Homecoming

Key Facts

full title · Homecoming

author · Cynthia Voigt

type of work · Novel

genre · Young adult problem novel, adventure/accomplishment romance, quest novel

language · English

time and place written · Annapolis, Maryland, late 1970s

date of first publication · 1981

publisher · Athaneum

narrator · Anonymous narrator closely allied with Dicey's perspective

point of view · The narrator speaks in third person, divulging Dicey's perceptions, thoughts, and emotions. Other characters are portrayed from the outside, according to Dicey's perception of them.

tone · The narrator speaks in a straightforward tone, describing the children's dramatic situations in a reporter-like style. The narrator attempts to accurately portray a young person's thoughts and perceptions.

tense · Simple past, with brief flashbacks to life with Momma

setting (time) · Late 1970s

setting (place) · Connecticut and Maryland

protagonist · Dicey Tillerman

major conflict · Dicey and her siblings, abandoned by their mentally ill mother, try desperately to find a home with relatives whom they barely know

rising action · The abandoned children travel for hundreds of miles on foot and almost no money to their cousin's house in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Their cousin, however, is a fussy and joyless woman, and though she agrees to take them in, the children know they will not be happy there. The children leave to visit their grandmother, of whom they had never heard before they arrived in Bridgeport, and to see if she will take them in. The children travel by bus, boat, foot, and car, and after a series of perilous events, reach their grandmother's run down farm. Their grandmother, however, flatly refuses to take them in.

climax · Their grandmother lets them stay on the farm for several days, and during that time grows fond of them. At dinner one day, however, she and Dicey conflict over what punishment Sammy should receive for disobeying Dicey. Dicey feels that even if it costs them their future at the farm, she must protect Sammy, and their grandmother firmly tells them that she does not want them to stay.

falling action · Gram tells Dicey later that night that she is afraid of repeating the same mistakes she made with her own children, and thus cannot take them in. A few days later, however, when Gram is about to mail a letter to their cousin in Bridgeport asking her to come for the children, Gram relents and agrees to take the children in.

themes · The transformative power of breaking conventions and habits; family as home; and the connection between freedom and abandonment

motifs · Money; theft; fighting

symbols · Sailboats; honeysuckle; song

foreshadowing · Dicey's repetition of Gram's address the very night after they arrive in Bridgeport foreshadows their departure for Crisfield from Bridgeport; Dicey's repetition of Momma's exact words when she leaves her siblings to meet their grandmother foreshadows some sort of repetition of the abandonment that began the book; Dicey's discovery of the boat foreshadows their making a home for themselves at their grandmother's