Homegoing: Part 2: Marjorie Summary & Analysis

Marjorie is in Ghana visiting her grandmother Akua when a boy asks her in English if she wants to see the Cape Coast Castle. She explains in Twi that she’s from Ghana, but he’s confused because she had just arrived from America.

Marjorie arrives at Akua’s house. Akua had moved to a bungalow on the beach to be near the water. She speaks to her grandmother in Twi, which is the opposite of what she does at home with her parents, who speak Twi while she answers in English. They had done this since the day they had received a note from a teacher asking if Marjorie knew English  because she rarely volunteered to answer questions.

Marjorie and Akua go to the beach together, and Akua notes that Marjorie is wearing Effia’s stone necklace. Akua explains that their family began here, in Cape Coast. She has come to live by the water to hear the spirits trapped within it. The spirits, she explains, had not known where they came from, and so they did not know how to get to dry land. Marjorie walks out into the water with her grandmother.

Marjorie returns to Alabama, just about to enter high school. There are more black students there than she is used to seeing, but she quickly realizes that they are not the same kind of black. One of her classmates, Tisha, asks her why she speaks the way she does, imitating her almost with a British accent. Tisha says Marjorie sounds like a white girl.

Marjorie realizes that in America, “white” could be the way someone spoke; “black” could be the music someone listened to. In Ghana, one could only be the color of one’s skin. Marjorie’s mother, Esther, tells her not to mind them.

Marjorie befriends Mrs. Pinkston, one of two black teachers in the school. Mrs. Pinkston tells her to find the books that she loves, that she feels deep within her. Marjorie tries to search for those books. One day in the library, a boy named Graham compliments her choice of Middlemarch before introducing himself. His father is in the military and his family had just moved to Alabama from Germany.

Graham and Marjorie quickly become friends, reading in the library while everyone else eats lunch. Sometimes Graham leaves a note with his own writing, but Marjorie is too shy to show him hers.

Marjorie goes home and asks Yaw when he knew he liked Esther. Esther asks if she likes someone, or if someone has asked her to prom. Marjorie says no, embarrassed. Esther tells her that if a boy likes her, she has to tell him that she likes him too, otherwise he will never do anything about it.

Mrs. Pinkston is putting on a black cultural event for the school, and asks Marjorie if she would read a poem about what being African American means to her. Marjorie says, however, that she’s not African American. She thinks how at home, they had a different word: akata, people who were too long gone from the mother continent to continue calling it home. But Mrs. Pinkston explains that in America, it doesn’t matter where a person comes from to white people; black is black.

That night, Marjorie goes to see a movie with Graham. After the movie, they drive to a clearing in the woods. Graham has a bottle of whiskey and lights a cigarette, playing with his lighter. She asks him to put it away: ever since she heard Akua’s story, she has been terrified of fire.

Graham asks Marjorie if she liked the movie, but she had only been focused on him. She wonders if she’s in love. Graham asks if he can see some of her writing. She says that she’s writing a poem for Mrs. Pinkston’s assembly. He says he’d love to read it.

Marjorie is working on her poem when Yaw gets a call from Ghana, saying that Akua is very frail. Marjorie speaks to her on the phone, asking if she’s sick. Akua tells her that she’ll see her this summer. Marjorie goes back to her room and sees that all she has written on her paper is “Water. Water. Water. Water.”

Marjorie and Graham go on another date to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Graham says America wouldn’t have a space program without the Germans. Marjorie asks if he misses Germany. He says he’s used to moving, and then asks if she would move back to Ghana. She says that she doesn’t think so: she doesn’t feel like she belongs there anymore. She says she feels her grandmother, Akua, is the only one who really understands her. When she looks up, Graham kisses her.

For weeks, Marjorie waits for news about Akua. At school, she is quiet. She eats lunch one day in the cafeteria, and Graham comes over to sit with her. He asks if she’s okay, since he hasn’t seen her since they kissed. A brunette girl then approaches Graham and Marjorie. She whispers to him that he shouldn’t sit with Marjorie. He replies that he’s fine where he is. Marjorie tells him he can go, but she really wants him to stay. Instead, he gets up, and she sees how easy it is for him to leave and slip in with the other students.

The theme for prom is The Great Gatsby. That night, Marjorie watches a movie with her parents. The phone rings, and Graham tells her that he’s sorry he can’t take her. His father hadn’t thought it would be proper, and the school hadn’t thought it was appropriate. Graham had tried to explain to the principal that she was “not like other black girls,” which had made her feel worse. She tells him she has to go and hangs up.

At the school assembly, Marjorie gets very nervous. Mrs. Pinkston introduces her, and she reads a poem that refers to her family’s history at the Castle, to slavery, and to a lost sister. When she looks up, Yaw is standing at the door, but she cannot see the tears running down his face.

Akua dies in her sleep before summer. Marjorie takes the rest of the year off; her grades are so good it doesn’t make much of a difference. Marjorie watches the funeral service, and when her grandmother has been buried, she throws herself onto her grave and cries, “Me Mam-yee, me Maame.”