Structure

Part of your essay must focus on the structure of “Home at Last” by Dinaw Mengestu.

“Home at Last” is a personal, autobiographical essay of Dinaw Mengestu. As a result, the text is structured around real-life events in the life of the writer.

The title of the essay announces readers the topic the author is about to discuss, namely the idea of returning home or feeling like home.

Introduction

The introduction of the essay is direct and presents the author moving...

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Main body

The main body of the essay explores the concept of home by presenting several episodes in the writer’s life which made him reflect deeper on the idea of home, of belonging to someplace.

In the main body, we find out that the author came to the US from Ethiopia when he was two years old making it impossible for him to actually connect Ethiopia with the idea of home, like his parents did: “I simply am Ethiopian, without the necessary “from” that serves as the final assurance of our identity and origin.” (ll. 15-18)

Then the author presents the way his parents related to the US versus Ethiopia, their feelings of regret and loss for those...

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End

The end of the essay presents the author’s reflections on life in Brooklyn, change and ideas of belonging (home) which function as a conclusion the author can draw based on his experience:

...we can rebuild and remake ourselves and our communities over and over again, in no small part because there have always been corners in Brooklyn to do so on. I stood on that corner night after night for the most obvious of reasons – to be reminded of a way of life that persists regardless of context; to feel, however foolishly, that I too was attached to something. (ll. 322-331)

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