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Yaw is Akua and Asamoah’s only son. He is resentful of his mother, whose actions have left a permanent scar on his face—in her madness, she set the family’s hut on fire, killing Yaw’s two sisters and badly burning Yaw in the process. He works as a history teacher at a boys’ high school and also hopes that Ghana will gain independence. With the help of his house girl, Esther, he eventually reconciles with his mother. He then marries Esther and has a daughter with her named Marjorie, and the three of them move to Alabama together while Yaw gets a higher degree.
Yaw Quotes in Homegoing
The Homegoing quotes below are all either spoken by Yaw or refer to Yaw. 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:
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Part 2: Yaw
Quotes
“This is the problem of history. We cannot know that which we were not there to see and hear and experience for ourselves. We must rely upon the words of others […] We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story.”
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“What I know now my son: Evil begets evil. It grows. It transmutes, so that sometimes you cannot see that the evil in the world began as the evil in your own home. I'm sorry you have suffered.”
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Part 2: Marjorie
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Her father had told her that the necklace was a part of their family history and she was to never take it off, never give it away. Now it reflected the ocean water before them, gold waves shimmering in the black stone.
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Get the entire Homegoing LitChart as a printable PDF.
Yaw Quotes in Homegoing
The Homegoing quotes below are all either spoken by Yaw or refer to Yaw. 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:
).
Part 2: Yaw
Quotes
“This is the problem of history. We cannot know that which we were not there to see and hear and experience for ourselves. We must rely upon the words of others […] We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story.”
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“What I know now my son: Evil begets evil. It grows. It transmutes, so that sometimes you cannot see that the evil in the world began as the evil in your own home. I'm sorry you have suffered.”
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Part 2: Marjorie
Quotes
Her father had told her that the necklace was a part of their family history and she was to never take it off, never give it away. Now it reflected the ocean water before them, gold waves shimmering in the black stone.
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