Yaa Gyasi Homecoming Sparknotes

In Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, the omniscient narration of the lives of the descendants of Maame, an enslaved woman, depicts slavery’s lasting legacy of suffering and fragmentation. The pain and suffering that it inflicts is inherited across generations, as slavery and its vestiges rupture the humanity of anyone that experiences it. This rupture is evident through the physical and mental scars caused by the fire and the Firewoman, as much like fire, slavery wrecks and ravages anything and anyone that it touches, and its scars are very much lasting. The fire, therefore, serves as a metaphor for slavery, while the Firewoman’s enduring and haunting presence throughout the novel represents one particular repercussion of slavery, and one that can also be felt through generations. The Firewoman, in this case, represents ruptured mothering, as slavery perpetually damages and alters the meaning and the practice of motherhood. Furthermore, the Firewoman’s haunting nature and the

haunting legacy of slavery permit this fractured mothering to be produced and be reproduced through her descendants.
Mothering is first violated through Maame’s experience of slavery, as her first act of motherhood is in this oppressed state. Maame sets a fire on the night of Effia’s birth as a means to escape her enslavement. This fire, although led to a separation from her daughter, allowed Maame to leave the land that dehumanized her and to leave the man that constantly raped her. Maame could not mother Effia as her enslavement was too much to bear, so Maame chose to be liberated than to mother in her subjugated position. So she left Effia with only a black stone as means of remembrance and an unwilling adoptive mother. This decision was difficult to make but she chose to escape to Fanteland after that fateful fire, where she managed to live a free life. Once free, she was able to give birth and to mother Esi as she saw fit, until peace escaped her due to slavery. Once again, in this circumstance, Maame’s mothering and her very being becomes fragmented, as she leaves another daughter with only a black stone for remembrance. As the narrator states, “Maame was not a whole woman. There were large swaths of her spirit missing…And Esi knew, too, that her mother would die rather than run into the woods ever again… die even if it meant that in her dying, Esi would inherit that unspeakable sense of loss, learn what it meant to be un-whole” (Kindle Location 751). This means that Maame can never be whole as slavery has ruptured her family, her life, and her sense of being, and this pain and suffering is inherited. Although Esi gets captured and sent to America as a slave, she inherits the pain that was inflicted on her mother, just as her pain will be inherited by her descendants. This means that suffering extends across generations and across borders.
The inheritance of rupture and suffering is evident as these two sisters and their descendants are separated by their mother’s choices whilst in slavery, as Effia marries a white slave trader while Esi becomes one of the slaves under Effia’s husband’s dominion. Their descendants continue to be ruptured, as their paths continue across two interconnected yet disconnected continents. Due to this, the two black stones are the physical manifestation of Maame’s dislocation and fragmentation, as two parts of herself are left separated. The stones also represent the ruptured mothering of Maame as these stones were given to her daughter through slavery-forced separation. Although it is a symbol of rupture, the stones also symbolize love and hope as Maame, against all odds, provided a means to dispense a physical reminder of affection to her children while also providing her children a way to recognize one another. Although these two generations were estranged, they could reunite, and erase the separation and suffering that slavery constructed.
However, her inability to protect her two daughters and the inability to protect herself haunts these two generations until these two displaced families meet and fix the rupture that slavery left behind. This haunting is eminent throughout Homegoing as the fire imagery is imbedded throughout the text, representing slavery and the legacy of suffering borne from this oppressive force. Since the fire constructed Maame’s ruptured motherhood, Maame appears to her descendants as the Firewoman heartbreakingly searching for her fire children. The Firewoman comes to Akua, who first begins to dream of this figure after watching a white man burn in the town square. She dreamt of ravaging and destructive fire in the shape of a woman holding two baby girls. Her destructive path increased in intensity when her babies disappeared, which represents the unequivocal loss of Maame, as her motherhood, just as her children, was stripped away from her. Furthermore, as Akua’s nightmares and the ruptured parenting suggest, past trauma recurs in subsequent generations until it can be properly resolved.
Therefore, Akua’s motherhood is ruptured as suffering recurs. This ruptured mothering can be perceived with one of the more significant dreams of the Firewoman that Akua had, in which the Firewoman beckoned Akua into the ocean, while Akua held the two fire children. Unlike the other times that tormented Akua where the Firewoman raged for her children, the Firewoman was finally reunited with her children but they slowly began to disappear. After waking from this seemingly peaceful dream, Akua is revealed to have set a fire, reminiscent of Maame’s actions, which killed two of her three children. This violence is unforgivable but in the context of slavery’s legacy, Akua’s actions can be seen as compassionate, as “evil begets evil” (Kindle Locations 4115). Once Akua saw the burning of the white man, the Firewoman appeared to show the scars of slavery, as it, like fire, ravage everyone and everything, whether the one inflicted is the white man or the Gold Coast man. These unforgivable acts of evil led to Akua’s fire setting, as her suffering and torture were too much to bear. This represents the inherent evil and painful nature of slavery and further ties slavery to fire, as well as tying rupture that slavery causes to the Firewoman constantly longing for her children.
Motherhood can be further seen affected by other members of Maame’s lineage. For example, Ness and Sam surrendered themselves to the slave owners in order to give Kojo, their son, a chance at the freedom they would never have. Although Kojo would no longer know his parents and would be mothered by another woman, Ness still sacrificed herself for her child. This means of sacrifice is common in slavery as when Ness is caught, she hopes that “her eyes had that look in them, that look that mothers got sometimes when they came back from running, having killed their children to set them free” (Kindle Locations 1507-1508). Mothering is restructured and ruptured due to slavery, as killing and abandoning children are a slave mother’s way of expressing their compassion and their love for their children. Death is better than slavery, and for Ness, freedom is better than having two enslaved parents. This type of sacrificial abandonment also mirrors the circumstance of mothering that Willie encounters. To provide for her son, Willie cannot spend time with her son, as she is constantly working. Her child, due to this, is mothered by someone else. As the narrator states, “The other day, when Willie had picked him up from Bess’s apartment to take him up to Joe’s, she’d heard her son call the old woman Mama…” (Kindle Locations 3569-3571). Willie’s mothering, much like Ness’s, is fractured as their children are not really mothered by them, but their actions and sacrifice are aimed towards providing a better life for their children.
Furthermore, much like in Poncia Vicencio, fathers are also made to make difficult decisions for the best of their children.

