53 pages • 1 hour read
Sankofa
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Names
Names are a key motif in Sankofa. During times in which enslavement was legal, enslaved people were forced to take on the names of their enslavers, an act that functioned to erase their identities and cultural heritage. As seen in Sankofa, this practice continued after emancipation, with missionaries and evangelists often imposing European names upon various African people as part of the colonization process. Thus, Kofi’s full name is Francis Kofi Adjei Aggrey, an aggregation of his given Bamanian name and the name that Irish missionaries once gave his father, Peter Aggrey, who was formerly known as Kwabena Adjei. In this context, it is significant that Kofi goes by the name of Francis in London, for the decision reflects his initial attempts to assimilate to dominant culture.
When Francis becomes a revolutionary, he shortens his name to Kofi Adjei, and Anna notes that this is “a historic reversal” (59) of the usual pattern of European names overwriting African names. By choosing to go by his African name only, Kofi rejects the influences of European colonialism and affirms his Bamanian identity. His renaming also represents a metaphorical split in his identity between the idealistic but powerless Francis and the powerful but morally ambiguous Kofi. During her conversations with Kofi, Anna learns that he would have named her Nana, a Ghanian word that means “queen.” During her initiation ritual at the end of the novel, Anna is told that Nana is an anagram of Anna. This realization is symbolic of her new ability to accept her diverse heritage. At the end of the novel, she decides to go by Anna Nana Bain-Aggrey in order to embrace both her English heritage and her Bamanian background. Rather than contradicting one another, these aspects of her identity coexist peacefully and make her who she is.
Duality
Duality is a recurring motif throughout the novel as Chibundu Onuzo describes Anna’s extensive quest to redefine herself. In the beginning of her search, Anna often perceives duality in herself and others; for example, she separates “Anna Graham” from “Anna Bain” when thinking about her life before and after her marriage, but she struggles to see this duality as anything but negative. Due to her upbringing, Anna feels that she is made up of contradictory parts. She wasn’t raised to embrace and understand the full complexity of her heritage and is now received as an outsider everywhere she goes. The motif of duality also recurs in Anna’s father, who is simultaneously Francis Aggrey and Kofi Adjei: both a beloved revolutionary and a disgraced public figure. For the majority of the novel, Anna struggles to reconcile these two visions of her father, indulging in the illusion that Francis and Kofi are two separate people. This attitude is reflected in her habit of referring to Francis as if he is a different man, even when speaking to Kofi himself, for she cites Francis’s opinions and morals as being separate from Kofi’s.
Throughout the narrative, however, Anna learns to embrace duality as an unavoidable part of life. This shift culminates in her acceptance of her father as “Francis and Kofi in one person” (276), and herself as both Anna and Nana. Once she makes peace with the concept of duality, she is finally able to settle her internal conflict and be confident in herself.
The Sankofa
The titular word “sankofa” means “to retrieve” in the Ghanian language of Twi. It also refers to the Ghanian Adinkra symbol of a bird with its head turned backward. The Sankofa is associated with a Ghanian proverb, which is translated as, “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” In Sankofa, the sankofa bird symbolizes Anna’s desire to turn back to the past and find the lost parts of her identity. When faced with the possibility of divorce and a lonely life in London, Anna turns away from her uncertain future and seeks answers about herself in the past, first through her father’s diary, and then through a face-to-face confrontation with him. Anna flies to Bamana hoping to discover the truth about Kofi and, by extension, herself. Instead, she discovers a complicated tangle of corruption, familial tension, and ambiguous morality. Rather than resolving her problems, Anna’s sojourn into the past leaves her with more questions than ever.
As she accompanies her father in his travels around Bamana, Anna repeatedly tries to confront him about the murders of the Kinnakro Five and other past controversies that he has buried. In Chapter 29, a frustrated Kofi finally tells Anna that the sankofa “cannot work in real life” (280) because a bird can’t fly forward with its head facing backward. He evokes the symbol to chide her for excavating his past and encourages her instead to move forward with her life. Kofi’s rebuke is partially correct—Anna is searching for an easy answer that will tie up all of her life’s loose ends and resolve the question Kofi’s identity and her own. However, this illumination does not lie in the past, and her insistence upon stressing what is past is in reality keeping her mired in place. However, Kofi’s rebuke ignores the proverb associated with the sankofa, which highlights the importance of honoring the past while moving into the future. In Sankofa, the past informs the present, which in turns shapes the future. As Anna learns at the end of the novel, everything is connected. Ultimately, the sankofa represents the importance of honoring and preserving the past while moving forward into the future.
Unlock all 53 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: