The Significance Of Water In Homegoing By Yaa Gyasi

I asked myself, what is the significance of water and fire in Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi? I inquired about this to understand the symbolism of these elements to each of the characters and how they connect to other themes in the book, such as slavery and colonization. I learned that water often symbolized the pain and suffering that slavery and racism caused, specifically by violently uprooting people from their homes and cultures. Water plays a main role in Esi's story when she is captured by the British and shipped across the ocean to work on American plantations. To Esi, water represents the traumatic separation from her homeland, the loss of freedom, and the brutal conditions of slavery. This fear of water is passed down from generation to generation,

The water is filled with the history of the transatlantic slave trade and the struggles that Marcus’ ancestors had to face. Fire represents the pain that plagues the characters on the Gold Coast, modern-day Ghana, due to their family's participation in the slave trade. Effia, the half-sister of Esi, is born during a fire and separated from her real mother, Maame. She marries a white man who governs the slave trade in Ghana. Fire represents the curse of guilt on Effia’s family for their involvement in the slave trade and frequently appears in Effia’s descendants' lives. One descendant of Effia, named Akua, dreams of a woman made of fire holding two children. This dream ties back to Maame and her two daughters, Esi and Effia, representing how the slave trade destroyed one line of the family tree and cursed the other line. In her madness, Akua sets fire to her own hut, killing two of her children. Marjorie, the last descendant of Effia, is afraid of fire. Just as Esi's fear of water was passed down, Effia’s fear of fire was passed down through generations. In the last chapter, Marjorie and Marcus help each other overcome their fears of fire and