Summary
Quey laid awake in bed thinking about a message he had received from his old friend Cudjo. It was incredibly hot in his current location, his mother Effia's village, where he had moved from the comparatively cool Castle on Cape Coast. He had been raised on Cape Coast and educated in England, and after that he came back to the Castle and started working, doing a job that his father James Collins had helped him get. After his father died, the governor at Cape Coast had asked him to go back to the village and work with Abeeku Badu to strengthen their trading relationships. Quey had accepted reluctantly; even if he could speak the language reasonably well, he had never been to his mother's village.
The next day, Quey went to visit his uncle Fiifi. Quey had been living in the village for a month, and Fiifi had welcomed him warmly. However, Fiifi continued to refuse when Quey asked him to stop doing business with any other trading companies. Quey had learned that it wasn't Abeeku Badu he needed to talk to about trade, but Fiifi. Fiifi, however, shrewdly used a metaphor about birds to tell Quey how he was waiting to see the offers made to him by different companies.
As a child, Quey had had few relationships besides with his mother. He rarely saw his father and knew little about what was going on at the Castle, particularly in the dungeons. Unlike the other mothers, Effia never hit Quey. She taught him how to read and write and eventually told him the story of her upbringing, including how she had found out about her real mother and sister. Effia never had another child, so Quey didn't have siblings to play with. Effia worried about him not socializing with people his age, so when a chief of a Fante village came to do business with James Collins and brought his son, Effia pushed them to play together. The Fante boy's name was Cudjo Sackee. The first thing Cudjo had done was question Quey about whether he was white, since he clearly wasn't black. However, they soon stopped this discussion and went off together to look at the cannons.
The boys became close friends. A few weeks later, Cudjo invited Quey to his village and Quey went. They raced snails and ordered Cudjo's sister around. When Cudjo made a joke about the British being bad, Quey agreed and laughed along with him, feeling a strong sense of belonging. In the next few years, Quey grew taller and Cudjo grew stronger. Cudjo had become a great wrestler, and something in Quey made him think regularly about wrestling with Cudjo. Quey taunted Cudjo and the larger boy put his neck in a hold; though Quey wanted to be released, he was also excited by the closeness of their bodies. Cudjo told Quey to challenge him to a real wrestling match, but Quey wouldn't. Soon after, Cudjo was challenged to an important match against a white soldier; Cudjo beat him easily, and when more white men challenged Cudjo, the boy beat them as well. After everyone left, Quey told Cudjo that he would wrestle him. Quey dove on Cudjo and Cudjo quickly pinned him, but then the boys stayed there, feeling their bodies pressed together. James Collins broke them up, telling Cudjo abruptly to go home. The next month, James sent Quey away to England.
Now that Quey was back, Cudjo had sent him a message inviting him to visit. Quey questioned whether he should have stayed in England. That day, Quey's job was to oversee the workers who loaded cargo into canoes; often, that cargo was slaves. This time there were five slaves, including a young girl who had soiled herself out of fear. As the canoe set off, Quey felt ashamed, thinking of how his father had sent him off to England just like the slaves. When Quey got back to the village he ran into Badu; the man was drunk and told Quey to tell his mother to come see him. Effia had been terrified when Quey told her about his new job and had begged him to run away, even to Asanteland if he had to, since she believed there was evil in her old village.
Quey continued to think about visiting Cudjo, whom he knew had now become the chief of his village. Weeks passed and he did not send a reply to his old friend. However, in the end it was Cudjo who showed up in Quey's village to do business with Fiifi. They talked briefly, Cudjo slipping in that he had married recently; finally Cudjo invited Quey to his village again. Quey worried and contemplated for four weeks before Fiifi returned home from the attempted raid on another village. Fiifi had a large wound, but had also successfully stolen two large warriors and a young girl who Quey realized was the Asante king's daughter, Nana Yaa. For the next few nights, Quey sat with Fiifi and Fiifi recounted what had happened on his adventure. One night when Fiifi again told a woman serving them food to serve his son first, meaning Quey, the boy asked his uncle why he always said that. Fiifi told Quey that he was in England too long and has forgotten that one's blood relatives are the most important in Fante culture. Fiifi says that he hated Effia for a time, since she married a white man and his mother hated her as well, but he also came to hate his own mother and father and even himself. Then, after his father died, Baaba told him that Effia was not even his real sister, so he didn't owe her or her son anything. However, Quey was the closest thing Fiifi had to a nephew by blood, so he planned to marry him to Nana Yaa and make him a powerful man in the village. Quey accepted this.
