116 pages • 3 hours read
Yaa GyasiHomegoing
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Quiz
Reading Check, Multiple Choice & Short Answer Quizzes
Reading Check questions are designed for in-class review on key plot points or for quick verbal or written assessments. Multiple Choice and Short Answer Quizzes create ideal summative assessments, and collectively function to convey a sense of the work’s tone and themes.
Chapters: “Effia” – “Quey”
Reading Check
1. Who does Effia marry?
2. Who left Effia the stone she wears around her neck?
3. Where is Esi held captive?
4. Who does Esi send a message to?
5. What two languages does Quey speak?
6. Who is Quey’s uncle?
Multiple Choice
1. Why does Abeeku choose to marry Effia to a white man rather than himself?
A) because she is unattractive
B) because the marriage would provide an alliance for the village
C) because he is already married to Millicent
D) because she has not yet started menstruation
2. What does Effia feel when her father, Cobbe, finally dies?
A) relief and happiness
B) surprise and anger
C) unrest and sadness
D) indifference
3. Why does Big Man beat Little Dove (Abronoma)?
A) She spilled water on Esi.
B) The villagers wanted him to.
C) Everyone would think he was weak if he did not.
D) She spit on the ground in front of him.
4. Quey is sent to London after his father catches him doing what?
A) visiting with captive slaves in the dungeon
B) spending too much time with his mother, Effia
C) fighting with his uncle
D) wrestling with Cudjo
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why is Baabe so cruel to Effia while she is growing up?
2. Why is Effia’s husband upset after finding a fertility root under their bed?
3. When does Maame give Esi the black stone, and what does she tell her in that moment?
4. What is implied when Governor James’s gaze lingers on Esi in the dungeon?
5. Why does Quey not mind that Cudjo names the snail “Richard” as a mockery of the British, when he is part British himself?
Chapters: “Ness” – “Abena”
Reading Check
1. Who is Ness’s mother?
2. With whom did James play in the Golden Stool room when he was a child?
3. To where does James travel to be with Akosua?
4. In what city does Kojo live with his family?
5. Who travels with Abena to Kumasi?
6. What plant saves Abena’s village?
Multiple Choice
1. Why does Ness get sent to work in the field, rather than in the house?
A. She is too young to work in the house.
B. There are already enough women helping in the house.
C. She is too pretty.
D. Her back is covered in scars.
2. Why does Akosua Mensah refuse to shake James’s hand?
A. He comes from a slaving family.
B. It is not proper for an unmarried woman to shake his hand.
C. He is too high above her in status.
D. She is embarrassed by her hands, which were mutilated in a fire.
3. How does Kojo come to know the Mathisons?
A. Kojo meets them at an abolitionist meeting.
B. His wife Anna is one of their maids.
C. They regularly sit next to them at church.
D. They gave Kojo shelter at a stop on the Underground Railroad.
4. Why does Ohene Nyarko marry another woman, even though the elders agree Abena can stay in the village?
A. He is afraid he will inherit her father’s bad luck.
B. Abena is too old to bear him children.
C. He promised he would marry the daughter of the plant merchant.
D. He already has one wife and does not want another.
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why does Ness step in as a mother figure for Pinky?
2. How does Ness meet Aku? What does this meeting add to Ness’s understanding of her own origins?
3. What does James think about his parents’ marriage? How does this influence his decisions later in the chapter?
4. Why does James go to visit Mampanyin, the apothecary? How does this visit change from its original intent?
5. Why does Mr. Mathison urge Kojo to move his family farther north?
6. Who is the old man Abena encounters on her visit to the palace? What does this moment illustrate with regard to her identity?
Chapters: “H” – “Willie”
Reading Check
1. What is the name of the city to which H moves after he is released from the mines?
2. What is the nickname given to H in the mines?
3. Who killed Abena?
4. How many children does Akua have?
5. What is the name of Willie’s husband?
Multiple Choice
1. What does H do for work once he is free from his sentence in the mines?
A. He becomes a sharecropper.
B. He works as a shipbuilder.
C. He plays piano in jazz clubs.
D. He returns to work in the mines.
2. What best describes H’s initial attitude towards joining the union?
A. enthusiasm
B. disdain
C. reticence
D. cautious optimism
3. To young Akua, “Obroni” means white man. What is the original meaning of Abro ni, according to the fetish man?
A. wicked man
B. holy man
C. generous traveler
D. clown
4. Consider the following passage: “One time, when he’d come home for just a night, she had yelled at him. ‘You can’t eat a poem, Eli,’ she said, and she didn’t see him again for nearly three months” (“Willie”). What best characterizes the tone of Willie’s statement?
