The Other Wes Moore was a book written by Wes Moore about two boys who were very similar growing up. They both grew up with out their dad and in a rough lifestyle. The two boys lived in same rough Baltimore neighborhoods with activity going on always. The difference is one grew up to have a successful life and the other is spending the rest of his life lock up as a convicted murderer. We should care to learn about these two men because this story proves that even with a challenging early life growing up you can still have a successful life. The author showed that with all that he went through growing up he was still able to grow up as a “Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader.” (Moore) .” which is an amazing …show more content…
It can be hard to live in high poverty and come out and be highly successful, but the author Wes proves it can be done. I also think this book shows how important it is to make good life choices and to listen more to your parents when growing up, so you don’t stray on the wrong path in life. I think a major factor that made the lives of these lives of these two men so different was one got out of the street life while the other didn’t. Another major factor was when the author mom sent her son to military school. This changed him for the better because it took him away from the trouble he was getting in back at home. After reading this book I think the difference it makes in life is too continuing go for greatness. No matter how bad it may seem right now in life Wes Moore proved that you can still become something great in life. A quote I took from this book was “Failing doesn't make us a failure. But not trying to do better, to be better, does make us fools.” (Moore) I know people who have given up on a lot of things in life because of bumps in the road. I would say this book changes how I look at the lives of others, but in two different ways. One way would be that be can change their life arounds even if they grew up that way. The second would be that sometimes you need to break off from people that might not help you grow in
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 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.
Sometimes people don’t listen. The text provided from The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore, I found that one of the central ideas is that the older brother, Tony is rying to change Wes not to be like him, but he is not doing a great job tellim him. IN the third paragraph it states, “Before Wes could even finish his sentence, Tony cocked back his arm, and punched him dead in the face”. Instead having a talk with him and explaining why what he is doing could get him in big trouble, he punches him and solves the probelm physically and not verbally. As the mom thinks Wes is telling the truth. As paragraph four Mary said, “Well thats what he told me and I believed him”. Between the three characters, I can already see the author usd charactrization
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
Wes Moore did many things to prove that he was a thinker in “The Other Wes Moore”. Wes Moore faced problems and thought of solutions. Wes Moore based his actions off of his experiences and he didn’t continuously make the same mistakes. In chapter four of the book, Moore made a bad decision to “tag” or put graffiti on the walls of a building with one of his friends named Shea. Soon after the young men finished tagging the walls they were caught by two police officers. Moore feared the consequences of his actions and in the book he states “In that moment, I became aware of how I had put myself in this unimaginably dire situation – this man now had control of my body; even my own hands had become useless to me. More than that, he had control of
In the book The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates, Author Wes Moore, explains the story of two men named Wes Moore, born blocks apart in the same city of Baltimore. Meanwhile, one serving was a life sentence for an armed jewellery store robbery in which an off-duty officer was killed and the other was a Rhodes Scholar. The Author Wes Moore had read the story of Wes imprisonment in the same newspaper which highlighted the success of the author. The lead to the Author Wes Moore becoming with fixated on the story of Wes, a person he had never met, so much that he decided to write him a letter, asking the questions, Who are you? Where did it go wrong for you? How did this happen? Wes wrote back, and so began a correspondence which deepened their relationship. The author Wes Moore discovered, during his communication with Wes that “generation of young men, boys who came of age during a historically chaotic and violent time and emerged to succeed and fail in unprecedented ways.” Here is how my mother influenced me to become a determined lady.
The Other Wes Moore is about two men, who have the same name, Wes Moore, grew up not even miles away from each other, West Baltimore, both lost their father, and they still had two completely different fates. Wes Moore, the author, got send to military school and join the Air Force. The Other Wes Moore will spend every day of his life in prison for a murder of a police men. The other Wes says he didn’t do the murder even though there is major evidence pointing his way that proves that he did do the murder.
