Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dreams from My Father, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family and Community
Fathers, Sons, and Manhood
Race and Identity
Storytelling and Truth
Summary
Analysis
Roy and Abo are too hung over to travel, so they stay in Kendu. Barack returns to Home Squared with Sayid and Bernard. He joins Auma, Granny, Zeituni, and an elderly woman. Auma introduces the woman as Dorsila, Onyango’s sister. Zeituni brings Barack a foul potion to settle his upset stomach and reminds him that Onyango was an herbalist. Barack asks Auma to ask Granny to tell him about Onyango.
For Barack, Granny seems to hold the keys to understanding his family, as she knew both Onyango and the Old Man. However, as he listens to her story, he should still keep in mind that this isn’t an unbiased account—and for that matter, Barack might take away only what’s useful to him.
Themes
Granny lists the men in the family going back seven generations. Barack’s great grandfather, Obama, was orphaned as a boy, worked for a wealthy family, and married their eldest daughter. He had four wives and became an elder. At this time, before white men came, families lived in compounds and men and wives each had their own huts. Everyone worked together. But Onyango was odd. He wouldn’t play with other children and instead stuck his nose in everyone’s business. This is how he learned to be an herbalist. The white men came while he was still a boy. Elders warned people to stay away from the white men until they knew more about them.
By insisting that Onyango was an odd figure even as a small child, Granny seems to cement the idea that it’s no surprise that the Old Man and, eventually, his sons have struggled to figure out their place in the world—they’re from a family that’s been on the outs of society for several generations. However, Granny also makes it clear that this individuality has its uses, as Onyango’s skill as an herbalist proves. Without being willing to step outside of what’s normal, he wouldn’t be able to help people.
Themes
Onyango disappeared and returned months later, dressed in white men’s clothes. Obama decided that his son was dressed like this to hide that he’d been circumcised (which is against Luo custom) and so he disowned Onyango, leaving Onyango to return to Kisumu. There, most people found the white men to be silly and expected them to leave. Finally, the first district commissioner arrived, along with war. He imposed taxes, conscripted men, and installed chiefs in villages. During this time, Onyango worked for white men and oversaw road building, as he was literate and spoke English and Swahili. He cleared land in Kendu.
Obama disowning Onyango for going out on his own shows that a sense of abandonment by one’s father has plagued the Obama men for generations—especially since Obama himself was orphaned as a young child. Onyango’s ability to find success working for the English, however, shows that one can still find success despite a rocky family situation.
Themes
Africans couldn’t ride the train at this time, so Onyango walked to Nairobi. There, he joined many others who, after the first World War, worked for white people. At this time, taxes increased and rural men were compelled to work on white farms. Some people tried to demonstrate against this, but it was a losing battle. With the new land laws, there was no room for sons to start their own plots. Many men began to drink—and they realized that, compared to white men, they were poor. Onyango, however, prospered. He worked in the estates of important white men, bought land and cattle, and built a house. But unlike most people, he kept his house spotless. He ate at a table, bathed constantly, and wouldn’t let anyone touch his property. People found him strange, but he was generous.
Just as Barack saw poverty and racism destroy Black livelihoods in Chicago, he hears the same thing happening in Granny’s story. As Black men were forced into new ways of living due to colonialism, they found that they didn’t have the same opportunities or futures available to them as they once did. While this proved debilitating for some men, Onyango appears to have harnessed this new environment. By accepting Western customs and mannerisms, Onyango might have ingratiated himself with white colonists—but he alienated himself from his Black neighbors.
Themes
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Onyango decided that he needed a wife, but most women couldn’t keep the house to his standards. Though beating women was normal, many felt that Onyango was too harsh with his wives—many returned to their fathers. Finally, he found and married Helima. She stayed in Kendu while Onyango worked in Nairobi, but they discovered that she couldn’t have children. This was grounds for divorce, but Onyango stayed married to her. Granny suspects that it was lonely for Helima. At one point, someone suggested that it was Onyango who was infertile. After this, Onyango set his sights on taking Akumu as a wife. Akumu was beautiful and promised to someone else, but Onyango paid a hefty price and his friends kidnapped her.
Onyango was clearly a difficult person to live with long before Auma and Roy knew him, as evidenced by his difficulties finding a wife. As he set out to build his own family, he essentially required a woman who was willing to operate in a way that she was probably not raised to expect. In essence, he asked her to give up some elements of her culture in order to be his wife, and this understandably didn’t go well for him in many situations.
Themes
Granny pauses for lunch. Auma asks Granny and Dorsila if Onyango raped Akumu. Granny says it was traditional for women to play hard to get, necessitating the woman’s “capture.” Auma presses, but Granny and Dorsila insist it was normal to marry an older man, to not worry about love, and to put up with beatings. Auma snaps that this is why men are so awful to women. Very seriously, Granny tells Auma that she’s right. Granny wonders if she’d think differently if she were young today, but back then, it was normal. Barack sees both sides, and like Auma, he feels betrayed. He realizes that he always thought of Onyango as resisting white people because he’d written Gramps an awful letter when the Old Man and Ann wanted to marry. Barack asks Granny if Onyango ever mentioned his feelings about white people.
