Marjories dynamics with the other girls in her class reflect the legacy of colonialism, as the other girls make fun of her accent for sounding almost British because of the influence of the British in Ghana for generations. Esi is half-sister of Homegoing study guide contains a biography of Yaa Gyasi, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. (one code per order). He told her to focus on her studies and left. 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. . Though these daughters never meet, the stones connect their stories. You cannot stick a knife in a goat and then say, Now I will remove my knife slowly, so let things be easy and clean, let there be no mess. The main images in the poem are sand, water, and skin, all things that reference Marjorie's summertime experiences with her grandmother in Ghana. Maame's descendants in the United States who deal with prison labor, Jim Crow, and race-based discrimination also grapple with their relationship to slavery and those who were once slave masters even though they themselves weren't enslaved. When he felt this way, Ma Aku would hold him . When Esi, Maame's daughter says that the village would think her father was weak if they didn't beat their slave girl Abronoma, Maame counters with this view about slavery, even though she has not yet admitted to Esi that she herself had been a slave earlier in life. Alive. "(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. There will always be blood.. As they walked over, Marcus wondered which one Diante was interested in. for a customized plan. Soon, Diante had dropped his quest for the girl from the museum, but he still dragged Marcus out to parties and events. . It grows. Religion, especially Christianity, appears as a theme in the lives of multiple characters in Homegoing. White men get to choose for black men too. He loved the look of those boats, loved that his hands helped build and maintain them, but Ma Aku always said it was bad juju, him and all the other freed Negroes working on ships. It is also notable that both because of her race and her gender, it appears that Marjorie is unable to fight for her own right to go with Graham. And if he slammed the book down, then everyone in the room would stare and all they would see would be his skin and his anger, and they'd think they knew something about him, and it would be the same something that had justified putting his great-grandpa H in prison, only it would be different too, less obvious than it once was., White men get a choice. Not affiliated with Harvard College. You cannot stick a knife in a goat and then say, Now I will remove my knife slowly, so let things be easy and clean, let there be no mess. He would not be weak. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. The way the content is organized, LitCharts makes it easy to find quotes by Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan! This choice, and this quote in which Effia encourages him to make the change he desires, both highlights the importance of motherhood in the book and shows how one's family and upbringing do not totally dictate one's potential. Akua had wanted to be buried on a mountain overlooking the sea. Yet here, in chapter H, when Ethe finally returns to H, after receiving a letter from H telling her where he was, she explains why she truly left him. . The news made it sound like the fault lay with the blacks of Harlem. However, in this quote, Gyasi shows the importance of females, femininity, and motherhood to the book. On the day of the event, Marjorie stood backstage with Mrs. Pinkston as students filled the auditorium. Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. Instead of eating in the teacher's lounge or the library, Marjorie took to eating alone in the cafeteria. For this reason, Yaw feels there is nothing to be learned from the white Americans who have oppressed Africans for so many years. Diante introduced Marcus; Ki, the girl from the museum, introduced her friend Marjorie. Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. This is how we all come to the world, James. She has made the same journey as her American counterparts (from Ghana to the American South), but under very different circumstances. Kojo and Anna worked in the Mathison's home. Homegoing Quotes Quotes by Theme Summary Marjorie Marjorie Summary: Marjorie Marjorie arrives in Ghana for her annual summer visit to her grandmother, Akua. Marjories fear of fire shows that she has inherited its association with destruction, and reinforces its symbolism of her familys early involvement in the slave trade. 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. Mm-hmm. Homegoing Important Quotes 1. Waters. James thinks this thought in the chapter titled James, as he listens to his father and his fathers friend discuss the end of the slave trade. 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. After Akosua refuses to shake Jamess hand due to his family being slave traders, he points out that both Asantes and Fantes are involved in the slave trade. They get to choose they job, they house. He is the one who gets to write the story. You can view our. Split the Castle open,find me, find you.We, two, felt sand,wind, air.One felt whip. You are a sinner and a heathen, he said. James, the son of Quey and grandson of Effia, represents a shift in his family's history. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. There's more at stake here than just slavery, my brother. They understand that often, a white person doing something in the name of kindness, such as the white missionaries attempting to save Africans from their heathen ways or colonization, which aimed at educating and bettering African people, is actually only meant to oppress African people. Akuas actions then serve as a kind of repentance, as she tries to listen to the spirits of those who had lost their lives. A white girl came over to the table and asked Graham why he was sitting with Marjorie. Neither England nor the Gold Coast. Her father had told her that the necklace was a part of their family history and she was to never take it off, never give it away. Like many characters in the novel, Ethe shows how a name is crucial to keeping ones heritage close. Forgiveness was an act done after the fact, a piece of the bad deeds future. 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. When Yaw visits his mother, Akua, she explains that she brought Effias black stone pendant to a fetish priest, who told her there is evil in her family lineage. Marcus remembered when once, as a child, his mother had stolen him for a day. Homegoing Quotes and Analysis "Weakness is treating someone as though they belong to you. All I had of her then was my name. Even once his son, James, makes a new life for himself, his daughter and granddaughter will continue to be haunted by the sins of their ancestors, and the evil that began in the slave trade will continue to move forward in time. 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. 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. Complete your free account to request a guide. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Throughout the book, parents, especially mothers, must make choices to defend or prioritize their children; for example, Willie, a descendant of Esi, raises two children largely on her own because their fathers don't feel the same need to stay in their lives. How she could put his skin to good use, be less cautious if she were him. Aint I deserve to be Ethe, to you at least, if nobody else? More books than SparkNotes. 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. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., sounded off after being attacked at a restaurant for her conservative political views, pointing to the environment created by Rep. However, Mrs. Pinkston replies that all black people are treated the same in the United States. There will always be blood. She mates with her lion and he thinks the moment is about him when it is really about her, her children, her posterity. Our, "Sooo much more helpful thanSparkNotes. Homegoing essays are academic essays for citation. "Homegoing Study Guide." . It's a question of who will own the land, the people, the power. . You'll be able to access your notes and highlights, make requests, and get updates on new titles. Wed love to have you back! In the chapter titled Marcus, Marcus hits a wall while researching the convict leasing system of which his great-grandfather was a victim, as he does not know how to separate this system from other racist systems and institutions before and after it, from Jim Crow laws to the war on drugs. Marcus feels so angered by the injustices Black people have suffered throughout history that he is tempted to slam his book on the table in the silent library. She shouted back to him in Twi, saying she was from Ghana, but he still pursued her because he knew she came from America. . Diante poked Marcus repeatedly to get his attention and then told him that the girl from the museum was at the party. Capture or be captured. Akua and Marjorie took a walk on the beach together, as Marjorie loved to do. As though he were the one who had been violated. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. Complete your free account to request a guide. Marjorie spent her next three years devouring the books in the school library. Marjories final cries highlight how valuable her family, particularly her grandmother, is to her. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Homegoing Symbols, Allegory and Motifs The Black Stones (Symbol) Maame gives each of her daughters, Esi and Effia, a black stone. PDFs of modern translations of every Shakespeare play and poem. One day, a boy talked to her in the library. Effia is born in Fanteland and raised by her father, and a step-mother who beats her. She had expected him to fight back, but instead he looked relieved and left. This difference ultimately inspires her poem, about a lost sister and the difference in heritage that that sister might have. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. Those who were there in the olden days, they told stories to the children so that the children would know, so that the children could tell stories to their children. Although heritage can be a large part of someones identity, Akosua shows that sometimes being true to ones identity means disconnecting from ones heritage. Akua explains a concept that Marcus elaborates on in the next chapter: that the water itself is a representation of oppression, as many people had drowned throwing themselves off of the slave ships. Esther's advice stems from more equal gender dynamics. