Family
The relationship between Frank and Cee is the central theme throughout the novel. In their early childhood, Frank is the one to take the most care of his younger sister, Cee. As children, they were neglected by their parents who each worked multiple jobs and were abused by their step-grandmother.
Over the course of the journey Frank takes to rescue his sister, the two siblings develop as separate individuals. The end of the novel sees them return back to their childhood home from which they had both worked hard to run away. In Frank and Cee's reconciliation, they come to face their own trauma and form their own identities.[2]
War & Trauma
After Frank returns from serving in The Korean War, he suffers from trauma and survivor’s guilt from being the sole survivor out of his friends who he entered into the military with.
On the train rides to Georgia, Frank looks back on both the memories of the friend's excitement to leave Lotus and the memories of watching them die before him. He is unable to visit the family of his friends afterwards, unable to face them in his guilt. Through conversations with Lily, Frank seems unmotivated towards life and has no direction or goals. He fulfills himself through alcohol and his relationship with a woman.
There is an image of a young girl present within the novel that Frank struggles with. He runs away from a Church Convention after interacting with a young girl. Frank reveals to the reader the presence of a young girl that frequently visited their camp, her hand scavenging for food. He later murders her after he gets aroused from her touching his crotch. Frank is only able to accept his murder of the young girl after he successfully rescues Cee.[3]
Morrison displays the general attitude about The Korean War during the fifties where a conversation between different war veterans takes place and they have an ignorant mindset towards the events that took place in Korea, disregarding its importance.
Racism
The Korean War is the first U.S. War where military forces were desegregated.[4] Even still, he is still subject to racist encounters from law enforcement, regardless of his veteran status and service to the country. Morrison illustrates how the presence of racism by figures in power continued to prevail against black soldiers after they returned back from the war. From instances where segregation lines were drawn on trains and random police searches were made towards black citizens, discriminatory acts persisted in the fifties. As Reverend John Locke hears of Frank's veteran status, he comments upon the blatant disregard of black soldiers after returning from the war and the mistreatment they face.
Frank is desperate to be able to rescue his sister from the experimentation of Dr. Beau, stemming from his inability to save his friends in the war.[2] Dr. Beau is a scientist that is known to perform experiments on black people as revealed by Sarah. His disregard for the consent of Cee is an indicator of the medical racism conducted on black bodies in the name of scientific research. The sterilization of Cee's body is the violence committed against the bodies of black women.
Womanhood
Home follows Cee's journey to reaching her own autonomy and becoming an individualized person outside of others' expectations. From a young age, Cee is raised with no central mother figure to guide her as her mother was neglectful and her step-grandmother, abusive. As a child, her behavior and appearance is scrutinized by her step-grandmother. From a young age, Frank takes the role as her protector and oversees most of her life. This treatment stifles Cee's growth as a woman outside of being Frank's younger sister.[3]
As Frank rescues Cee, it is the women of the neighborhood that nurse her back to health. They display their feminine sense of community as they share their remedies in healing Cee. Miss Ethel breaks the news to her that she is unable to have children due to the experimentation she endured and Cee mourns the loss of a child she will never have.
The end of the novel sees Cee working against continuing to follow the lead of her older brother. She works towards her own independence, seen through her learning and working with the other women in order to learn how to quilt.
