H Character Analysis in Homegoing

H is Jo and Anna’s son. After being kidnapped and sold into slavery while pregnant, Anna kills herself. H is born when his master cuts him out of Anna’s stomach. H works on a plantation until he is thirteen, and after the Civil War, he is imprisoned (for supposedly staring at a white woman) and put into the convict leasing system, working in the mines in Alabama. After he is released from prison, he continues to work in the mines as a free laborer, marries a woman named Ethe whom he knew before his imprisonment, and has two children: Willie, who eventually moves up to Harlem, and Hazel.

H Quotes in Homegoing

The Homegoing quotes below are all either spoken by H or refer to H. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Mm-hmm. See, that's what I thought. You was young. Slavery ain’t nothin’ but a dot in your eye, huh? If nobody tell you, I’ma tell you. War may be over but it ain’t ended.

Related Characters: H

Page Number and Citation: 158

Explanation and Analysis:

At the beginning of H’s chapter, he is arrested for looking at a white woman; in jail, his cellmate comments that it looked like H was walking around proud and free and asks how old H was when the war ended. When H says that he was about thirteen, the man explains in this quote that the war may be over, but that doesn’t mean the issues underlying it immediately went away. This passage comes at a turning point in the novel, particularly for the characters in America: though they now have the ability to be free from slavery, that Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus c

And if he slammed the book down, then everyone in the room would stare and all they would see would be his skin and his anger, and they’d think they knew something about him, and it would be the same something that had justified putting his great-grandpa H in prison, only it would be different too, less obvious than it once was.

Related Characters: Marcus, H

Page Number and Citation: 289-290

Explanation and Analysis:

Marcus is getting his Ph.D. at Stanford, and he describes how originally he wanted to focus his work on the convict leasing system that had stolen years from his great-grandfather H’s life. However, as he embarked on the project, he found himself getting increasingly angry about the systemic oppression that black people had faced before and since then. The stereotypes of black men fed into that oppression (as it had, for example, led to the brutal beating and eventual hanging of Sam, or to H’s imprisonment in the first place), and Marcus points out that those stereotypes still shape people’s Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicab

H Character Timeline in Homegoing

The timeline below shows where the character H appears in Homegoing. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...A through G, and so Anna has lovingly started referring to the new baby as H, as a placeholder name. (full context)

Racism, Slavery, and Systemic Oppression Theme Icon

Gender Stereotypes, Sexism, and Violence Theme Icon

Baby H continues to grow. Jo’s oldest daughter, Agnes, gets a cleaning job at the Methodist church.... (full context)

Four policemen put H in chains, against his futile protests. He rattles the bars of his cell, while his... (full context)

H thinks about the day the war had ended, when he was about thirteen. He had... (full context)

H had been eighteen when he met Ethe. His relationship with her had been his longest... (full context)

Unable to pay the fine, the next day—in July 1880—H is chained to ten other men and sold by the state of Alabama to work... (full context)

The first thousand pounds of coal are hardest to shovel, and H spends hours and days on his knees. His arms burn, but he knows the pain... (full context)

H can hardly remember being free, and he tries to remember Ethe. The convicts in the... (full context)

At one point, H is partnered with a white man named Thomas whose arms start shaking so badly he... (full context)

That morning, H is partnered with Thomas again. He tries to lift his shovel but can’t. Joecy, his... (full context)

Thomas asks H about his name. H explains that his mother, Anna, called him H before she gave... (full context)

H shovels his last thousand pounds of coal in 1889. He thinks about going home, but... (full context)

Another man joins their conversation, saying that H looks really strong. The man asks him to roll up his sleeve. H rolls it... (full context)

H moves to Pratt City, a town made up of ex-cons. He meets up with Joecy,... (full context)

Life in Pratt City is unlike anything H had experienced before, with black and white people living next door to each other. H... (full context)

H sits in the back at his first union meeting, while a doctor explains some of... (full context)

H starts to feel very aware of his own mortality and the kind of life he... (full context)

At the next union meeting, a white member says that they should strike. H, who has become more vocal at the meetings, explains that white people barely listen to... (full context)

...The next week, a carriage of black convicts appears, all under the age of sixteen. H worries that they are arresting more people simply to get more workers. (full context)

The members make signs and picket outside the mines. H sees one boy pee himself waiting for the mine shaft before trying to run away.... (full context)

...in to paying fifty cents more. After the union meeting where the raise is announced, H returns home to find Ethe waiting for him, cooking greens. She says that when she... (full context)

H doesn’t respond, simply taking Ethe’s body in his arms as she cooks. She doesn’t give... (full context)

...narrative flashes back to her youth, when Willie lives in Pratt City with her father, H. A boy named Robert Clifton comes with his father to the union meeting to hear... (full context)

Willie’s sister Hazel asks if Robert is white, and he says he isn’t, but that he has “a... (full context)

A month after Carson’s birth, H passes away. A month later, Ethe dies as well, and Willie is inconsolable. She sings... (full context)

Marcus returns to his research. He had wanted to focus on the convict leasing system that had cut H’s life short,... (full context)

H Character Analysis

H Quotes in Homegoing

Part 2: H Quotes

Part 2: Marcus Quotes

H Character Timeline in Homegoing