and she used to sing during the union meetings; that was where she met Robert. Willie, her younger sister Hazel, and Robert talked outside of a union meeting one day; Willie was surprised to see that his skin and eyes were very light for a black person. Willie pushed Robert down into the dirt when he called her father old, but after that initial conflict, they became best friends. They stayed close throughout grade school, started dating at 16, married at 18, and Carson was born two years later. Willie's father and mother died within months of Carson's birth; she was inconsolable at first, but while singing at their funeral she realized that she would survive.
Soon, both Willie and Robert felt the urge to leave Pratt City. Robert had become tired of working as a clerk at a store, so they decided that they would move to New York where Robert would learn a new trade and Willie would sing. Joecy's son Lil Joe, now called Joe Turner, had become a teacher in Harlem; Willie, Robert, and Carson moved into his apartment. They decided that Robert should look for a job first. One day, Willie and Robert went out walking, looking for places that were hiring, and an ice cream parlor turned down Robert because they saw he was married to a black woman. They had thought he was a white man. Willie and Robert went back to the apartment, and Robert set out again alone to find work. Willie sat at home staring at Carson while he slept, worrying about their new life. When Robert came home that evening, he had gotten a haircut and spent much of their savings on new clothes. Now, when looking for work, Willie and Robert wouldn't walk together on the sidewalk. Robert found work at a store in Harlem, but he quit after one customer made a comment to him about a black woman. He started to look in Manhattan, and after two weeks he found a job, though Willie didn't know exactly what the job was. After three more months, Willie found work too, working as a housekeeper for a wealthy black family.
When Willie inquired about a job singing at the Jazzing, they told her that she was too dark. This made Willie envious of Robert's skin, and she thought about how cautious he was even with all the privileges his skin color brought him. The jazz club told her that they could give her a job cleaning, and Willie accepted, though she told Robert that the family she worked for needed her to work at night. That night in bed, Robert tried to convince Willie that they didn't need the money from her working; while she did want to spend more time with Carson, she also wanted to work. She lashed out at him for the treatment they had been getting due to their difference in skin color, and after Robert yelled back at her, they fell into silence except for Carson's loud snoring between them. When Willie started to clean at the Jazzing, she found that the audience was white and the performers were all light skinned black people. Sometimes they did shows that mimicked life in Africa or in the American South. Ever since Robert and Willie had fought, Robert had been staying out more and Joe was forced to put Carson to bed. One night, Willie's boss at the Jazzing told her to clean up vomit in the men's room. When she entered the room, she found that it was Robert who had vomited. Two white men entered the bathroom, and Robert and Willie tried to pretend they didn't know each other. However, when the men started to harass Willie, she spit in one of the men's face. Robert yelled out and the men realized that she was his wife. The man in the gray suit instructed Robert to kiss and touch Willie while he masturbated openly. After he had an orgasm, both of the men in suits left the bathroom, calling behind them that Robert was fired. Robert told Willie that he would leave that night, and then he left the bathroom too.
After Robert left, Joe offered to marry Willie, but she refused and moved out of the apartment. In the weeks that followed, Carson cried all the time, and Willie had to leave him home alone all day. She continued working cleaning jobs. When she tried to audition for singing jobs, she couldn't make any sound come out, and she would cry and ask for forgiveness. She started going to church, and she met a man named Eli there. He gave Carson an apple and convinced Willie to take a walk with him after church one day. They walked through Harlem, with Eli holding Carson's hand and the little boy not crying for once. Eli told her that he was a poet. He lived a wild life, and Willie was happy to join in. However, when Willie had their baby, Josephine, Eli started to leave for days at a time. Eli called Carson Sonny, which Willie didn't like, perhaps because Robert had used to call their son that. Carson said that he liked to be called that, though. In the next few years, sometimes Eli would be home for a month at a time, writing poetry and bringing in money, and sometimes he would leave without warning. Willie was forced to leave Josephine at home with Carson, who was kicked out of school multiple times, and the family was evicted from three apartments. Willie went to church during the periods when Eli wasn't home, and Willie joined the church choir though she still couldn't make a sound.
