Trauma and Memory in Homegoing (2016) by Yaa Gyasi: An Analysis of Intergenerational Effects of Slavery and Colonialism on African and African-American Identities

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore and understand how Homegoing (2016) addresses the themes of trauma and memory, more specifically, the manner in which the theme is developed throughout the narrative and impacts the development of identity of the characters across generations. Of interest, the research aims to analyze the methods narrative chosen by Gyasi to discuss the continuity of trauma, as well as memory as the way to define an individual. To analyze the literacy of Homegoing (2016), there was a need to adopt a qualitative analysis of the literary text. Such elements as the topic and its relation to other texts, key motifs and patterns, character transformations were also explored by the means of final reading. This work also incorporated theoretical paradigms retrieved from trauma and memory into the body of the study. Homegoing (2016) can be seen to be a great story that presents the present effects of historical traumas on current social persona. The novel implies that despite the fact that trauma constitutes another facet of subjectivity, memory is the single remedy and resource for the subjects and collective subjects. Keywords: Trauma, Memory, Intergenerational Trauma, Slavery, Colonialism, African-American Identity, Narrative Structure, Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing.