Chapters 19-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary
Gifty talks about how in college she took a class on the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, but she did not feel the same passion for his poetry as her teacher. However, she sympathized with what she describes as “his difficulty reconciling his religion with his desires and thoughts, his repressed sexuality” (139).
She also discusses her brother’s relationship to Christianity. This is defined, in her eyes, by one incident in Sunday school with a pastor called Tom. Tom tries to make Christianity “hip” and appealing to young people. When Nana asks whether people in an African village who had never heard of Jesus would still be consigned to hell, he is dismissive. He responds by saying that God would find a way to make them know Jesus. He adds that if, hypothetically, they had nevertheless not heard the word of Christ, then they would go to hell. This interaction ends Nana’s interest in Christianity.
Chapter 20 Summary
This short chapter consists of two more of Gifty’s journal entries addressed to God. The first asks God whether Nana’s contention that Christianity is a cult started over a thousand years ago is true. The second says, “Dear God / Would you show me that you’re real” (147)?