Willie and Carson kept walking in Harlem as Carson finished his ice cream cone. As they neared the edge of Harlem, more and more of the people on the street were white. Suddenly, when they stopped at an intersection, Willie saw Robert. He was bent down to tie the shoe of a small child who was holding the hand of a white woman. Robert stood, kissed the woman, and then looked across the intersection and saw Willie. They smiled at each other, but then Robert and his family turned and left. Willie and Carson turned around too and headed back home. That Sunday, the church was full of people. Eli had been home for quite a while because he had a book of poetry set to be published soon. Willie looked out from where she stood in the choir, hearing the pastor preach and seeing Eli holding Josephine in the audience. She thought about her father coming home at night to spend time with his wife and daughters. She started to tremble, and then she dropped her prayer book and began to sing.
Yaw was a teacher at a Roman Catholic school in Takoradi. He had been teaching for the past ten years, and it was currently the weekend before second term began. He sat in his classroom looking at the book he had been writing called Let the Africans Own Africa. Later, Yaw ate dinner at the house of a colleague named Edward Boahen, as he usually did. During dinner, Edward urged him to get married. The men had met in school in Accra, and they remained very close. Yaw started to talk about revolution and independence. Edward told him that he should go to America or England to get further education if he wanted to get involved in the revolution, but Yaw argued that getting educated outside of Africa meant continuing to serve the goals of white men. The men had been born around the time when the Asante had been absorbed by the British colony. When Edward's wife started to offer to set him up with a girl she knew, Yaw left abruptly. When Yaw walked past the school, he saw a group of boys playing football. When he returned a lost ball to them, he saw one look fearful and then ask another boy what was wrong with Yaw's face.
Yaw met his new students on the first day of term. The boys at Yaw's school were boisterous in the hallways, but very well-behaved in class. Yaw taught in English, though he had once argued with the headmaster about the students being able to learn in their regional languages. Yaw had written "History is Storytelling" on the board, and he challenged the students to tell him the story they had heard about how he got the scars on his face. After the students voiced their theories, becoming more comfortable, Yaw asked which story was right. One student answered that they couldn't possibly know, since they weren't there. Yaw agreed, telling the students that this is the problem of history: there are always many different accounts, and whoever has power gets to write the story for posterity. One student presses Yaw to say what really happened, but Yaw says he was only a baby, so he has only heard stories as well. Yaw thought about the story he had heard: The Crazy Woman set their hut on fire while he and his siblings were inside and Crippled Man had only been able to save one child. The village collected money to send Yaw away to school, and Crippled Man had died during this time, but Crazy Woman was reportedly still alive. Yaw had never returned to Edweso, where he was born. His mother had sent him letters at school at first, but when he never responded, she stopped. He spent his school breaks at Edward's house in Oseim. Once, during a break, Yaw formed a crush on a girl and spent days copying poems onto leaves and scattering them near the river from which she fetched water. However, the girl told Edward that she couldn't ever marry Yaw because their children would be ugly.
The semester ended, and the Convention People’s Party formed. Yaw stopped dining at Edward's house so much because Edward's wife was having a difficult pregnancy with their fifth child. Because of this, Yaw got a house girl; he hadn't wanted to, but Edward had convinced him and screened the potential girls himself. He chose Esther, a girl who had grown up in Takoradi. The first day that she came to Yaw's house, he asked her to leave him alone while he worked on his book. The girl was plain, and at first she seemed very scared and talked to him in English. However, as soon as he told her that they could speak in Twi she became very talkative. Esther invited him to go to the market with her to get food for dinner, and though he rebuffed her at first, she got him to agree. They bought a goat and took it home. On the way home, Esther asked Yaw about his mother and he told her about his scar. She remarked that he was very angry and he agreed.
Yaw fell in love with Esther, though he only realized it after five years. He felt a great gap between them, though, in terms of age, education, and his scar. Because of this, he hardly spoke to her, even though they ate dinner together every night. One evening, Yaw asked Esther to go with him to Edweso to visit his mother. Esther agreed. They traveled over 200 kilometers to get to Edweso, and Yaw barely spoke at all. As soon as they got to Edweso, a young boy remarked to his mother about Yaw's face. The boy's father approached Yaw and greeted him by name; the man, who introduced himself as Kofi Poku, said that he had been only 10 years old when Yaw left the village. Kofi Poku's wife suggested that Yaw should stay at their house, and that he wait to visit Ma Akua until the next evening. When they got to Kofi Poku's house, the children whispered about Yaw's face, causing Esther to yell at them. At dinner, Kofi Poku's wife told Yaw about her interactions with his mother. At night, Yaw slept on the mattress provided and Esther slept on the floor.