A. humorous
B. curious
C. ominous
D. sarcastic
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Consider the following passage: “H wanted to throw the man down, down to meet the city underneath the earth, but he stopped himself. He was not the con they had told him he was” (“H”). What does the city underneath the earth symbolize in this context?
2. Why was Ethe so upset when H called her by another’s name? How does this intersect with H’s own name and identity?
3. Why is Akua exiled to her hut while the men are at war?
4. What does Akua see in the eyes of the Missionary? How does he treat her while she is under his care?
5. Why do Willie and her husband begin to grow apart from one another in New York? What has changed that was not an issue in their home town?
Chapters: “Yaw” – “Marcus”
Reading Check
1. What is Yaw’s job?
2. Who goes with Yaw to visit his mother in Edweso?
3. Which language does Akua insist Marjorie speak with her?
4. What is the name of the boy Marjorie dates?
5. What is Marcus studying at Stanford University?
Multiple Choice
1. What political movement does the book imply Yaw is involved in?
A. separatist movement
B. American civil rights movement
C. Ghana independence movement
D. women’s rights movement
2. Why does Sonny quit his job at the NAACP?
A. The hours are too long.
B. He has been arrested too many times.
C. He needs to make more money.
D. He feels like his work is not helping.
3. What talent do Willie and Amani Zulema have in common?
A. dressmaking
B. singing
C. cooking
D. gardening
4. What does Marjorie’s premonition at the black cultural event foreshadow?
A. her boyfriend taking another girl to prom
B. her parents moving back to Ghana
C. her grandmother’s death
D. her tripping and falling on stage
5. What is Marcus afraid of?
A. airplanes
B. the ocean
C. fire
D. heights
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. At first Yaw believes Esther is terrified by his scar. What is really making her nervous, and how does he put her at ease?
2. As the reader meets Akua again in “Yaw,” who still visits her in her dreams? How has her relation to these dreams changed, and who does the visitor represent?
3. What sort of addiction is Sonny battling, and what drives him to stop?
4. Why does Marjorie tell her teacher she is not African American? What does Mrs. Pinkston tell her in response?
5. Who is the oldest ancestor Marcus knows in his family? Who gave him these stories, and how do they make him feel?
Quizzes – Answer Key
Chapters: “Effia” – “Quey”
Reading Check
1. James Collins
2. her biological mother, Maame
3. in Cape Coast Castle
4. Abronoma’s father
5. Fante and English
6. Fiifi
Multiple Choice
1. B (“Effia”)
2. C (“Effia”)
3. C (“Esi”)
4. D (“Quey”)
Short-Answer Response
1. Baabe’s husband Cobbe had raped the servant girl, who had then run off leaving them with their baby Effia. Baabe was humiliated by this and expected to raise the abandoned daughter. (“Effia”)
2. He does not want her practicing “voodoo or black magic” and is concerned that it is not Christian (“Effia”).
3. Maame gives Esi the stone when their village comes under attack, just before fleeing into the night. She speaks of Esi’s sister and the fire, and Esi realizes the stories about her mother are true (“Esi”).
4. It is implied that he sees a resemblance between Esi and his wife Effia, who, unbeknownst to everyone but the reader, is her half-sister (“Esi”).
5. He does not mind the mockery because he finally feels like he “fully and completely” belongs in Cudjo’s village (“Quey”).
Chapters: “Ness” – “Abena”
Reading Check
1. Esi is Ness’s mother.
2. his cousin Kwame
3. He travels to Asanteland.
4. Baltimore
5. Ohene Nyarko
6. the cocoa tree
Multiple Choice
1. D (“Ness”)
2. A (“James”)
3. B (“Kojo”)
4. C (“Abena”)
Short-Answer Response
1. Ness, who also spoke rarely as a child, has also experienced loss, the loss of her mother, the desire for a mother, and the desire for silence. The reader finds out later that loss includes separation from her own child, Kojo. As such, she takes her under her wing, and the girl follows her around like her surrogate daughter (“Ness”).
