Katiana Bimshas

Colleen Green
English III
June 7, 2017

Critical Lens Essay - Homegoing

In Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, post-colonialism is a present and relevant theme. In the

span of the novel, colonialism negatively affects the characters, such as being biracial, changes

African culture, such as their language and beliefs, and shifts the way they behave, like inciting

tribal wars and encouraging slave trading.

Quey, is born to Fante woman and a British colonizer. Because of his mixed race and his

lighter skin, Quey feels like he doesnt belong, he could not fully claim either half of himself

(Gyasi 56). His son, James, is condemned by his village because he has white blood running

through him; they believe hes unlucky and cursed. There is a sense ambivalence towards their

own selves because of their blood. With white blood come status, power, and money, however,

they are also part of a family that works in slave trading and with that comes remorse and guilt

for selling their own people.

Through their colonization, the British disrupt sacred items, heighten rivalries between

different tribes, and continue to fight for control over the land. In order to gain more slaves to

sell, the British incite tribal wars because captives would be sold to them for trading. One

character, James, describes the tension between the Asantes and the Fantes as a pot already full

to the brim (Gyasi 89). The white man justs adds fire to the pot, causing worry about it boiling

over again and again. The problems the British added to the hostility between the Asantes and

the Fantes caused them to be a war for many years after. Even after slavery had been abolished
and the British no longer sold slaves to America, slavery in the Gold Coast had not really ended;

it came to light in a different way, they would just trade one type of shackles for another, trade

physical ones that wrapped around the wrists and ankles for the invisible ones that wrapped

around the mind (Gyasi 93). These people wouldnt be free, not for a while, because of Britain's

colonization and hunger for land. As the British fought wars for land, they demanded sacred

items in exchange for captives so that the people would give in. In one instance, a British

governor ordered the Asante people to give him the Golden Stool, a stool that contained the soul

of the Asante nation that no one was allowed to sit in - not even the king, for him to sit on or give

to the queen. The Asante people feared for themselves after that, for if a white man took the

Golden Stool, the spirit of the Asante would surely die, and that they could not bear (Gyasi 182).

In order to gain land and power, the British were stealing the actual spirit of the people.

The British began to settle down after profit could no longer be made from slavery.

Although there is hostility between the natives and the colonizers, for instance they burned a

white man for being white, there is a shift in their language and beliefs, there is cultural

hybridity. Churches start popping up and the children are taught English in school. The churches

encouraged Christianity and believing in God. The Missionary, who raised one of the characters,

Akua, constantly tells her shes a sinner, that she must believe in God. He thinks, all people on

the black continent must give up their heathenism and turn to God. Be thankful that the British

are here to show you how to live a good and moral life (Gyasi 184). In his eyes the British are

right and know how to live the best life while following God. He believes they should give up all

their old customs and put their faith in God. The Missionary shows his distaste for the fetish man

who is described as someone who had not given up praying to the ancestors or dancing or
collecting plants and rocks and bones and blood with which to make his fetish offerings. He had

not been baptized (Gyasi 181). In short, he held onto ancient traditions and customs and he was

shunned for that, he was wicked. In schools they only teach English, for convenience mostly.

Yaw, a history teacher, tries argue about teaching regional tongues but was laughed off, theres

too many languages. Yaw is all about independence and freedom from Britain, he doesnt want

to further his schooling in England or America because, if we go to the white man for school,

we will just learn the way the white man wants us to learn. We will come back and build the

country the white man wants us to build. One that continues to serve them. We will never be

free (Gyasi 223). Yaw does not want what the white man is offering, he wants the Asante to be

on their own, to be independent.