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Naima Van Tyn - Homegoing Close Reading Analysis

This passage provides a close reading and analysis of a passage from Yaa Gyasi's novel Homegoing. It summarizes that the passage illustrates how the trauma of slavery has lasting multi-generational impacts, even on descendants far removed from the direct experience. Through the relationship between Akua and Yaw, it shows the guilt, anger and effects that can persist for generations. Akua explains that the suffering started with their ancestor Maame and has created ripples of evil down through time. While Akua urges Yaw to be free of this legacy, the passage suggests the trauma may never be fully escaped, as coping mechanisms are passed down over generations. However, Gyasi also depicts characters working to overcome this trauma through

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387 views3 pages

Naima Van Tyn - Homegoing Close Reading Analysis

This passage provides a close reading and analysis of a passage from Yaa Gyasi's novel Homegoing. It summarizes that the passage illustrates how the trauma of slavery has lasting multi-generational impacts, even on descendants far removed from the direct experience. Through the relationship between Akua and Yaw, it shows the guilt, anger and effects that can persist for generations. Akua explains that the suffering started with their ancestor Maame and has created ripples of evil down through time. While Akua urges Yaw to be free of this legacy, the passage suggests the trauma may never be fully escaped, as coping mechanisms are passed down over generations. However, Gyasi also depicts characters working to overcome this trauma through

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© © All Rights Reserved
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Naima van Tyn

Ashley Carruth

Race & Identity in US Literature

1 March 2021

Close Reading of Homegoing Passage

Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing brings to light the lasting effects that the institution of slavery

imposes, both directly and indirectly on black descendents of the slave trade . This is embodied

by those characters who are far removed from the true experience of slavery yet still bound by

the setbacks experienced by their ancestors. Through Akua and Yaw’s relationship, the lasting

trauma and confusion that persists throughout generations and suggests a way to move forward

rooted in honesty and forgiveness.

Yaw’s guilt and anger have roots in his mother, Akua, and all the way back five

generations of Ghanaians in alliance with British slave traders. Even without the experience of

being enslaved themselves, they are haunted by the legacy of perpetuating human enslavement.

Akua speaks to the ripples created by slavery from the perspective of their ancestors: “Evil

begets evil. It transmutes so that sometimes you cannot see that the evil in the world began as the

evil in your own home” (242). She sees the oppression starting with her

great-great-great-great-grandmother Maame, whose pain and suffering came from being

enslaved herself. Akua has a clear vision of the devastating effects of generational trauma on the

origins of Yaw’s present pain, and is trying to help him end the cycle by setting himself free. She

apologizes for how his “suffering casts a shadow over [his] life, over the woman [he has] yet to
marry, the children [he has] yet to have” (242) which draws the line past him into his future if he

cannot “let [himself] be free” (242).

Although Akua pushes Yaw to “Be free. Be free” (242) Gyasi takes the time to show that

this may never happen. She captures this through a poetic metaphor of a fisherman. When one

examines slavery itself it is like a fisherman who “keeps only the one or two fish that he needs”

and “puts the rest in the water, thinking that their lives will go back to normal” (242) without the

thought that “no one forgets that they were once captive, even if they are now free”. When one

has been enslaved, no matter the length of time or the quality of their circumstance, you cannot

erase that experience from your mind and body. From that point forth the trauma becomes a part

of your being and the coping mechanisms derived to try and mend the situation become habit.

The fish will now always fear capture and teach its offspring to fear it, too; a coping mechanism

is taught as normal behavior and in turn becomes one for the offspring.

Even though our modern society no longer relies on the institution of slavery, Gyasi

suggests through Homegoing that many African American people live with the lasting trauma.

Descendents of slaves and slave traders alike are forced to cope, like Yaw, with unexplainable

emotions and reactions they inherited from their parents or more distant ancestors. Many may

attempt to free themselves from this cycle, but is this even feasible when the idea of

multigenerational trauma is not widely accepted? How does one mend an issue that started

hundreds of years ago?

Although Gyasi’s writing illustrates the trials of dealing with this trauma, she also shows

the reader how each character, in their own way, is working to overcome it. For Akua that is

connecting back to her ancestors and learning to embrace that past while for Willie it was

accepting what happened in her past with Robert and learning to forgive in order to create a
better future for her children. This theme of remembering, forgiving, and growing is something

that persists throughout the book and may be what Gyasi is suggesting leads towards overcoming

generational trauma.

Work Cited

Gyasi, Yaa. Homegoing. Penguin Random House, 2016.

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