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. The Homegoing quotes below are all either spoken by Marjorie or refer to Marjorie. And if he slammed the book down, then everyone in the room would stare and all they would see would be his skin and his anger, and theyd think they knew something about him, and it would be the same something that had justified putting his great-grandpa H in prison, only it would be different too, less obvious than it once was. Like many people born into slavery, Ethe was separated from her mother as a child, so all she has of her birth family is her name. Marjorie went to bed hoping for the courage to do so. Their descendants are separated by even more: location, since Effia's descendants continue living on the Gold Coast while Esi's descendants live in the United States, and status, since Effia's descendants are lifted into the upper echelon of society through marriage while enslavement keeps Esi's family in the lower class for generations. That the fact that he had been born, that he wasn't in a jail cell somewhere, was not by dint of his pulling himself up by the bootstraps, not by hard work or belief in the American Dream, but by mere chance. Cohen, Madeline. When he had finished, he looked horrified, disgusted with her. But for the rest of her life Esi would see a smile on a white face and remember the one the soldier gave her before taking her to his quarters, how white men smiling just meant more evil was coming with the next wave. Find summaries for every chapter, including a Homegoing Chapter Summary Chart to help you understand the book. Esther tells her that if a boy likes her, she has to tell him that she likes him too, otherwise he will never do anything about it. "There should be no room in your life for regret. Black, once slave, once free, now slave again.". The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. If in the moment of doing you felt clarity, you felt certainty, then why feel regret later?". He keeps only the one or two fish that he needs to feed himself and puts the rest back in the water, thinking that their lives will go back to normal. Struggling with distance learning? He does not invent new ways. Marcus asked if his father was clean, and his father said he was and just to worry about studying. He was in the business of slavery, and sacrifices had to be made. Marcus thought about how they didn't know the names of any of these people, and, without thinking, he ran through the door. An unmarried twenty-five-year-old woman was unheard of, in her village or any other on this continent or the next. One small but meaningful moment in Marjorie's story is when Marjorie's father Yaw calls her Abronoma. 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. As soon as they got near, the light skinned woman recognized Diante. Marjories teachers note demonstrates a kind of cultural elitism and stereotype. 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). He asked her about how she was, but she replied curtly. I helped her because that is what God would have wanted me to do. Around the same time, Mrs. Pinkston began preparation for a black cultural event at Marjorie's school called The Waters We Wade In. Akua nodded. Seth Meyers was momentarily speechless over one of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's most ridiculous assertions of late. As he explains to his history students, history is often taught through the eyes of the oppressor, who often leaves out important truths that might reveal their actions and motives in a negative light. You'll be billed after your free trial ends. He would never truly know who his people were, and who their people were before them . 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. Gyasi makes an important historical point with this quote, which is that the enslavement of black people in the United States did not cleanly end with the emancipation proclamation. Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. Again, just like with Robert, the societys implicit racism rears its ugly head when Graham implies that Marjorie is better than other black girls because she is Ghanaian, which also plays into a colonialist narrative. However, Marcus knows that doing so would signal that hes an angry Black man and that being an angry Black man would only fulfill the stereotype other people expect, leading him to the same fate as his great-grandfather and his father. "Homegoing Marjorie and Marcus Summary and Analysis". He is the one who gets to write the story. Welcome back. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one: ). Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. Need analysis for a quote we don't cover? This caused Marjorie to fall to the ground crying. 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. After a while, Diante found Marcus and they left. His name was Graham, and his family had just moved to Alabama from Germany. It grows. Bibliography. Slavery aint nothin but a dot in your eye, huh? That was all I had of myself too. Copyright 1999 - 2023 GradeSaver LLC. Like Esi, Ness, and Kojo, Marjorie faces conflicting pressures to speak English and Twi with certain people. Ma Willie told him these were visions. Marjorie was hesitant to go, seeing it as a tourist trap, but Marcus wanted to. Instant downloads of all 1699 LitChart PDFs LitCharts Teacher Editions. Akua had a house on the beach that Marjorie's mother and father had come back to Ghana to build. Marcus was afraid of water, especially the ocean. explanations By remembering her father's words, Abena takes control of her body and choices in a way that goes against her village's norms, a move that foreshadows her complete rejection of the village when she leaves a few years later. Marjorie goes home and asks Yaw when he knew he liked Esther. Although water usually symbolizes positive ideas such as life, nature, and freedom, in Homegoing it is a sign of separation, slavery, and death. She refused, telling him that he would hear it at the assembly, and quickly got off the phone. Her father had told her that the necklace was a part of their family history and she was to never take it off, never give it away. "Cobbe had lost seven yams, and he felt each loss as a blow to his own family. You cannot stick a knife in a goat and then say, Now I will remove my knife slowly, so let things be easy and clean, let there be no mess. 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