The concept of “home” typically refers to a set of material, physical, and economic conditions in which a household – often a family or other kinship group – lives in a position of long-term security within a single domain or a broader yet close-knit community. In an essay on the topic, Toni Morrison discusses this traditional definition of “home” by arguing the concept refers not just to a domestic setting with a roof but rather to a place of long-term residence that provides safety and security. She represents this concept by describing a woman in her home as able to “rise from her bed and sit on the steps in the moonlight. And if she felt like it, she could walk down the road without a lamp and without no fear” (Home Essay). In her novel Home, however, Morrison argues that the history of race and racism in the United States complicates the concept of home. Her text represents the way that race, a historically and socially constructed concept, produces a form of Black identity that becomes a second, inescapable home that severely impacts the ability to enjoy the material security a traditional concept of home would provide.
In her essay on the subject of “home,” Morrison describes a sense of security devoid of reference to racism or violence. Safety in one’s domestic environment is produced through inference from these socially-based constructions. In her novel, however, such abstractions are banished to describe how the protagonist, Frank, encounters forms of violence and exclusion, especially in his appeal to community members in Lotus for assistance at the end of the text. The story says, “Miss Ethel? You in there? Frank Hollard. It is me, Smart Money. Miss Ethel.” (Morrison, 116). Frank and Cee are desparate for Miss Ethel to take him in, and he needs someone to make him and Cee feel safe again.
Despite being a social construction, Morrison’s novel suggests that race is a more “real” and fundamental “home” for Black Americans than a supposedly more concrete, material structure that typically constitutes concepts of a home. When Frank travels across the nation to hunt for his little sister, he endures the violent conditions that racism produces. For instance, in Chicago, Frank and Billy are accosted by the police based on their appearance, as when “[t]he police would have thought so too, but during the random search outside the shoe store, they just patted pockets, not the inside of work boots.” (Morrison, 37) The only reason the police decided to stop the two and search them was because of how they dressed. Later, Billy tells a story about how his son’s life was changed forever by the police: “Drive-by cop. He had a cap pistol. Eight years old, running up and down the sidewalk pointing it. Some redneck rookie thought his dick was underappreciated by his brother cops” (Morrison, 31). The police in Chicago during this time disregarded Black life. These forms of racism change Billy’s sense of how safe their home could possibly be. One’s home cannot accord to the definition of the term – safety and security – if the supposed guardians of private property, the police, harass you. Instead, one’s race becomes one’s “home without a home.”
The idea of “home without a home” is supported by the fact that physical home means little for Frank. Home in its physical sense does not generate in Frank a sense of belonging. Instead, throughout the book, it is race and racial communities that provide security and family, which racial prejudices undermine. The concept of racial prejudices that affect the perception of black race as inferior is traced in Frank’s memories of his childhood. Thus, his parents were “beat from work” because they could only find the lower-paid jobs and the beating they received from life in the form of police aggression and harassment are reflected in their treatment of their children. The description of Frank’s childhood serves as to portray race as a kind of social construction where people are enclosed by the color of their skin.
The idea of a home as a kind of ‘ghetto’, inescapable due to the prejudices that Afro-Americans face, is further developed when Frank speaks about his hometown. In fact, the very city he lives in generates a feeling of revolt. Thus, Frank says, “You all go fight, come back, they treat you like dogs” meaning that in his hometown there is nothing he wants to get back to, that is why he chooses to seek his chance elsewhere (Morrison, 18). In fact, Frank is even grateful for the chance in the army, because there, death gives equal chance for everyone, unlike Lotus governed by prejudices against the black race.
However, as an answer to racism that has a tremendous impact on the lives of Afro-Americans, they forge another kind of home – that of community where all people can find support and a sense of belonging. Thus, Frank says that his sister is his closest friend and opposes his attitude to her to the attitude to ‘home’ he lived in. Frank says, “Lotus, Georgia, is the worst place in the world, worse than any battlefield[…]It sure didn’t look like anyplace youd want to be[…]Thank the Lord for the army[…]Only my sister in trouble could force me to even think about going in that direction” (Morrison, 83-84). When Frank returns from the army, it is his sister he perceives as ‘home’ and family, and not the place where he lives. There is no security in town or in the house, but he feels he can find love and sympathy in his sister. The very fact that he took care of her since her first days is suggestive: it denotes his deep bond with his ancestors, with Afro-American community who, like Frank, have suffered tremendous injustice and aggression and carry this burden in their hearts.
This shared experience as well as the perception of one’s hometown as ghetto where no justice or human attitude can be found forges a strong bond among all members of African American community. Historically, the American house was often a plantation in the South of the United States and pushed African Americans behind its walls. Thus, the exiles were forced to look for a home somewhere else, forming communities on the outskirts. These communities, according to Morrison, were perceived as true home by those who lived there since there were people one could always count on and a place to return. The idea is well expressed by Frank when he says that “[His sister] was a shadow for most of my life[…]who am I without her?” (Morrison, 103). When Frank meets love, there is again the feeling of return, of belonging that no place in the world could have given to him apart from his sister and community. Frank says, “in her company the little wishbone V took up residence in my own chest and made itself at home[…] I felt like I’d come home. Finally. I’d been wandering. Not totally homeless, but close” (Morrison, 68). Thus, family and community bonds for Afro-Americans replace the notion of home in its physical meaning of a place one lives in and wants to return.
The very fact that Frank travelled a lot renders the idea of physical home as an empty unloved place more credibility. When Frank’s friends die, the boys he grew up in his hometown with, Lotus becomes devoid of any meaning for him, a place he wants to escape. Thus, Morrison writes that “all color disappeared and the world became a black-and-white movie screen” referring to Frank’s losing his sense of belonging when he loses his friends and family, the community that constitutes his home (68). Further Frank travels around the country without any knowledge of where he is going to stay since he loses his only home – that forged through his bonds with Afro-American community. At the same time, in the physical sense, he belongs everywhere since he has travelled widely and it does not make any difference for him where to live. Thus, he says, “ Aw, man. Korea, Kentucky, San Diego, Seattle, Georgia. Name it I’m from it” (Morrison, 28). No place is dear to his heart as these are community bonds that make his home and not some particular place.
The title of the book is also suggestive. On the one hand, it refers to the home Frank has never had – a space where one has security and comfort largely denied to Afro-Americans due to racial prejudices. On the other hand, it may refer to his strong spiritual connection to racial community he belongs to. Finally, it may refer to his family tree and bonds with his Afro-American ancestors who suffered the same treatment as Frank. In the final chapter, it is a tree Frank is looking at, which is “hurt right down the middle, but alive and well” (Morrison, 147). The tree may be allegory to Frank’s life, when he suffered aggression, misunderstanding, dog-like treatment on the part of whites but this very attitude pushed him to seek love and support in his racial community.
Morrison combines poetry, violence, and storytelling in one work. The story describes how black men have protracted conversations about shared and individual memories and experiences. In her work, Morrison highlights the most upsetting human situations changing the readers’ perception on the meaning of home. According to the writer, in Afro-American communities home is, one the one hand, associated with authenticity, race and community belonging and, on the other, is seen as a ghetto out of which people cannot escape. The idea of race as home is brought about by the prejudices and violence against Afro-Americans. The notion of race as a ghetto is closely connected with the idea of social construction that is formed by segregation practices, aggression and violence towards Afro-American population of the country.
Work Cited
Morrison, Toni. Home. Christian Bourgois Éditeur, 2012.