Becoming

Michelle Obama

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2018

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Part 1, Chapter 2

Part 1, Chapters 3-5

Part 1, Chapters 6-8

Part 2, Chapters 9-11

Part 2, Chapters 12-14

Part 2, Chapters 15-17

Part 2, Chapter 18-Part 3, Chapter 20

Part 3, Chapters 21-23

Part 3, Chapter 24-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The White House Garden

One of Michelle’s biggest initiatives as the First Lady of the United States is to start a White House garden where children can learn to grow and appreciate healthy foods. At first, Michelle receives pushback against planting the garden, because it will mean disrupting the status quo of the White House grounds. However, Michelle and her team feel strongly about the project and push forward. Michelle confesses that she doesn’t know what, if anything, will come from the garden, but she hopes that with some hard work and a little faith, “something half-decent would push up through the dirt” (322). Michelle’s efforts with the garden symbolize the larger impact she and Barack are trying to make on the country. None of their efforts guarantee results, and it often seems as though the change they’re striving for is impossible to reach.

However, Michelle learns that, like watching seeds grow into plants, “progress and change happen slowly” (369). Many years can pass without knowing if their efforts have been in vain, but Michelle takes hope in the fact that, “We were planting seeds of change, the fruit of which we might never see. We had to be patient” (369). As Barack and Michelle leave the White House, Michelle takes stock of everything they have accomplished. It’s difficult not to be disheartened by the election of Donald Trump, which can seem like the country turning its back on everything the Obamas tried to do; however, Michelle reminds her reader that the White House garden has “survived heavy snows, sheets of rain, and damaging hail” (413). Despite all odds and opposition, the garden has continued to thrive, symbolizing the possibility for further change to come.

The Big Cats Dream

While acting as First Lady, Michelle has a stress dream about big cats—a lion, a tiger, a panther, and a cheetah—running loose on the White House lawn. The Obama family is invited outside to see a special petting zoo of big cats, assured that the cats are tranquilized and pose no danger to the family. However, the cats soon prove to be quite energized, and as they begin running around the lawns, secret service agents shoot tranquilizer darts. Frantically trying to gather her family, Michelle watches as Sasha is hit by a dart. Michelle’s dream is motivated by fears for her family’s safety, and by the loss of control that Michelle feels in turning over so much of her life to others: “I continued to feel as if we were falling backward, our whole family in a giant trust fall” (341).

Though Michelle trusts her advisers and the family’s security team, she still feels vulnerable allowing others to make so many decisions for her. She explains that her parents’ philosophy was always to let Michelle “handle my own business,” but now that is no longer possible: “Things got handled for me” (342). Relinquishing her control is difficult for Michelle, especially because her family’s safety is at stake every day. In the dream, the family has been reassured that they will be taken care of, but what harms Sasha are the people assigned to keep her safe. Michelle knows that she needs the support of the security staff, but at times it feels as though the things designed to keep them safe are what restrict her freedom the most.

Hamilton

Michelle feels a special connection to the hit Broadway musical, Hamilton. The Obamas host a spoken-word poetry night, in which Lin-Manuel Miranda debuts the song that will be the first number of the Broadway show. At the time, Michelle enjoys the song but expresses skepticism that it will ever come to anything. By the end of Barack’s time in office, Hamilton becomes a musical sensation, a “celebration of America’s history and diversity” and “the best piece of art in any form” that Michelle has ever seen (415). Beyond seeing the show from its first iterations, part of the kinship that Michelle feels to Hamilton is that the show symbolizes Barack’s presidency. When Barack first ran for office, people were intrigued, but few—including Michelle herself—believed that he could become President of the United States.

Like Barack, Hamilton seemingly overcame many odds in breaking through a predominantly white industry, when it was written by a Puerto Rican composer and featured a cast “of all different races and backgrounds” (415). Hamilton highlights American history while also casting minorities as white historical figures, “recasting our understanding of the roles minorities play in our national story” (415). Like Hamilton, Barack and Michelle are responsible for changing the perception of what political figures look like, what presidents and First Ladies look like, and what background people need to come from to succeed on the national stage. Michelle celebrates the play’s ability to change the long-accepted story of America: “that if our skin is dark or our hips are wide, if we don’t experience love in a particular way, if we speak another language or come from another country, then we don’t belong” (415). Similarly, Michelle and Barack enabled many to hope that they, too, could belong, succeed, and have a lasting impact, no matter what they looked like or where they came from.