The first Wes Moore is introduced through a story of him playing a game with his sister. The game ends with him punching his sister, which his mother witnesses. She becomes enraged and makes sure Wes realizes the wrong of his actions. Meanwhile we learn a little more about his mother, Joy. Such as she is from Jamaica and she was beat by her past husband. Then Wes’s father becomes sick and is told to just rest by doctors, but he ends up falling down the stairs unable to breath very soon after. He dies on the ride to the hospital in the ambulance. Then the first Wes’s mother starts to sleep on the couch as a guard against their increasingly dangerous neighborhood. She is deeply troubled by the death of her husband and asks to move back in with
In my opinion, people should take the blame for our own mistakes. Our parents raised us but we make our own choices. Our parents may have raised us but it’s our responsibility to make the right choice. As we come into adulthood, we must learn to take responsibility for our actions and accept the consequences that follow. We must deal with our consequences and avoid putting the blame on others. In the book, The Other Wes Moore, Inmate Wes’s mother tried several different things to keep him away from drugs and drug dealing. She worked and moved her residence several times in order to keep him out of the drug path. Unfortunately, he always found his way toward drug involvement.
Education can be affected by your family background. In the story The Other Wes Moore, Wes went to a private school where he was surrounded by positive friends, because his mother didn't like how the town was getting involved in drugs. Joy wants the best for Nicki and Wes, so she used her previous experiences growing up in the Bronx to make her decision. The other Wes Moore went to public school where his only influence was his friend Woody that only cared about having a good time. Wes Moore had a 90 minute train ride to school every morning; the other Wes Moore only lived 15 minutes away from his school. In school it can be hard to do well without having any friend support behind you, but it could be even more difficult to have some friends who care and some who don't. Wes lived in the Bronx, and hung around his neighborhood friends Ozzie and Paris. Unfortunately, Ozzie and Paris judged him for going to a private school. At such a young age being pulled back and forth between two different types of friend groups can be confusing.
Malcolm Gladwell once said, “...people who are outliers—in men and women who, for one reason or another, are so accomplished and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling to the rest of us as a cold day in August.” The author, Wes Moore, of the book, The Other Wes Moore, is considered an outlier through the “Gladwellian” lens based off of Gladwell’s book, Outliers. Wes’s story demonstrates objectives that define him as an outlier with the contributions of where he’s from, his advantages, and also his attitude over his ability. These contributions therefore define him as an outlier through the “Gladwellian” lens.
At the end of the day, these men were similar and different in many ways. You come across several moments where things truly could have gone either way. They both could have ended up in each other’s shoes. Different things across their paths led them to different places, but their mothers and their own choices for themselves were a huge factor in what happened to them. However circumstances are only half the battle. If you want something in this world, you will make your own circumstances. AWM did, and OWN did not.
4.Wes Moore the author says that “I was taught to remember but never question. Wes was taught to forget, and never ask why.” Are these things different and if so how are they different? How do they point to differences in each of Wes’s upbringings? How might they connect to the differences in their outcomes?
It shows that you don’t need to come from a wealthy family or have to have everything to accomplish a lot. There are people like Diane who lived in pretty bad neighborhoods who want to become more than a stereotype. They want to do something with their life and find something that they are passionate about. I think if they read this book they’d see that anything is possible. Not only was this book very inspirational but it’s very relatable in many aspects. I related to it on a very close level. Much of my family came from Mexico seeking a better life in America and did experience many of the things Diane’s parents had to go through. Being paid low wages for jobs nobody wanted and working hard to give their children the best life that they could possibly give them. Much of the things Diane experienced through her adult life is very relatable too. Having to work jobs you don’t like to make money, finding what you really want to do, and for some, even the depression and contemplating suicide. Her story is so real that I think every should know about this. It can help anyone out too and show that they aren’t the only ones going through what they’re going
I learned many life lessons from reading this book. I learned to remain true to myself rather than fitting in. Hard work, following protocols and not cutting corners is a reoccurring theme in this book. I learned to never to underestimate myself. I learned that rather than to embarrass people for doing wrong, it is a more valuable lesson to show kindness to them. It pays to be smart when one is involved in business dealings. The book has typical values and lessons identified in inspirational books but delivered in a quite a unique way. The author is shown to possess good values. He was courageous, hard-working and resilient. He equally had fun with some daring adventures. The author also wrote about his flaws and the mistakes he made which makes this book easy to relate to. He picked himself up after every set back he