Analysis Of Dreams From My Father

Obama’s quest for the meaning of his absent father’s role in his life becomes a search for his own identity in his autobiography Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Serving as a haunting presence in Obama’s life, Obama desires to recover a lost father-son relationship. Stemming from the nostalgia Obama feels towards his father due to the lost connection between them Obama matures with two primary voids in his life. The subtitle of the autobiography sums up the two voids within Obama, which are his race and his inheritance. While the title of the autobiography presents Obama’s memories as dreams. Uncovering the meaning of both the title and the subtitle of the autobiography one can further understand Obama’s connection to

It can be interpreted that Obama does not feel a strong connection to his father as a person, but rather Kenya. Obama feels like there is a wound that involves injustices with the african american community that has to be healed. Race being the catalyst of this wound. Obama exposes such sensitivity when he explains his perception of his father’s funeral. The depiction of these feelings are unveiled when Obama discloses, “I didn’t go to the funeral… I felt no pain, only the vague sense of an opportunity lost” (128). All Obama has are “dreams” of what his father was like, his ideas of his father are constructed through explanations from his family and his imagination therefore the search to find out who he truly is poses as an extremely difficulty. This difficulty creates anger within Barack so when his father passes rather than feeling remorse he feels as if his opportunity to visit Kenya was lost. Obama hoped to connect with Kenya, what he believed to be his true roots at the time of his father’s passing. The ship to connect with his father was seen as long gone therefore his search to fill his void of inheritance was shifted from a finding a connection with his father to a securing a connection to Kenya.

Seeking a sense of belonging has driven Obama his whole life. This self-creation in obama's life stems from the mythical figure of his father. Dreams from My Father ends with Obama’s first journey to Kenya in 1987, as he is about to enter Harvard Law School. He tries to close the circle, and writes movingly of his efforts to understand his father and how Kenya’s postcolonial politics nearly destroyed him. One can further understand Obama’s connection to Obama Senior by uncovering the meaning of both the title and the subtitle of the