Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Becoming, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Optimism, Growth, and Fulfillment
Community, Investment, and Hard Work
Race, Gender, and Politics
Marriage, Parenthood, and Work
Power, Privilege, and Responsibility
Summary
Analysis
When people ask what it’s like to live in the White House, Michelle responds that it’s like living in a fancy hotel with no other guests. The rooms are big, the place is kept clean, fresh flowers are brought in every day. There are ushers, chefs, housekeepers, florists, electricians, painters, and plumbers. She understands how lucky they are to be living this way, particularly given the fact that her entire apartment growing up could now fit into her master suite.
Michelle recognizes the luxury that comes with Barack’s new seat of power and the privileges that her family now lives with. At the same time, coming from a humble background, she also knows how to truly appreciate it, and it spurs her to make these luxuries more accessible to other people.
Themes
Michelle understands that this luxury is afforded to them for one reason: to optimize the “well-being, efficiency, and overall power” of the president. Barack himself has fifty staffers reading and answering mail. He has a helicopter pilot standing by to fly him anywhere.
In addition to understanding the privilege that they now have, Michelle also recognizes that these privileges come with many responsibilities. They don’t have to go to the grocery store because they have to remain safe; Barack doesn’t have to do his laundry because he has to rescue the country from economic crisis. The job comes with perks, but she reminds readers again and again that those perks come with a huge weight.
Themes
In his first month in office, Barack signs the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which protects workers from wage discrimination based on gender, race, or age. He orders the end of the use of torture and overhauls ethics rules governing White House employees. He manages to pass an economic stimulus bill through Congress. The change he had promised is becoming real.
It is apt that Barack’s first bill in office is a bill that prevents discrimination, since both he and Michelle care deeply about trying to counteract this kind of bias. It serves as an example of how putting progressive politicians from more marginalized backgrounds in office can help to counteract that marginalization for all people.
Themes
The family starts to get into a routine, with Michelle constantly monitoring what’s happening in the White House and with her daughters. She tries to get to know some of the parents of the girls’ new friends, in part because she knows that a lot of the security concerns around her daughters can make things awkward with their friends or their friends’ parents.
Even with her new role and responsibility, Michelle makes sure to prioritize her daughters as they become accustomed to this new life. Being First Lady comes at the cost of having a job outside the home, but she tries hard to care of her daughters.
Themes
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Michelle is responsible for planning social events like the Governor’s Ball and the Easter Egg Roll, which she feels sometimes are distractions from more impactful work, but she tries to modernize them a little. The same goes for the White House, where Barack and Michelle try to hang more abstract art and works by African American artists on the walls. Barack swaps out a bust of Winston Churchill and replaces it with a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. They try to make the place more accessible to outsiders.
Again, Michelle recognizes the privilege of being in the White House, but she also recognizes how she can use that privilege to accomplish more and more of her goals, elevating African American artists and politicians. It is a symbolic acknowledgement of how their family is trailblazing a path, and creating a way for other African Americans to join them on that path.
Themes
Michelle also begins the project of planting a garden at the White House. On the surface, a garden feels apolitical, but she also plans to use the garden to start a public conversation about nutrition, which she knows could be controversial for corporations in the food and beverage industry. She and Sam Kass take the first steps to plan the garden.
Michelle also starts to get accustomed to her new role, at first trying to create a simple symbol of healthy living. But, in hoping that the garden can then spark an initiative, she has to balance advocacy with the political concerns that attach to even the most banal of the First Family’s actions and interests.
Themes
Michelle’s optimism in these first few months is tempered by one thing: divisive politics. Republicans seem bent on preventing Barack from trying to stanch the economic crisis, refusing to support measures that would cut taxes or save jobs. At a joint session of Congress, Barack makes a speech that tries to balance the grim state of the economy and the wars alongside his trademark optimism. Michelle watches how the Republicans are obstinate and angry, their only goal is to see Barack fail, despite the fact that a Republican had governed the country into this dire state.
Michelle is particularly disheartened by the fact that Barack pushed to overcome partisan politics and yet partisanship is still a central obstacle to succeeding as president. Faith in compromise is essential to Barack’s agenda. Thus, when the Republicans don’t seem to share this hopeful view of the country’s path, Michelle becomes frustrated.
Themes
Michelle starts to understand the White House more and more—how the many people that work there are not so different from them. She tries to ensure that they never feel invisible. She grows friendly with the staff, who instinctively know when to chat and when to give her privacy. Interacting genuinely with each person gives the White House a little more humanity.
Michelle tries to overcome some of the privilege of the White House in small ways, in part by knowing that the people who take care of her home are human beings, too. Thus, she makes sure to get to know her staff and treat them with kindness, knowing that kindness from a powerful person can go a long way.
Themes
In April, Michelle and Barack visit the Queen during the G20 summit (a meeting of leaders representing the world’s largest economies). They discover the true meaning of having an “over the top” home, as Buckingham Palace is fifteen times the size of the White House. They attend banquets in the ballroom, eating with gold forks and knives.
Even with their own relative luxury, Michelle and Barack begin to recognize that, in contrast with someone like the Queen (who experiences luxury for life), the American presidency is a temporary lease on an extravagant lifestyle. Thus, they quickly learn to appreciate it and use the power to put forth messages that they care about.
Themes
After the summit, Michelle and Barack attend a palace reception. Towards the end of the party, she finds that Queen Elizabeth has wandered towards her. She comments on how tall Michelle is, and how her shoes are hurting her. They commiserate with a laugh, and Michelle instinctively lays a hand across the Queen’s shoulder. Michelle later learns that this is an “epic faux pas,” reviving the speculation that she lacks the “standard elegance of a First Lady,” even though the Queen returned the gesture by placing a hand on Michelle’s back.
The public’s outcry at Michelle touching the Queen shows some of the racial bias in critiques of Michelle. While many Americans, in that position, might have unknowingly violated a social taboo, Michelle is under extra scrutiny because any faux pas will be interpreted not just as a one-off mistake, but as proof that African Americans are not suited to high political office.
Themes
The next day, Michelle visits the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School for girls, an inner-city secondary school where 90 percent of the school’s students are from an ethnic minority. At the school, Michelle can see that the young girls “would need to work hard to be seen,” pushing back against stereotypes. Their faces, however, are nothing but hopeful. She recognizes herself in the girls.
Michelle, in seeing these girls, who are not so different from herself as a child, recognizes both their optimism and their drive. She also understands that they might not have the same feeling of others being invested in them that she had growing up, and so she works to remedy that in her speech.
Themes
Michelle gives a speech at the school, throwing away her prepared notes and explaining to them that she is much more like them than they know. She is also from a working-class neighborhood, raised in modest means. However, she explains to them, she realized early on that school is where she could define herself, and that education could spring her forward in the world. She hugs every girl she can.
By instilling in the girls the value of hard work and a good education, she is trying to show a degree of investment in them, and trying to prove that if they invest in their own education, they might have a trajectory as extraordinary as Michelle’s own.
Themes
Back in Washington, Michelle and Sam begin planting their garden, although the idea was initially met with resistance. Michelle hosts a group of students from a local elementary school and they do the planting together. They plant vegetables, berry bushes, and herbs. Michelle knows that in some way, the garden is a gamble, as they don’t actually know whether anything will grow. All they can do is hope that their effort will pay off.
The garden that Michelle and Sam plant is, in essence, a symbol of optimism, growth, and fulfillment. They aren’t completely sure whether anything will actually come to fruition in the garden, but they hope that their hard work might pay off and in turn spark a conversation about children’s health and further Michelle’s goals in the White House.
Themes
