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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—Light and Dark:
The differences between light and dark—black and white—follow the novel from the moment the British make landfall in Africa, creating a motif. In Homegoing, they provide a stylistic throughline, explore deep-seated injustices, and interrogate the experience of race. Color writes itself across even the novel’s finest details: Rob’s creamy skin gives him the keys to a side of New York that Willie will never see. The moon resembles the “crooked, white-toothed smile of the dark-skinned night” as H trudges to work—which happens to be in none other than a coal mine. When Marcus and Marjorie revisit Cape Coast together, the Castle remains a disquieting, “glowing white.”
In a novel that pits the forces of fire against water, light and dark present another set of binaries. They critique the cramped view of the world that the imperial West introduces. Homegoing pairs color with morals. “The need to call this thing ‘good’ and this thing ‘bad,’ this thing ‘white’ and this thing ‘black,’ was an impulse that Effia did not understand,” the novel observes after James shames her fertility rituals. To be White is to access immeasurable privilege and power. Blackness means anything but. “Black magic” exists but “white magic” does not, Effia thinks to herself at one point. The novel doesn’t just use color; it unpacks the moral assumptions that underlie color. Through its insistence, the motif presses upon the reader the realities of power.
Related Themes:
Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—Stories:
It is little surprise that the characters in such a neatly structured novel turn to stories for the same sense of order themselves. Narratives—legends, myths, or otherwise—organize their lives and form a motif. Fables about Anansi’s webs recur throughout the first half of the novel, while horrific legends of genitals-turned-trees dissuade the unmarried from romantic intimacy. Homegoing’s African society is filled with tales that govern the characters’ understandings of the world.
But as the novel progresses, it also reveals the more troubling dimensions to its stories. The White missionary forces Akua to confess that she is a “sinner and a heathen,” heavy-handedly suffocating her with the White savior narrative. Across the ocean, Willie watches crude caricatures of Black people in the Jazzing. In one degrading skit after another, the club’s performers show their virility in grass skirts or bumble about while picking cotton. Stories cannot be disentangled from the authorities who create and share them. History, as Yaw tells his class chapters later, is itself a testing ground of different narratives. “We believe the one in power,” he explains, a variant of the idea that history is written by the victors. Homegoing visits truths that are well-trodden but feel no less startling.
If stories are functions of power, they also provide the characters a chance at reclaiming ownership and agency. Yaw himself reconciles with his mother after she shares the history of their family—“tell me the story of how I got my scar,” he demands. Abena listens to Akosua and Sonny to Willie. Stories are a kind of weapon and inheritance, passed down from one generation to the next. Only by sharing them do the characters manage to heal.
Related Themes:
