The story is built around the descendants of Maame, an Asante woman in eighteenth-century Ghana. She escaped from the fated land where she was a slave, to an Asante household leaving behind her newborn baby who is later known as Effia. Maame later got married to a great Asanteman and gave birth to another child called Esi. The two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, were born in separate villages. Effia got married to an Englishman called James Collins, who was involved in the slavery business and lived in Cape Coast Castle. Unknown to Effia her half-sister, Esi was sold as a slave to the British and was imprisoned in the castle dungeons beneath them. Esi was part of about a thousand slaves who were sent off to America through the West African Atlantic slave trade. She, therefore, made a family of her own there. Her children and grandchildren were raised in slavery. From the viewpoint of a descendant of either Effia or Esi, one representative for each generation, each chapter of the novel is narrated, and the two families alternate up to the present day. Quey, James, Abena, Akua, Yaw, and Marjorie as expanded into chapters follows the descendants of Effia and James Collins. On the other hand, the chapters titled Ness, Kojo, H, Willie, Sonny, and Marcus follow Esi's descendants.
‘Homegoing’ brings to light the effect of racial stereotypes and bias on an individual’s character. From the reading for instance, in part two ‘Homegoing’, Marjorie sees how her status as a black girl renders her unable to date a white boy in her class, although her class contributions, arguments, or claims are not even considered by the teacher. Again, the point where Esi was caught running and placed in prison for women. When she describes the story of how a soldier raped her and stares at her with shame, this depicts racial the against women based on their skin color. Yaa Gyasi helps with these incidents captured in her book to make us understand the concepts of stereotype and racism through much clearer lenses.
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In relation to a book written by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi. Which is about the myth created by the people of Buganda in Uganda. Both the ‘Homegoing’ and Kintu shares similarities such as rich and detailed histories and generational family lines. These two stories are dissimilar in their geographical setting of the stories. For instance, whereas ‘Homegoing’ was based in a Ghanaian setting, ‘Kintu’ was based in an Uganda setting
I think the book was very interesting. Its uniqueness is indispensable in the sense that organization of the book does not follow the regular chapters that use numbers but rather are arranged in chronological order linking different stories of different generations together. With this I mean each of the chapters can be a whole story on its own but yet she finds an interesting way of linking them all together.
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