Despite her age and her belief in the righteousness of Luo tradition, Granny is also surprisingly understanding of the fact that, as times change, people begin to look at tradition differently. Her grandchildren, she recognizes, will hear this story and think badly of their grandfather, which she doesn’t necessarily want them to do. As Barack mulls over his own sense of betrayal that Onyango never resisted white occupation, he has to confront the fact that he hoped his grandfather would’ve taken more pride in his identity as a Black person. Instead, he sees that Onyango compromised to survive.
Themes
Granny says that Onyango was purposefully hard to read. She knows that he respected white people for their power, machines, and weapons, and that he hated that Africans wouldn’t accept new ideas. But she also thinks that Onyango didn’t really think white men were superior and even lost many jobs because he wouldn’t let his white employers beat him. Onyango respected strength most of all; this is why he followed Luo traditions so strictly and rejected Christianity. He eventually converted to Islam. Onyango’s hardness is why he and Akumu had so many problems.
Granny paints Onyango as a multifaceted man who was undeniably difficult and rigid, but who was also caught between two worlds. It’s likely comforting to Barack to hear that Onyango refused to put up with abuse at the hands of white employers, as this is proof that, in some ways, Onyango stood up against ill treatment. But the fact remains that he was still complicit in Kenya’s colonization.
Themes
Granny was 16 when she married Onyango. Akumu already had Sarah and the Old Man, and they lived with Helima in Kendu. Granny lived with Onyango in Nairobi, but she could tell that Akumu was unhappy. Akumu chafed under Onyango’s demands. Helima tried to help, but Akumu was young and possibly still loved the man she was originally engaged to. Akumu tried to leave several times, but Onyango brought her back for his children’s sake. During World War II, life got easier. Onyango went overseas, so his wives all lived at the compound. He returned after three years, having supposedly married the woman in Burma.
The time when Onyango is fighting overseas was, in some ways, a harbinger of what was to come: in the present, Barack’s family is run by women, even if Roy is technically the head of the family—and it’s far more peaceful than it ever was when the Old Man was alive. While the memoir as a whole proposes that men should be around for their children, this shows that men have to be there in an open, loving way in order to make a difference.
Themes
When Onyango was almost 50, he set his sights on returning to Alego, where his family used to live. Granny didn’t resist, but both Helima and Akumu had family in Kendu and refused to go. Onyango forced them to move anyway. Having studied Western farming techniques, Onyango had a profitable farm within the year. He sold his cattle because they eroded the soil and built large huts for Akumu, Granny, and himself. He also installed an oven in the cooking hut and baked bread and cakes. His neighbors found him odd, but they came to respect him—especially since he could protect them from witchcraft. Once, he exposed a shaman as a fraud in front of the elders and then asked the shaman to show him how his potions work.
Even though Onyango embraced Western ways of dressing, farming, and keeping his home, it’s telling that he still followed Luo tradition in terms of taking multiple wives, housing them in this way, and tackling shamans. Despite being overbearing and possibly self-centered, Onyango managed to walk a difficult line as he tried to figure out who he was as a Luo man and as a Black man living in a white world. This, Barack proposes, is simply what it means to be a Black man.
Themes
Akumu, however, remained proud and scornful. Onyango beat her often. Finally, when the Old Man was nine and Sarah was 12, Akumu told her children to follow her when they’re older and disappeared with her new baby. Onyango was furious, but Akumu’s family refused to send her back. Indeed, they had already accepted a dowry for Akumu to marry another man. Onyango told Granny that she was Sarah and the Old Man’s mother, but Sarah remembered Akumu’s instructions. A few weeks later, Sarah tried to take the Old Man and run away, but a woman returned them to Onyango when she realized who they were. They never tried to run away again, but Sarah remained loyal to Akumu. The Old Man pretended that Akumu didn’t exist and accepted Granny wholeheartedly. He sent Akumu money later in life, but he was cold to her to the end.
Again, just as Onyango was disowned and abandoned by a parent as a child, the Old Man felt the same sense of abandonment when his mother left him. Onyango’s insistence that his children accept Granny as their mother without a fight may have contributed to some of the Old Man’s issues with Onyango later in life—it may have seemed to the Old Man as though his father didn’t understand how traumatic it was to be abandoned.
Themes
Onyango was very strict with his children. Granny let the kids run wild while Onyango was gone, but she would scrub them before he returned. The Old Man was a trying child; he did whatever he wanted behind his father’s back. He also learned quickly, even as a toddler. Sarah did too, but this didn’t concern Onyango—he didn’t care about educating women. This caused a rift between Sarah and the Old Man, especially since the Old Man didn’t take school seriously. He was so smart that he didn’t need to study—and when he grew older, he started only going to school for exams. He was usually at the top of the class and boasted about it often, but he also helped his friends. As an adult, when the Old Man reminded his school friends of this, it made them angry.