The next day, Yaw and Esther walked around Edweso, waiting until evening since people told them that Ma Akua still didn't sleep much and did not like mornings. When evening came, Kofi Poku took Yaw and Esther to Ma Akua's house. There was a beautiful garden outside. When Yaw knocked on the door, a house girl came out, and she dropped the bowl she had been carrying when she saw him. The woman started to shout and clap, praising God, and then she led them into the house. Yaw found Ma Akua sitting quietly in the living room. She seemed younger than her age. She walked over and held his hands, telling him that her dreams had come true. The two house girls went off to make dinner, leaving Yaw alone with his mother. She touched his scar, even though it made him angry. Then Yaw started to weep and she held and rocked him. He asked to hear the story of his scar, and she told him about her whole life. Besides telling him about being raised by the Missionary and the dreams that she had of the firewoman, she revealed that the fetish priest had told her the firewoman was an ancestor of hers who had once owned the black stone she carried. Yaw began to get angry again, and now his mother cried, telling him that the fetish priest was right about their being evil in their lineage. She apologized for the suffering he has experienced and instructed him to let himself be free.
Sonny
Sonny sat in jail, waiting for his mother to bail him out and reading The Souls of Black Folk. Eventually Willie showed up, a broom in hand because she came directly from cleaning houses on the Upper East Side. Willie scolded Carson for getting put in jail too many times, but he refused to look at her or talk to her as he exited the jail cell. Sonny had been mad at her for his entire life for his lack of a father. Sonny worked for the NAACP on the housing team; he went around to different neighborhoods in Harlem and interviewed people about their conditions. He remembered what it was like to live in such apartments because as a child he and his mother and sister had moved between apartments, some which had over forty people living in a few rooms. During one interview, a boy came into the room and asked Sonny if he could actually help them; this voice stuck with Sonny and he asked to be taken off of the housing team. Sonny was arrested and even beaten at many marches, which upset Willie. Sonny started to skip work, feeling hopeless. One day he asked a man what helps and the man responded by giving him a small bag of dope. Sonny quit his job at the NAACP and flushed the dope down the toilet.
Sonny moved back into his mother's house since without an income he couldn't keep his apartment. His sister pressed him about what he would do for work now, and his mother told him that various women had been coming by to see him and ask for money. His friend Mohammed, who was previously named Johnny, tried to get him to join the Nation of Islam. Sonny hadn't finished a single year of school, so he didn't have the educational background for a lot of jobs that might be available. After two weeks, Sonny got a job taking drink orders at Jazzmine and moved out of his mother's house. He didn't tell his mother where he was working because he believed that she didn't like jazz music. In time, Sonny became head bartender at the club. One night, a young woman asked for a whiskey; she introduced herself as Amani Zulema. She took her drink to the stage and then started to sing and scat, making the crowd go wild. As Amani sang, Sonny thought about the time that his mother dropped her prayer book and started to sing loudly in church. When Amani finished singing, she returned her glass to Sonny but left without talking to him again.
One day, Lucille came by Sonny's apartment with their one-year-old daughter. She wanted money, having heard that Sonny gave one of his other children's mothers some. Sonny had three children by three different women. He had had a daughter named Etta with a girl named Angela when he was just fifteen years old; he had wanted to marry her, but her family had sent her to Alabama and she had married a pastor there. He sent Lucille away without any money. At Jazzmine a few days later, Sonny asked about Amani. A man named Blind Louis recommended he stay away from her, but Sonny didn't want to hear that. After three months, Sonny saw Amani again. She was sleeping on a table in the back of the club. Sonny woke her up with difficulty and saw that her pupils were large and her eyes bloodshot. She asked what he wanted and he said that he wanted her, so she took him out of the club. They exchanged names; Amani told him that she had originally been named Mary, but took on the name Amani when she started singing because it meant harmony in Swahili. They argued briefly about the Back to Africa movement, and then they got to where Amani lived. It was a building full of dope fiends, and he realized that Amani was one too. They entered a room where some women were shooting up; there were jazz instruments in the room as well. Sonny and Amani sat down, and when the needle was passed to Amani, she plunged it into her arm. She asked Sonny if he still wanted her.
Some time later, Willie was at Carson's apartment door. She called his name, and when he wouldn't respond, she started to pray loudly. He had become a dope fiend, and though he tried to get off it repeatedly, he couldn't. Eventually, his mother left, and he ventured out into Harlem to find more heroin. He walked down the street asking junkies if they had any until he found his way to a dealer and paid him all the money he had. He shot up in a diner on the way home since if he waited until he was back in the apartment, Amani would take it all. When he got back, Amani was there. She told him that his mother had come by again and that he should talk to her so they could get some more money. Amani had only been able to make money recently by begging to sing at dingy bars. In the apartment, Sonny kissed and touched Amani and promised her that he would go talk to his mother.
