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He knew then that the memory of the fire that burned, then fled, would haunt him, his children, and his children’s children for as long as the line continued.

This quotation comes from the very beginning of the novel in Effia’s chapter, describing Cobbe’s thoughts about the fire Maame sets the night of Effia’s birth. His prediction that the fire will haunt his lineage for generations sets up a symbol for the intergenerational trauma that passes through the Ghanaian side of the family. The first person mentioned who has a terror of fire is Maame, the one who starts this first fire. She starts this fire out of her anger at how Cobbe has hurt her, but it rages out of control, increasing both her own trauma and creating trauma that ripples outward. In leaving Effia and starting the fire, Maame sows the seeds of Effia’s trauma, fueling Baaba’s resentment that will lead to Effia marrying Governor James, who in turn will sell Esi as a slave, severing half the family line’s connection to Ghana. Maame will eventually visit Akua in her dreams, reminding her of the fire that severed the family, leading Akua to unintentionally set fire to her own home. This fire will permanently scar Akua and Yaw, and result in Marjorie being terrified of fire.

The significance of fire to the Ghanaian side of the family is in the way the fire grows and spreads quickly, causing damage and having unintended consequences. As we see in Esi’s chapter, Maame regrets starting the fire, always cautioning Esi to understand when and how to use her anger. Her regret doesn’t change how her anger affects Effia. Effia and Quey’s passive complicity in the slave trade perpetuates other families being separated. In hiding his past from Abena and the rest of the village, James allows Abena to live as an outcast and denies her the opportunity to reckon with her history, which in turn leads to Akua’s traumatic visions. Like fire itself, trauma begets itself, spreading like fire, causing more casualties in its wake.

Weakness is treating someone as though they belong to you. Strength is knowing that everyone belongs to themselves.

Maame says these words to Esi during Esi’s chapter, when she scolds Esi for condoning Big Man whipping Abronoma. Maame, who was enslaved to Cobbe before she became the wife of Big Man, recognizes the inherent weakness at the root of enslavement. A person who is secure in themselves and their power does not need to consistently subjugate others to demonstrate their force. If not whipping a woman who spills water is enough to make others doubt Big Man’s authority, he doesn’t hold as much power as he claims. This understanding of strength and weakness radiates through the novel, underlying its exploration of the difference between power and strength. On both the Ghanaian and American sides of the family, those who rule assert and display their power by taking away the autonomy of others. Both Fante and Asante cultures involve the enslavement of prisoners of war, and white Americans use both slavery and systemic marginalization to assert their racial superiority.

On the Ghanaian side of the family, Quey is consistently accused of being a weak man by Nana Yaa, which makes his son James fear his own weakness. Ironically, Quey becomes a weak man by doubling down on his complicity with slavery. Quey has an opportunity to choose differently, maybe even pursue a life with Cudjo, but instead he decides that upholding and perpetuating the family legacy of slavery would be a sign of strength. However, he is not firm in his decisions or secure in his power. James, on the other hand, has the strength to reject comfort and power because he refuses to perpetuate the institution of slavery. Even though he ends up in obscurity and poverty, the novel portrays his strength of character as admirable and brave. In the United States chapters, the novel consistently highlights the essential cowardice and weakness of slave owners and others who uphold white supremacy. In Ness’s chapter, Tom Allan, Jr. (also referred to as Tom Junior and Tom Jr.) acts like a wounded victim because Ness stops him from whipping Pinky. Ness, on the other hand, shows her strength and courage when she sends Kojo into freedom without her. In H’s chapter, Thomas’s indignity over being paired with a Black man cannot mitigate his physical weakness, whereas H appears to be an even stronger man by helping Thomas make his quota.

So when you study history, you must always ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there, you begin to get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture.

This quotation comes from the lecture Yaw gives to his history students on the first day of class. Although he is referring to the larger project of understanding history, his words also describe how Homegoing attempts to create a fuller, clearer picture of Black American and Ghanaian histories by focusing on voices from the margins. Instead of talking about the Fante and Asante chiefs and English governors, the novel tells the story of Effia, a woman who is forced into complicity with the slave trade through a marriage she has no choice in. Although many narratives paint homosexuality as a modern phenomenon, Quey is forced to deny his romantic feelings for his best friend, Cudjo, in order to inherit the social and political power Fiifi hopes to pass on to him. Although James’s ties to the Asante royal family could have established him in historical records, he rejects prestige for an anonymous agrarian life. Abena and Akua are outcasts in their villages through poverty and mental illness. Yaw becomes an academic, writing a niche book that very few people read.

On the American side, Homegoing attempts to explore lesser-discussed slave narratives, such as those like Ness who do not succeed in escaping through the Underground Railroad, or freedmen like Kojo whose family is nevertheless torn apart by the Fugitive Slave Act. H is a convict whose life demonstrates the little-discussed reality of slavery still existing after the Civil War. Instead of telling of the singers or poets of the Harlem Renaissance, Homegoing gives us Willie, whose gender and dark skin keep her sidelined from the glamor and creativity of the era. Sonny, unable to cope with the acute emotional stress and violent hatred he faces as a civil rights activist, turns to drugs, making him more likely to be treated as a statistic than a man worth telling a story about. As Yaw tells his students, hearing the stories of these silenced voices gives us a better understanding of the full picture of these histories.

Split the Castle open, / find me, find you. / We, two, felt sand, / wind, air. / One felt whip. Whipped, / once shipped.

We, two, black. / Me, you. / One grew from cocoa’s soil, birthed from nut,/ skin uncut, still bleeding. / We, two, wade. / The waters seem different but are same. / Our same. Sister skin. / Who knew? Not me. Not you.

Marjorie writes and recites this poem in her chapter during the Black History Month school assembly Mrs. Pinkston organizes. While Marjorie at first doesn’t want to participate because her Ghanaian heritage makes her feel alienated from the Black American students at her school, she is able to imagine commonality and reconciliation through her poem. This reconciliation sets the stage for Marjorie to find Marcus and bring him back to find his roots in Ghana. The first three lines of the poem cover how the two halves of the family are torn asunder. Both Effia and Esi pass through the Castle, Effia unknowingly complicit in the sale of Esi. Effia’s experience of the sand, wind, and air are pleasant, whereas for Esi, the same sand, wind, and air are terrifying and painful. The line break after “wind, air” mirrors the physical break from that sand, wind, and air that Esi experiences when she is brought to America as a slave.

In the second stanza, Marjorie explores how, despite this rupture, the Ghanaian American and the Black American sides of the family have much in common. As Mrs. Pinkston reminds her, in the United States, both are considered Black, even if their experiences are different. Although Ghanaians did not experience the transatlantic slave trade and therefore have “uncut” skin, they still bleed from the scars of colonialism, which have led to Marjorie’s family immigrating to the United States. Her reference to “cocoa’s soil” references the notoriously unethical chocolate industry in Ghana and other parts of West Africa, which often relies on child labor and unfair trade practices that favor Western corporations. Marjorie goes on to note that a single ocean lies between the United States and Ghana, the Atlantic. She and the Black ancestor she has not met, Marcus, can wade in the same water from different shores. The final line of the poem highlights that these commonalities and connections are not often discussed or placed into context. Instead, both sides of the family see the division that Marjorie imagines existing before writing the poem.

“Here,” Marjorie said. “Have it.” She lifted the stone from her neck, and placed it around Marcus’s. “Welcome home.”

This quotation comes from the very end of the novel in Marcus’s chapter, as he and Marjorie swim together off the Gold Coast. By giving Effia’s stone to Marcus, Marjorie symbolically reunites the two halves of the family, helping to heal the deep rift and intergenerational trauma both have experienced. The necklace has been passed from generation to generation along the Ghanaian side of the family, so it represents an unbroken lineage of ancestors. Symbolically, Esi cannot bring her stone to the United States because of this rupture. She is cut off from both the land of Ghana and the possibility of an unbroken ancestral line. As almost all the American family members observe, Black history in the United States is difficult to trace because of the way the legacies of slavery, incarceration, segregation, and even miscegenation disrupt and destroy families. Tracing the line farther back before slavery is nearly impossible. In gifting Marcus with Effia’s stone, Marjorie gifts him with home because she is both giving him part of a physical place and reuniting him with his ancestral line.

Marjorie’s gift is also an act of reconciliation. The Ghanaian side of the family is complicit in the transatlantic slave trade, and Effia’s husband is the man who sold Esi into slavery. Her side of the family thus participated in separating Marcus from his home. We see how Marjorie does not initially internalize this fact in her dismissal of the Castle as just a place for American tourists. She doesn’t see it as a place real Ghanaians go and therefore is able to avoid that aspect of her history. When she realizes that Marcus wants to go to the Castle because it is inherently a part of his history, she is forced to reevaluate her judgment. She notably decides to give Marcus the stone as a welcome home after he has a panic attack in the castle and follows Esi’s journey from the dungeon to the beach. By guiding him from the beach into the very water where Marcus’s side of the family loses their connection to Ghana, Marjorie transforms the significance of that ocean by gifting him the stone. Now instead of a site representing lostness, this bay has become the place where Marcus is found.

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