Fire and water represent the two sides of Maame’s family and the trauma that haunts each family line. Effia’s family is associated with the fire that burns across Ghana at the beginning of the novel, representative of the violence between the Fante and Asante tribes, which lead to decades of conflict and animosity that seem to only benefit the emerging British Empire and the slave trade. This fire burns in the background until the firewoman begins to haunt Akua’s dreams and triggers her mental illness, which results in the death of her two daughters and the permanent scarring of Yaw. Effia’s family is literally marked by this fire, which Marjorie finally faces with the help of Marcus on the Cape Coast beach. This fire also appears in the black and gold stone heirloom, passed through the generations to Marjorie.

Esi’s family line is loosely associated with the fear of water, of the deep blue expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. The origin of this fear is in the long voyage by ship that all enslaved people were forced to endure as they journeyed to America. As Marcus’s father remarks, “What did a black man want to swim for? The ocean floor was already littered with black men” (284), referring to the millions of slaves who died by suicide, disease, or starvation or were killed on the ships to America and buried at sea.