When Sonny went to his mother's house, he kept a bag of dope in his shoe. Josephine met him at the door with her daughter and son. She spoke rudely to him, but Willie welcomed him inside and offered him food. He immediately went to the bathroom and took out his dope. When he came back out, he sat down to eat. His sister started to argue with him again and his mother gave her some money to take her children out. Sonny caught a look between his sister and his mother that upset him because it showed that they both knew he could be dangerous. Sonny ate and thanked his mother for the food. Willie suddenly began to tell Sonny about his father, starting by saying that he was a white man and then clarifying that he had started off as a light-skinned black man. She also told him that they saw him once on the street with his new, white family. Sonny got mad at her then, telling her that she never fights anyone or for anything. She told him that she fought for him. She continued that she also marched; she marched from Alabama to New York. After taking some deep breaths, she told him that she knows he was always angry that he didn't get to choose what his life was like. She told him that it upsets her that he's a junkie, but it upsets her even more that he has three children who he hardly knows, the way Sonny's own father didn't get to know him. Josephine came back and put her kids to bed. Willie pulled cash out of her dress and gave it to Sonny, telling him to take it and go if he wanted to. Sonny badly wanted to take the money, buy more dope, and shoot up, but instead he stayed.
Analysis
In Homegoing, only one of Esi's descendants and one of Effia's descendants is chosen to be the focus in each generation. Gyasi uses these pairs to contrast the history and development of Ghana and the United States and to bring out certain themes and motifs. A motif brought out in Akua and Willie's generation is singing. Willie's singing voice is discovered when she is young, and she is praised for singing the national anthem at her father's coal union meetings. She wants to become a jazz singer in New York City, but she is told that her skin is too dark to sing at the jazz club she's interested in. Akua is also acknowledged as having an especially good singing voice, and she leads the women in song while the men of their village are fighting in a war. Their singing voices show the continued connection of extended family members even as they grow father apart in family history and lived experience.
Sonny's chapter holds a dark irony about the way parents can affect their children. Sonny grows up very bitter and rebellious because of his missing father. However, he gets three different women pregnant as a young man, and he refuses to help any of them raise the children or even give them money. Gyasi does not make apologies for Sonny, and instead uses his chapter to show the way that societal pressures and parental examples can influence someone to go down certain paths. Gyasi also allows for hope at the end of Sonny's chapter when he decides to get clean and raise his fourth child with the help of his mother.
Another irony in Sonny's chapter is the fact that he thinks his mother does not like jazz music, while the reader knows that singing jazz music was once Willie's biggest pursuit. In Willie's chapter we see that the young woman aspired to become a jazz singer in New York but could not get a job at the Jazzing because her skin was too dark. Because of this experience and her romantic and economic troubles with her husband, Willie loses her love for singing. When Sonny is looking for a job, he ends up taking one at a new jazz club called Jazzmine. Neither Sonny nor Willie see how closely their interests intersect, which is ironic because Sonny has always felt like his mother doesn't understand him. Amani, Sonny's girlfriend who gets him addicted to heroin, also serves as an ironic representation of the life Willie thought she desired.
As the book nears its end, Gyasi turns her focus more heavily toward a few themes. One of these themes is history, which is the primary focus of Yaw's chapter. Through Yaw's story, Gyasi tells the reader how history is constructed by those who have power and privilege; like Yaw, Gyasi wants to teach people to look for alternative stories to the usual Western narratives. Yaw's experience also teaches that one need not be defined by one's personal or familial history; Yaw thinks that he has overcome his mother's impact by leaving his village and acknowledging that he will never fully understand what happened to him as a child. However, the reader finds out in Marjorie's chapter that when Yaw let his mother back into his life, he was able to learn the truth of what happened and fully accept himself as worthy of love.
Sonny and Yaw share a parallel interest in social justice. When Sonny's chapter begins, he is working for the NAACP; When Yaw's begins, is writing a book called "Let the Africans Own Africa (p.234). However, both come to feel like their efforts are futile in the face of the prevailing system of power. Gyasi does not attempt to solve this problem in their chapters. Rather, she shows in the chapters on both of their children, Marjorie and Marcus, that the children of their generation continue to work on this issue by furthering their education and remembering their history.