2. Ness meets Aku at church, when she is singing a song in Twi and Aku recognizes her own language. Ness is unaware of the meaning of the song, having learned it from Esi (who learned it when Abronoma was being tested in the village). Much of that legacy is lost to Ness; however, this encounter allows her to gain some knowledge of her Asante origins. (“Ness”)
3. James knows that his parents have a loveless, political marriage. He sees how his mother speaks disrespectfully to Quey, saying he is a weak man. This unhappy marriage later plays a role in James’s decision to flee his life and his wife for a loving marriage (and poverty) with Akosua (“James”).
4. Initially he goes to visit her at his wife’s bidding, because he does not want to have sex with her. During the visit, he informs Mampanyin that he wants to flee his family without their knowing it, marry Akosua, and live a “small-small” life (“James”).
5. Kojo is a runaway slave who has found freedom in the North. However, Mr. Mathison and his friend warn Kojo that new laws in the South will allow any alleged runaway slaves to be arrested and sent back south. Since Baltimore is close to the South, they urge him to move farther north, away from the danger (“Kojo”).
6. The book implies that Abena has a chance encounter with her father, James’s cousin Kwame when she visits the palace. The old man sees the resemblance to James in her face and has a moment of recognition, which Ohene Nyarko brushes off as senility. Ironically, Abena correctly guesses that Kwame is a royal but has no idea that she is one too. The moment illustrates the contrast between the life she could have had if her father had maintained ties with his family, and the present difficulties she faces with no connection to her family history, for better or worse (“Abena”).
Chapters: “H” – “Willie”
Reading Check
1. Pratt City
2. Two-Shovel H / Two-Shovel
3. the Missionary
4. three
5. Robert Clifton
Multiple Choice
1. D (“H”)
2. C (“H”)
3. A (“Akua”)
4. D (“Willie”)
Short-Answer Response
1. The mining city represents Hell for H, certainly during his time as a convict. The temptation to throw the white boss into the pit of hell also represents his own confrontation with that temptation, which he resists, redefining himself in the process (“H”).
2. Ethe tells H that when he called her by another name, it was like he stole the only thing that belonged to her. Like H, she got her name from her mother, from whom she was separated under slavery; for both, their names (even an incomplete name like H) are the only things tying them to a family identity (“H”).
3. As Akua descends into mental illness, her mother-in-law, Nana Serwah, notices her obsession with staring into the fire while she is cooking and decides to isolate her and take away her daughters until Akua’s illness has “fully healed” (“Akua”).
4. She describes his look as “hungry,” as if he could “devour her” (“Akua”). He is cruel to her, beating her with a switch and playing a game of “heathen/savior” with Akua.
5. For Robert it is easier to “pass” as a white man in New York City, affording him opportunities that were previously unavailable to him. Since Willie has darker skin, she faces more discrimination and limitations, and ultimately he leaves her to live and work in white society beyond Harlem. This was not an issue in Pratt City, where white and black people lived and worked side-by-side.
Chapters: “Yaw” – “Marcus”
Reading Check
1. history teacher
2. his housekeeper Esther
3. Twi
4. Graham
5. studying for his Ph.D. in Sociology
Multiple Choice
1. C (“Yaw”)
2. D (“Sonny”)
3. B (various pages)
4. C (“Marjorie”)
5. B (“Marcus”)
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. She is nervous because she is uncomfortable speaking to him in English, as she was told to do. When he invites her to speak in Twi, they are able to relax and converse better.
2. The firewoman is still visiting Akua in her dreams, but Akua has learned to listen to her. The reader will recognize the firewoman as the spirit of Maame, who has also lost two daughters and is haunting Akua’s dreams. However, Akua understands that she wishes to communicate her family history of violence to her, so the cycles of evil are stopped.
3. During the chapter, he becomes addicted to heroin, reflecting the real experience of many African-Americans living in poverty in Harlem in the 1960s. While it is an escape for him, Willie’s speech to him helps him see how addiction is a modern form of enslavement, how he’s right to be angry about not having the same opportunities as his father, but that he can still be a good father to his own children (“Sonny”).
4. Marjorie sees a distinction between Africans from Ghana and the akata, or Africans who have been gone from the mother continent. Her teacher tells her that “black is black is black” in America, especially to white people (“Marjorie”).
5. His mother Willie has told him stories about his great-grandfather H. These stories touch him emotionally and fill him with pride, giving him a sense of identity as an accumulation of their lives and history. They also highlight how much he does not know about his ancestors (“Marcus”).