Ness was a slave at a plantation in Alabama. She picked cotton for a man named Thomas Allan Stockham. Two weeks before she had been on a different plantation in Mississippi, and before that she had been on another plantation in a place she could only call Hell. Ness was the daughter of Esi, who she described as being solemn all her life, leading other slaves to call her Frownie. Even when Ness had been taken from her mother in 1796, Esi had kept her mouth in a straight line.
Thomas Allan Stockham was a kinder master than others Ness had had before. One day, while Ness was waiting in line for a drink of water, a slave named TimTam, who was treated specially by the master, tried to strike up conversation with her. Ness found it strange to hear black people speaking English, since her mother had spoken Twi to her for her entire childhood until one master beat her viciously for it. Before that time, Esi had called her daughter Maame, but she began calling her Ness after that day, a shortened version of the word "goodness." A house slave called Margaret tried to withhold water from Ness because she saw TimTam giving her attention; TimTam scolded her for this, but Ness simply walked away.
When Ness first came to Thomas Allan Stockham's plantation, he wanted to make her a house slave. However, when he sent Margaret to help her into the house slave outfit, Margaret decided she was not fit for the house. When Tom Allan didn't believe this, Margaret showed Ness in the outfit to both the master and his wife; the wife fainted and Tom Allan sent Margaret and Ness back to find a field slave outfit. What had shocked and repulsed them was the scars that covered her body. After that, Ness worked the fields, which she had done at both plantations before. The other female field slaves did not like her because she got TimTam's attention and refused it.
One night, TimTam came to the female field slave quarters in a panic because his daughter Pinky had a fit of the hiccups and wouldn't talk. Ness realized that Pinky not talking was the real concern and that all the slaves had been trying to get her to talk for some time. She said that there was nothing wrong with the girl and that she should be left alone. However, Pinky indicated that she wanted to stay the night in Ness's bed. Soon, they were inseparable. Pinky still would not speak, but this did not worry Ness, who believed the girl would speak when she was ready. The girl also did not stop hiccuping. Her job was to carry water all day, which was very tiring. One day, Pinky ran into Mary, Tom Allan's daughter, while carrying water. The water spilled on the girl, who began to complain loudly. Tom Jr., the master's son, told Pinky to apologize to Mary, but the slave girl could not make a sound. Mary told her brother that it was okay, since she knew Pinky could not talk, but the boy insisted. When Pinky still couldn't do it, Tom Jr. got his father's cane, intending to discipline Pinky. When Tom Jr. raised the cane, Ness grabbed it, pulling Tom Jr. to the ground. Just at this moment, Tom Allan emerged from the house, having been summoned by Margaret. Tom Jr. cried to his father, saying that Ness was going to hit him with the cane. The master told Ness that he would deal with her later and then returned inside the house.
That night in bed, Ness thought about the plantation she called Hell. The master, who she called the Devil, married her to a fellow slave named Sam who she didn't know. He was a large, aggressive man who fought with other slaves and refused to learn English. He once tore apart their sleeping quarters while Ness hid in the corner. In the morning, when the master got mad, Ness said that she did it, leading the master to whip her mercilessly. The sight of Ness's torn body made Sam cry, and he carried her back home and then found herbal medicines to coat her wounds. Sam told her he was sorry, uttering his first words in English, and over the next weeks they grew to love one another. This flashback was broken by Pinky, who woke Ness since she seemed to be having a bad dream.
