"Am I good enough? Yes, I am": Michelle Obama's Autobiographies and the Making of a Political and Cultural Symbol

The main purpose of this thesis is to explain and interpret the difficulties and highlights in the life of the First Black First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama. I will focus on the two autobiographies of Michelle Obama, “Becoming”, published in 2018, and “The Light We Carry”, published in 2022. The books are necessary to understand how this woman and her husband, Barack Obama, changed the historical view of politics and to explore how racial and gender boundaries affected political opinions. Michelle Obama is an icon for all the Afro-American women who, for the first time, can identify with her. This dissertation aims also, to emphasize the importance of the Afro-American autobiography genre through an analysis of its origins. In fact, slave narratives are a sort of tool and a statement that slaves used in order to express themselves, to finally have a voice, and to declare their freedom. In particular, I chose as a symbol the female Black writers, Harriet Jacobs and Sojourner Truth, who opened the way for future generations of women and succeeded in establishing a significant position among African American writers.