Self-inscription in Becoming by Michelle Obama

Abstract

Autobiography as an interface of the self and experience is pivotal in the study of "what" and "how" people represent their stories. Since her appearance as the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama has been a point of critical attention. This study aims to investigate "what" and "how" she inscribes the self in Becoming. As a result, the goal of the study was to examine the cultural, historical and economic conditions that defines Michelle Obama in Becoming and to evaluate the narrative strategies that Michelle Obama employs to portray herself in Becoming. Correspondingly, two hypotheses informed this study. The first one presupposed that Cultural, historical and economic conditions define Michelle Obama in Becoming and that there are narrative strategies that Michelle Obama employs to portray herself in Becoming. In conversation with these premises, how the subject employs the form of autobiography to assert her authentic representation in respect to race, class and gender has been discovered. In addition to espoused confines of self-inscription, the language and structure of her story have been studied. In so doing, it has been revealed that, as a woman writer, Michelle Obama reconstructs her story in cohesion with characteristics of autobiography's artistic features. For instance, she envelopes her narrative in a coherent story structure and in agreement with other communicative strategies that inform on the subject’s self-inscription. Alongside, "Theory of Autobiography" and "New Criticism" were employed as guiding frameworks in the portrayal and form interpretation of the subject and the autobiography respectively. However, while the stressed realms revolve around subjectivity, agency and artistry, this study acknowledges that Becoming can as well be comparatively studied in conjunction with works whose concentration revolves around similar precincts of Michelle Obama's race, class and gender—I suggest that the triad acts as informative zones of African American's history and literature, which contribute to the understanding of their individual and collective experiences.