Writing goal: effectively and cohesively explore both overarching strategies used throughout the memoir as well as specific devices used in specific instances
When I last posted about my IRB Dreams from My Father, I had only read the first section, titled Origins, in which Obama describes his early life with his mother and maternal grandparents in Hawaii. By now, I have finished the book, which consisted of two more sections called Chicago and Kenya. As in the first part of the book, Obama continues to explore the family history that played a role in developing his identity as well as the social relationships he experienced in the beginnings of his career as a community organizer in Chicago.
By arranging the book in three parts, Obama reflects the progression of his personal journey. First comes Origins, introducing Obama's family history and heritage, the influences on the development of his identity. Next is Chicago, in which Obama decides in college that he wants to become a community organizer and moves to Chicago to work in the lower-economic African American communities on the South Side. In this section, Obama shows how his struggles with his identity were influenced by the issues the African American communities he worked with faced: the discrimination, the poverty, the lack of means and opportunity. The last section, Kenya, brings the book towards its culmination and Obama's realization of the meaning of his connection to his family in Kenya. Obama describes his visit to Kenya to meet his father's family and how the relationships he developed and experiences he had with his relatives allowed him to come to a point of acceptance of his families past and his identity as a part of that story. Thus the arrangement follows Obama's journey from the joy and confusion of childhood to the frustrations and dreams of becoming an adult to the acceptance and realization of coming to his family.
Following the idea of a return to origins, reflected in the title of the first part and the stories of Obama's visit to his family in Kenya, throughout the text Obama uses a number of images and allusions that reference the beginnings of humanity and human community. For example, Obama writes of the pastor of a Chicago church who watched wealthier African Americans move out of the inner city communities. With the loss of these people "the link to the past would be finally broken, [the reverend feared] that the children would no longer retain the memory of that first circle, around a fire..." (Obama 274). Obama watches the struggles of a community in which the wealthier members move, leaving the community to the poor and unprivileged, perpetuated in its troubles. He faces the frustration of the conflicting interests of people who are essentially brothers and sisters, who come from the same ancestors way, way back, the first humans who sat around a fire together. Later, describing a safari trip during his visit to Kenya, Obama writes "There in the dusk, over that hill, I imagined the first man stepping forward... If only we could remember that first common step, that first common word - that time before Babel," (Obama 356). Examining himself in a divided world, Obama refers back to the idea of a time of unity, a state from which everyone originated with the same needs for life, the same dangers to face and the same joys.
Following the idea of a return to origins, reflected in the title of the first part and the stories of Obama's visit to his family in Kenya, throughout the text Obama uses a number of images and allusions that reference the beginnings of humanity and human community. For example, Obama writes of the pastor of a Chicago church who watched wealthier African Americans move out of the inner city communities. With the loss of these people "the link to the past would be finally broken, [the reverend feared] that the children would no longer retain the memory of that first circle, around a fire..." (Obama 274). Obama watches the struggles of a community in which the wealthier members move, leaving the community to the poor and unprivileged, perpetuated in its troubles. He faces the frustration of the conflicting interests of people who are essentially brothers and sisters, who come from the same ancestors way, way back, the first humans who sat around a fire together. Later, describing a safari trip during his visit to Kenya, Obama writes "There in the dusk, over that hill, I imagined the first man stepping forward... If only we could remember that first common step, that first common word - that time before Babel," (Obama 356). Examining himself in a divided world, Obama refers back to the idea of a time of unity, a state from which everyone originated with the same needs for life, the same dangers to face and the same joys.
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