Though Granny doesn’t get into it, it’s possible that Sarah felt betrayed by Onyango for a whole host of reasons—and since Onyango seemed to favor the Old Man in terms of educating his children, Sarah then moved some of her anger to her brother. This may explain why Sarah feels in the present like she deserves something from Barack and from the Old Man’s estate; she may believe that the Old Man is somehow responsible for her not getting an education. The Old Man’s behavior with his friends suggests that he may not have been skilled at helping his community.
Themes
In the years after World War II, things began to change. Kenyans who fought in the war saw Black Americans flying planes and performing surgery, which led them to agitate for independence. Luo men began to organize with the oppressed Kikuyu tribe. Onyango was skeptical of independence and believed that Black men wouldn’t win. Though he believed that white men were unintelligent and thoughtless, he recognized that they worked together—while Black men simply believed themselves to be superior. Onyango was detained once and when he returned, matted and dirty, Granny saw that he was an old man. The Old Man only learned about this later, as he was busy causing trouble at school. Onyango beat the Old Man when he found out about his son’s antics and arranged for him to work as a clerk on the coast.
Independence might seem to threaten Onyango’s way of life, as he’s only as successful as he is because he’s cooperated so fully with the white colonists. This might not change his thoughts on the respective qualities of Black and white people, but he may believe it’s better to think himself intelligent and actually be successful than to fail. His choice to beat the Old Man for acting out at school suggests that Onyango wants his family members to best reflect how Onyango thinks of himself. If the Old Man looks rude and wild, it won’t make Onyango look good—showing that family ties rule, even at this time.
Themes
The Old Man took the job but quit. Too proud to ask for help, he took another job that didn’t pay as much. Onyango scolded his son and sent him away, ashamed. Onyango later refused to bail the Old Man out of jail, though the authorities let him out after a few days. At this time, the Old Man was already married to Kezia, who soon had Roy and Auma. Finally, the Old Man met two Americans. They noticed how smart he was and offered to help him get into an American university. Though this made Onyango happy, he couldn’t pay the university fees. The Old Man wrote letters to American universities. One in Hawaii accepted him.
Though Granny characterizes the Old Man as being too proud to ask his father for help, it’s also very likely that the Old Man knew that his father wouldn’t be pleased and was simply trying to save face. Given how Onyango has treated the Old Man thus far, this makes sense and begins to illuminate how the Old Man’s relationship with his father soured and drove him to secrecy.
Themes
The Old Man left Kezia, Roy, and Auma with Granny and disappeared. Two years later, he wrote that he wanted to marry Ann. Onyango disapproved of the marriage because white women don’t understand Luo customs, but the Old Man married Ann anyway. Onyango correctly predicted that the Old Man would return to Kenya alone, though Ruth showed up soon after. Even though Ruth and the Old Man got married, Ruth wouldn’t accept Kezia. Onyango taunted his son about this for the rest of his life. As the Old Man fell from power, he tried to hide it from his father. Granny gave the Old Man what she believes he needed most: someone to listen to him. The Old Man behaved with his children just like Onyango did. He knew he was pushing them away, but he didn’t know how to fix it.
Again, as the story progresses, Granny makes it clear that Onyango didn’t do his son any favors or do much to foster a more loving, generous relationship between them. Whenever he had the opportunity, he picked at the Old Man’s perceived flaws or mistakes, something that must have been hard for the Old Man to handle. But in spite of certainly being unhappy with his relationship with his father, Granny notes that the Old Man simply repeated the cycle with his own children. In this way, Barack realized that these ways of dealing with one’s children are learned—and it’s essential to break the cycle of silence and impossibly high expectations.
Themes
The story complete, everyone troops into the house. At Barack’s request, Granny brings out a leather trunk and hands Barack a small book and some papers. Auma and Barack study the book, a register for domestic servants. It gives the rules for domestic servants and lists Onyango’s employers. The papers are the Old Man’s letters to American universities, asking for applications. Barack thinks that these items are his inheritance. He goes outside, stands in front of the graves, and sees Granny’s stories come to life. He thinks of Onyango and of his father, both trying to figure out how to make it in the world. Barack realizes that the Old Man almost succeeded in escaping Onyango’s shame.
Both the register and the Old Man’s letters tell the stories of men trying to make it in a new world ruled by white people. In this sense, Barack begins to realize that his inheritance, so to say, is to have to continue their struggle as he too attempts to figure out how to be a Black man in a white world. And possibly, because Barack doesn’t have his father around to shame him or to live up to, he may have more room to negotiate with this inheritance and come to a healthier relationship with his brothers and his future children.
Themes
Crying, Barack thinks that the Old Man didn’t need to be ashamed and confused—his only crime was staying silent. Barack thinks that if only his ancestors had spoken to each other honestly about the changing times, they might have been able to focus more on the happy parts of life. Barack feels as though all the parts of his life are connected to this plot of land. He feels connected to his father’s pain and as though he’s asking the same questions as his brothers. It begins to rain and Bernard arrives with an umbrella.
The realization that the real enemy is silence impresses upon Barack that the same ideas govern building communities as govern building families. Had his ancestors been more open and honest about their struggles, their sons might have known that it’s okay to not know how to make it in the world. As Barack realizes this, he undergoes his final coming of age moment.
Themes
