Barack Obama's Memoir Dreams from My Father,

A Personal Journey

In Barack Obama's memoir Dreams from My Father, he recounts an emotional odyssey in just the first six chapters. Barry (a young Barack Obama) spends his time trying to assess the authenticity of the many stories he was told by his mother and grandfather (Gramps) of how the man he called father, but barely knew, had so many qualities. Barry's relationship with his father was not with a real man, but with a myth.

Barack had a clear picture of how others viewed his father as a man. One of the many stories that Gramps told Barry about his father is when his father overhears a white man refer to him as "nigger" at a local bar. Moved by Barack SR's lecture on the "folly of bigotry, the promise of the American dream, and the universal rights of man," the white man who calls him a nigger then makes a peace offering of $100 dollars. Barry, as he grew up, became skeptical of the image painted about his father including this story about racism. Years later a phone call from an old friend of his dad's would verify the veracity of the many stories Gramps had told him about his father. Obama starts to view a panorama of how others outside of his family viewed his dad.

Growing up, Obama seemed to grow closer to the myths rather than the man. One such milestone is the story Barry had told some children at school. During lunch period at school Barry had explained to a group of boys that his father was a prince. He said: "My grandfather, see, he's a chief. It's sort of like the king of the tribe, you know... like the Indians. So that makes my father a prince. He'll take over when my grandfather dies' (63)." The boys were then very enchanted with Barry's story and began to readjust to him. Although Barry knew that part of the story was a lie and that the other parts was just a hypothesis from the many stories his mother had told him. Obama decided at this point that he preferred his father's more distant image, one he could alter on a whim. A young boy, growing up has to paint an image of his absent father. Then at the same time has to deal with peer pressure about the absence of his father!

Dealing with both the man and the myth of his father, Obama would somehow have to explain his race. Having come a long way from the little boy sheltered by his "white" grandparents, "white" mother, and their stories about his "African" father and knowing nothing about race had changed. Obama was trying to raise himself to be a black man in America. Beyond the given of his appearance; no one around him seemed to know exactly what that meant. It was a struggle for him being raised, surrounded by white people and having the phenomenon of a black man. This was a "Personal Journey" for Barack Obama.

Barack Obama's travels in life were many, but the most important journey