Was Wes Moore really more successful than the other Wes Moore because of the choices they made, or was it because of the influences they had in their life that made them who they are today? The Other Wes Moore is a story about two boys with similar backgrounds and similar situations, growing up in similar neighborhoods. The two boys though, end up living two diverse and different lives. The question then becomes “what causes them to change so drastically?” because for all intent and purposes their fates could have been the same. The author gives credit throughout the novel of certain people who made him the man he is today. In the same manner, the author points out how easily his life wouldn’t have been what the people around him are, without the support. The novel does a magnificent job of showcasing the importance of a reliable and present role model in their life to be successful in life.
The best example of the importance of having role models is right in the beginning with their mothers. While Mary, the others Wes’s mother, lets her children roam around to do things they shoul...
The Other Wes Moore is a book talking about two different men with the same name,Wes Moore. They were both raised up by a single mother and live in the same decaying city, Baltimore, where there are surrounded by drug and alcohol. However, the author Wes Moore’s parents completed their education and have a good job while his grandparents also were well-educated. But the other Wes Moore’s parents didn’t graduate from college, his mother tried to get the scholarship but failed, and his father left high school and don’t have a job either. This two Wes Moores both grew up with their mother. The author Wes’s father died for disease while the other Wes’s father left his family. With this situation, they went to the same direction, being absent from
The Other Wes Moore is a novel that shows the different paths of two different men, one successful and the other not so fortunate. We discovered their different identities and how their choices and role models affect their lives. Wes 1 was led by his brave, hard working mother and the great military men. He didn't make incredibly great decisions but the people in his life helped him turn into the successful man he is today. However, Wes 2 had a brother who dealt drugs.
The main conflict that Wes Moore faced was surviving and overcoming the troubles and influences in the environments he grew up in. Wes went through many experiences, several of them having to do with the worrying activities that went on around him everyday. This quote describes how all of the people living in the same places as Wes, struggled through the same things, what Wes described to be, “…the deadly streets, poverty, and the twin legacy of exclusion and low expectations.” (Moore 170) This means that the economic issues of these cities directly influenced the inhabitants’ life decisions and everyone had the same expectation for life, nothing good. With this expectation in mind, it is easy to see how these issues continued to affect the
1. Briefly describe each of the Wes Moore’s. Include information you believe is important to their life path (community, family life, big decisions, etc.).
It’s in these subtle differences that one can identify where it went wrong for the Other Wes Moore. The reason that there was no father figure is drastically different, the author's father died when Moore was
Wes & Wes Moore could’ve of easily ended up with the same fate. It is the choices they made, the environment they were provided with, the support and choices of their families and the mind set they chose to have the set them apart from each other. The two Wes Moore’s paths went different ways for many reasons but some were more significant than others.
In “The Other Wes Moore”, by Wes Moore, the author takes the readers through his life growing up as well as the life of someone who was a stranger to him during his childhood but turned out to be a huge part of his life later on. His name was also Wes Moore and both he and the author grew up in poverty and did not have the best childhood. Although they grew up similarly, their adulthoods were the polar opposite. The author Wes Moore became the top in his class, a Rhodes scholar, and studied at Oxford University to later become very successful. On the other hand, the other Wes Moore is in prison for the rest of his life for a robbery and murder. How did these two grow up so similarly, yet had completely different adulthoods?
The story of two men growing up in the same neighborhood with similar backgrounds with the same name and eerily similar circumstances that leads and ultimately has each character ending up in very different places in life. Taking completely different paths to their futures is the setting of this story “The Other Wes Moore”. The way a person is shaped and guided in their developmental years does undoubtedly play a huge role in the type of person they will become in life. The author Wes does a good job of allowing you the ability to read this story and the circumstances surrounding the character his mother joy played such an important role in his success, while comparing the roll of Mary the other Wes’s mother. Both boys grew up with strong, hardworking black women in their lives and yet it still allowed for two completely different journeys. I think the lack of fathers and having not so good male role models was also a contributing factor.
Like the author Wes and the other Wes, they both did not have good role models, barely knew their fathers. Neither of them had a safe neighborhood where they could focus on school and not be distracted by drugs or violence. Both of them had obstacles that they needed to get through but were also given opportunities to get on the right path. Wes did the other Wes did not take it. For example, both of them had experience being arrested and put in a police car that was their obstacle. The author Wes was terrified, “...but I was also sincerely fearful about what was going to happen next.” (83). He knew he screwed up and wasn’t sure if he was going to end up a cell and or have to face his mother about. The Other Wes was not afraid of the police or even afraid of his consequences. When he got arrested he kept denying it like it would somehow change what had already happened. Even the first time he was arrested for shooting someone he immediately started selling drugs as soon as he got out. Both of them lived in the same city and they barely had a relationship with their father’s. The lack of a role model for each of them had a huge impact on their lives. The other Wes Moore had Tony to look up to, but he was just one drug deal short of ending up dead or in a cell.(57) The author Wes had to rely on himself because his only role model were his friends. They both had a mother, but
In their respective life journey, both Wes Moores often found them facing with some hard choices or decision to make or standing at a crossroads of life change without knowing which way to turn. Therefore, “for all of us who live in the most precarious places in this country, our destinies can be determined by a single stumble down the wrong path or a tentative step down the right one” (Moore xiv). During their early childhood, both Wes Moores struggle at school and had troubles with the law. However, for the author Wes Moore, attending the military school was the biggest turning point in his life. Aware of his mother’s determination, his family’s sacrifice, and encouragement from classmates and instructors as well as the influence of role models, the author Wes Moore finally made up his mind that he wanted to succeed in the military school. At the end, the author Wes Moore fulfilled his dream and did well academically from then on. On the other hand, the other Wes Moore had tumbled on a series of missteps along the road: dropping out of school, getting involved with drug trade, committing violent crimes, and being a father of four when he was so young and immature. Even though there was a time when he tried to reinvent himself: joining the Job Corp, getting a high school diploma, and finding some decent jobs, the reality and his making-quick-money mentality eventually brought him back to the original path with no return. At last, by committing an armed robbery that left a police officer dead, the other Wes Moore irreversibly drove himself to the dead end of life. Obviously, based on their early life experiences, both Wes Moores would have gone the same route to failure. Nevertheless, at some critical points of their lives, the author Wes Moore made some good choices with intervention and guidance of good people while the other Wes Moore lost his footing under undue
Expectations influence who we become. Many factors come into play when we assess the lives of both Wes Moores introduced in the short novel The Other Wes Moore. Some of these factors are the expectations that shaped each man’s life. Moore illustrates his point when he writes, “The expectations that others place on us help us form our expectations of ourselves”(126). The explanation to the quote was it will help people to see the expectation of “thinking outside the box” means that think freely for themselves with better judgment in everyday life for their moral action in their society. Expectations from others have a strong impact on the choices an individual makes, and both Wes Moore’s choices were strongly influenced by the expectations
In The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore, many people were able to grasp ahold of the author Wes’s life and help him get steered into the right direction. I feel that his mother, Joy, had the biggest impact on his life and meant the most for him. “When we moved to New York, she worked multiple jobs, from a freelance writer for magazines and television to a furrier’s assistant- whatever she could do to help cover her growing expenses (47).” Joy was a very hardworking woman. She worked not one but two jobs to cover her expenses, her kids expenses, and to help her parents out. She did this because she wanted what was best for her children. This later comes back to make Wes respect his mother for all that she has provided and sacrificed for him to get all that he did.
“I guess it’s hard sometimes to distinguish between second chances and last chances” (Moore 67). This is a powerfully central theme to the book The Other Wes Moore, written by Wes Moore. For the two men this book is about, it all begins with a wide-open future. The mothers that gave birth to them and the influences they had, along with their own powerful choices, sealed their fate . People don’t ever stop growing or improving and the two Wes Moore’s are no different. Throughout their lives, they are constantly changing and in some places calling the shots. One chose correctly, and one did not.
Wes Moore Paper Richelle Goodrich once said, “To encourage me is to believe in me, which gives me the power to defeat dragons.” In a world submerged in diversity, racism and prejudice it is hard for minorities to get ahead. The novel “The Other Wes Moore” is a depiction of the differences that encouragement and support can make in the life of a child. This novel is about two men, with the same name, from the same neighborhood, that endured very similar adversities in their lives, but their paths were vastly different. In the following paragraphs, their lives will be compared, and analyzed from a sociological perspective.
Role models can make a huge difference in a child's life. My Physical Education teacher had a major impact of effecting of what I want to be now. Aleta Jo Crotty helped me to learn to take responsibility for my actions, and in my choices I am in control. By using guidelines that was set by her for my life, I hope to reach just one child.