Black Stones Symbol Analysis

In Homegoing, the black stones that Maame gives to each of her two daughters, Effia and Esi, symbolize a person’s connection to his or her heritage. Effia remains on the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana), and her stone is passed down through seven generations of her descendants, ending with Marjorie. Esi, on the other hand, is sold into slavery, and right before she is shipped from the Gold Coast to America, she loses the stone in the women’s dungeon of the Cape Coast Castle. Thus, for the characters who remain in Ghana, the stone becomes a symbol of their connection to the culture, and is also a haunting reminder of their family’s participation in the slave trade. In contrast, for the characters in America, the stone symbolizes lost culture, as many of those characters become disconnected from their parents or the rest of their family and feel detached from their Ghanaian heritage due to American slavery. At the end of the novel, when the two final characters from each branch of the family, Marjorie and Marcus, unknowingly meet and travel to Ghana together, Marjorie gives Marcus the stone and welcomes him home to Ghana, thus acknowledging his lost culture and attempting to make amends to help him to regain his connection to the country.