And they are also put in circumstances where not only does their parenting become changed but they no longer become parents at all. In Poncia Vicencio, Grandpa Vicencio killed his wife and children when he realized that they would continue to be slaves. This act, although incomprehensible in normal standards, in the context of slavery, this act is filled with remorse and compassion. Although, Sonny’s actions are not in the same context, post-slavery America still continues to have prejudiced social, political, and economic systems, that have led Sonny to not be able to parent. As Willie’s mother states, “It makes me sad to see my son a junkie after all the marchin’ I done, but makes me sadder to see you thinkin’ you can leave like your daddy did.” (Kindle Locations 4480). His addiction, coupled with the economic system, does not permit Sonny to parent the children that he

fathered.
As can be seen, motherhood and parenting of the Firewoman’s descendants are affected by the legacy of oppression constructed by slavery. As seen with the various mother and father figures, these parents have coped by altering their mothering, which restructure compassion and nurture to fit the position that they are in. Being a parent while being a slave or an oppressed black worker restructure parenting as sacrifice, love, and care no longer resemble the standard outlook of motherhood. Therefore, Motherhood, in the context of slavery or slavery’s legacy, cannot be considered the same and should not be expected to be the same as mothering without these contexts. New types of compassion, morality, and motherhood are borne from slavery’s exploitation. Thus, parenting, specifically mothering, are restructured, ruptured, and dislocated due to slavery.
In conclusion, the fire imagery serves to conjure up the desperate mood of transatlantic slavery and post-slavery America and Africa. The desperation from the diaspora is due to the fragmentation and rupture that is felt by all that are ravaged by the all-consuming fire that is slavery. This fracturing is evident in the mothering exhibited by the women who have experienced slavery or have felt its legacy. Motherhood is fragmented, due to this, and restructures itself to fit this violent and oppressed state. Although the Firewoman and her two stones constructed the trickling of rupture, due to slavery, this haunting figure also serves to provide hope, as in the novel’s end, the two lines of descendants are united through Marjorie and Marcus. They travel together to Africa, where the lurking rupture and fragmentation that they have experienced are released.