The next day, everyone waited to see what Tom Allan would do to Ness. He didn't come for her in the morning, so she headed out to the field. There, TimTam found her and thanked her for caring for Pinky; he told her that he would speak to the master about not hurting her, but Ness said that she could fight her own battles. Ness recalled that she made Sam wait outside when she was giving birth to their son Kojo. Remembering this made her recall the stories about her own birth; it was said that Esi didn't tell anyone what was happening, but went outside to give birth alone. Before Ness's first cry, the other slaves had heard a strange sound that might have been Esi laughing. After Kojo was born, Sam had tried to be a model slave so that nothing bad would ever happen to his son on his account. In church one day, Esi met a woman named Aku who spoke to her in Twi and scolded her for forgetting the ways of the Asante. The woman told her that she had gotten many people out of slavery; soon Ness and Sam were planning their small family's escape. They waited for a signal from Aku, until it finally came.
They walked all night and then hid high in trees during the day, Ness with Kojo tied to her back. One night, Ness asked Aku to take Kojo to give her back a short rest. That morning, the Devil came with dogs to find them. Ness called to Aku in Twi, telling her not to come out, then climbed down. When the Devil asked about her baby, she told him that he had died. When they got back to the plantation, the Devil whipped Ness all over her body, giving her the scars that would later prevent her from being a house slave, and then hung Sam. Ness thought about this as she waited for Tom Allan's punishment.
Analysis
The chapters on Quey and Ness are the first to show the effects of parenting by other main characters in the book. Parent-child relationships will be a major theme throughout Homegoing. Both Quey and Ness have clearly been shaped by their parents, especially their mothers. Because of the trauma Esi endured being captured and taken to the United States, she was not a particularly warm mother to Ness. As a young woman, Ness is also fairly closed off to others; however, she still has strong motherly instincts, as we see when she takes care of Pinky. Quey's identity confusion comes largely from the fact that his mother and father are so different. He must square their different parenting styles and decide what parts of his parents he wants to emulate.
There is a meaningful moment of parallel when Ness, Sam, and Aku climb trees when trying to escape to the North. Ness thinks to herself that she hadn't climbed trees since her childhood, which seems innocuous, but the reader must remember who Ness's mother was. Esi, Ness's mother, was a great tree climber herself as a child, living in Africa. When Esi's village was invaded by another tribe, Esi was able to use her skills to climb a tree and hide for a while. However, men came and threw things at her until she fell down. It is likely that Esi taught her daughter to climb trees knowing that the ability to climb has the potential to save one from slavery or death. However, Ness comes down voluntarily, knowing that she can save her son by doing so. She uses what her mother taught her to make a motherly sacrifice.
Quey's chapter is the only one in the book that deals directly with homosexuality. Homosexuality clearly had no place in Akan society, where powerful men often took multiple wives, and women were seen as fit to marry as soon as they menstruated. Western society had similar views on homosexuality, as shown by Quey's father's reaction to seeing Quey and Cudjo lying together in adolescence. Quey is one of the most complex characters in the book, since he must grapple with his half-African and half-European heritage, as well as negotiate the way his sexuality interacts with his responsibilities to his family and tribe.
What makes someone a sister? A mother? A son? The role biology has in family identity is a major part of Quey's chapter, and it plays a small role in Ness's chapter as well. Fiifi tells his house girl to serve Quey food by saying, "You must serve my son first" (p.75). He explains to Quey that he sees the boy as his successor, even though the line of succession is supposed to be based on blood and he knows that Effia is not his full sister biologically. Fiifi seems conflicted, but since he has no other sisters with sons to give his inheritance to, he rationalizes that he can make up for his mother's wrongdoing to Effia by treating Quey as if they are related by blood. This shows the flexibility of rules around heritage in their culture. Ness's chapter, and the chapter about her son that will come two chapters later, will show that similar familial flexibility is possible in the culture of enslaved peoples in the United States as well. Ness gives up her role as Kojo's mother in order to give him freedom, and Aku will take on the role of mother with all her heart, though she is not biologically related to Kojo.
Ness and Kojo face similar problems of identity, though they are raised under incredibly different circumstances. With regard to language, both of them must navigate in what spaces they should speak English and in what spaces they should speak their mother tongue. This process is harsher for Ness; while Quey's mother taught him English and Fante simultaneously, Ness's mother spoke to her in only Twi until she was beaten for doing so. This will be something both family lines continue to navigate; English dies out in the next generation of Effia's descendants and reemerges later, while Ness's son Kojo is the last in Esi's line to speak Twi.
