Book Analysis: People Shaped Wes Moore

People Shaped Wes Moore

The surrounding environment affects all people in our society. We are born from various backgrounds, either complicated or simple. We encounter people everyday of great variety and diversity, and we are faced with situations that could be either tough or easy. Among all these factors that could affect us, people is the one that plays the most significant role. Like the two Wes Moore in the book, they are surrounded by people, connected to people, and influenced by people. Those people, regardless of whether intentional or unintentional, led the two Wes’ to two different paths by their thoughts, words and decisions.

In the book, the author put much emphasis on the mothers of the two Wes’. Author Wes’s mother Joy immigrated to the U.S and had to learn how to fit into American society at a very young age. She joined an activist group while attending American University in Washington, D.C. The things she experienced as she assimilated into a new county and culture developed in her a passion for justice and decisiveness when faced with choices. Joy learned, in a conversation with the Dean of Wes' school, that Wes was being put on academic and disciplinary probation for his bad grades, class absences, an incident with a smoke bomb and even more seriously, an assault on Shani. Realizing her son might start to “go astray”, Joy made the important decision to send Wes to military school without hesitation, even though she had to sacrifice many things to send him there.

In contrast to Joy, the other Wes’ mom Mary played a much weaker parent’s role. This is primarily due to the fact that Mary did not finish college and became pregnant at a very young age. She was her children's sole provider but was not ma...

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...more than $9 an hour. He became frustrateted because he knew both his girlfriend demand more money. In addition, he feels obligated to give his mother money since she is basically raising his and Cheryl’s children. Though he wants to stay out of the game, he feels like he doesn’t have a choice if he wants to provide for his family, The money earned in the game would be far more than that from temporary work.

“One name, two fates.” The characters of the two Wes Moores are a reflection of our society in which people with similar background can choose different paths in the metaphorical fork in the road, purely because of how the people in their surrounding environment shaped them. Joy, Mary, Captain Ty Hill, Tony, Justin, Alicia and Cheryl, also many other chracter I didn’t mention about, those people are all significant factors in shaping the two Wes Moores’ life.