Homegoing: Dramatic Irony 3 key examples

Here, Homegoing makes the secret, involuntary agreement between Effia and Baaba the subject of its dramatic irony. When Effia begins to menstruate, Baaba forces her to withhold the news of her womanhood. “If you do not do as I say, I will make sure you never speak again,” she tells Effia. Baaba’s declarations to her husband—which allege a curse upon her daughter—become part of a performance of tall tales and lies. Effia, Baaba, and the reader all know. Cobbe does not. Convinced that his daughter is cursed, he backs off from the arrangement.

Only later does the novel reveal Baaba’s tactics to be borne out of step-motherly spite. But Baaba’s manipulation will have already altered the course of her stepdaughter’s fate. She passes Effia off into James Collins’s hands, sending her to the Castle. The result is that Effia’s son Quey—born half-White, half-Black—ends up torn between two worlds. Baaba’s lie goes a long way, influencing all the generations that come after her. She shows how private feuds and daily quibbles intertwine with larger historical dynamics.

Big Man’s brutal treatment of Abronoma raises an almost textbook instance of irony. Here, the Asante—the very same people who will lose hundreds of thousands to slavery, their King Pempeh I, and political autonomy—violently abuse their own slaves. The victims of history’s most inhumane institution are, in this moment, also active participants in it. After his order of whipping comes the humiliation; the next day, mothers and children all watch as Big Man commands Abronoma to carry water without spilling and whips her himself when she does.

Big Man’s abusive treatment reflects the reciprocity of violence and power. He hurts Abronoma, just as James Collins smothers Effia and unnamed soldiers will do to his own daughter. He inflicts pain in the same way Cobbe does to Baaba and Baaba to Effia. Through one relationship after another, Homegoing depicts perpetrator and victim equally blindsided by their own privileges and status. “Weakness is treating someone as though they belong to you. Strength is knowing that everyone belongs to themselves,” Maame tells Esi. As his switch descends, Big Man seems to confirm this truth.

Homegoing presents a moment of double irony. Ohene’s banter comes at the heels of the old man’s misrecognition. “They said you had died in the war, but I knew that could not be!” the old man exclaims, mistakenly believing Abena to be James. But even after correcting the old man, Ohene’s own joke is no less ironic. “If he is a royal, then you are a royal too,” he tells Abena, part scoffingly.

The reader knows the answers to both. Having followed Quey’s marriage to Nana Yaa and traced James’s fictionalized death, they recognize that James is, in fact, still alive. They also know of the royal blood that lurks within Abena. Ohene and the confused old man are at least partly correct, even if they don’t believe themselves to be so. The town laughingstock happens to be a man who formerly possessed unimaginable power. The random girl is part royal. The man who supposedly died has not died. As characters fumble around the truth, the novel shares with its audience the secret surprises of history.