'A Truthful Understanding Of Past In Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing'

JHave you ever been interested in trying to learn more about your family’s past? Yaa Gyasi’s novel Homegoing follows eight generations of people and their journey's in trying to find a truthful understanding of their past. A truthful understanding of the past for many people opens their eyes to the privileges they experience in contrast to the struggles their ancestors had before them. This leads them to let go of the narrowness of their own experiences to create a more meaningful future that they can be proud of. One can see this through the examples of the characters James, Marjorie, and Marcus. As they learn more about their family history, it drives them to take their lives in a different direction than they were expecting. This is relatable

James was born half-Fante and half-Asante as his father was part of the Fante tribe and his mother was a part of the Asante tribe. But James’s mother was captured and brought to the Fante people. At first James considered himself as a part of the Fante tribe because he grew up with Fante people constantly surrounding him. However, when he went to visit the Asante tribe with his family to attend a funeral, everything that James thought he knew about his identity changed. James was a pretty well-known person so he reached his hand out to shake a girl’s hand at the funeral but she replied with “respectfully, I will not shake the hand of a slaver”(Gyasi 96). When James was rethinking his encounter with the girl, “he was annoyed and ashamed by what she had said” (96). In other words, James felt “annoyed” and “ashamed” when the girl thought of him as someone associated with slavery solely because his family was partly Fante. All his life, his parents had argued which side was better, but never once did they mention anything about slavery. When James came to the realization of his family’s

Similarly, Marcus and Marjorie also attempted to learn the true history of their lineage in order to strive for a better future for themselves. Both characters individually tried to learn about their past at first. Marjorie visited her grandma, Akua, a few times and she told her a little bit about how the lineage truly began at Cape Coast Castle. On the other hand, Marcus was getting information from people such as his father, Sonny, for his research. However, they learn more about the truth of their family when Marjorie proposes that they visit Cape Coast Castle in Ghana together. When they went down to the dungeons where slaves used to be held they immediately saw that “there was grime that could not be washed away. Green and gray and black and brown and dark, so dark. There were no windows. There was no air” (298). The imagery such as the “grime that could not be washed away” goes to show just how difficult the lives of the slaves were while they were in the dungeon. Marcus even “felt sick to his stomach. He wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else” (299). Even though Marjorie and Marcus probably had a little bit of background