Homegoing: Allusions 4 key examples

Passed in 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act marked a grim setback in the fight for abolition. The law obligated the federal government to return runaway slaves back to their owners—even if they had already escaped to freedom in the north. Though intended to serve as a compromise between the northern and southern states, the Fugitive Slave Act became a political flashpoint. An entire slave-catching industry developed, sweeping in desperate plantation owners and opportunistic slave catchers who even captured misidentified freemen. No Black person was safe, no matter their citizenship status.

Works like 12 Years a Slave have explored the law’s harrowing consequences. For Kojo’s narrative, the law irreparably ruins his family—no amount of training can prepare him for the shock of losing his wife and son when the tragedy strikes. H meanwhile grows up in slavery, trapped in the very same institution as his grandmother. 

Kwame Nkrumah—the charismatic figure who will lead the country to its independence just eight years later—will also become Ghana’s first president. After negotiating the Ghana Independence Act of 1957 with Great Britain, Nkrumah laid the groundwork for public projects across the country. He established a national education system, fought for Pan-Africanism, and oversaw the nation’s rapid industrialization. In many ways, he symbolized the hopefulness of a new era.

However, the leader also found himself on history’s darker side—in the face of growing political resistance, Nkrumah eventually established himself as a de facto dictator who formed personality cults and thwarted democratic elections. Having secured political autonomy for his people, he also sought to suppress their voices. By 1966, a miliary coup d’etat would overthrow Nkrumah and disband the Convention People’s Party. Accordingly, the novel’s mention of him points to the promise and perils of independence.

W. E. B. Du Bois’s work makes for more than casual reading. It is also a landmark treatise about race and politics, in which the thinker examines the Black experience with the rigors of sociological study. Among other issues, The Souls of Black Folk explores the enduring legacies of racism and inequality in America. Du Bois rejects Booker T. Washington’s conciliatory racial approach, advocating for immediate civil equality and access to higher education rather than the patient acceptance of inequalities. He also introduces his theory of double consciousness, describing the fractured sense of self that Black people experience under the White gaze.

Homegoing tucks in deeper, thematic meanings through its allusion to the American literary classic. In this moment, the mention of The Great Gatsby draws upon the work’s despairing portrait of American society. In what is partly a rags-to-riches story, it captures Jay Gatsby’s desperate striving to win the hand of Daisy Buchanan. He builds a fortune from bootlegging and a house on West Egg situated perfectly across from Daisy’s. He shrugs off his humble origins and tries remaking himself to Daisy’s liking, only to die tragically—and alone—in the end. The Great Gatsby critiques the failure of the American Dream as it explores the decay of an old-moneyed elite and the fruitless struggle for a better life.

Gatsby’s tragic disappointment harmonizes all too closely with Marjorie’s own as she suffers the daily aggressions and stereotypes that come with her Black identity. She gets turned down by Graham, excluded from social circles, and stereotyped as one of those “other black girls.” She, like Gatsby, is denied opportunities by social structures beyond her own control.

Some literary circles have taken The Great Gatsby a step further. Some critics have gone so far as to speculate about Gatsby’s racial identity, reading Fitzgerald’s protagonist as a pale Black man who tries passing as White. This theory—if true—only strengthens the novel’s resonance with Homegoing’s subject.