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The influence of society on the behavior of the individual
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Setting Influences on Wes Moore The setting of Wes Moore’s, Discovering Wes Moore has an incredible impact on him and helps him make some of the biggest choices of his life. Wes grows in the Bronx during his early childhood years. He lives in a dangerous neighborhood in which drugs are in use. He makes friends in the neighborhood. However, his mother wants him to get a proper education, so she sends him to Riverdale. Wes makes friends at this school and keeps the ones in the neighborhood. Wes is feeling torn apart while living in the Bronx. He feels that “[He] was too ‘rich’ for the kids from [his] neighborhood and too ‘poor’ for the kids at his school.” (Moore 43). Wes does not feel like he belongs anywhere, which leads to reckless behavior.
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 novel guides you through the 8 crazy years that led to Wes Moore 1's success and Wes Moore 2's life sentence in prison. Wes Moore 1 definitely did not have the perfect life but his life had more positives than Wes Moore 2. Wes's family, friends and the military impacted his decision making and life choices that make him successful today. But the more he tried to be like his brother, the more Tony pushed back.”
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
Wes was abandoned by his father soon after he was born and Tony, Wes’s brother, who was often at the Murphy Home Projects left Wes to be the “man of the house”. The absence of an older male figure made Wes more independent and, with Mary’s low paying job, made him have to provide for himself. Having to equip himself for day to day life built the base for Wes to experiment with the drug trade and, eventually, got him arrested multiple times. Tony wanted to keep Wes from the drug trade, in one instant he beat Wes up for being involved, but he knew that “his mission as a big brother was to toughen him up for the battles [he] knew Wes would have to fight as he got older”. As a young boy, Wes wanted to be exactly like his older brother, but as a hypocrite, Tony wanted Wes to stay out of the drug trade while he, himself, was deeply involved in the trade. The older Tony got, the more he realized how inevitable it was that Wes would engage in the drug trade. Once he realized Wes would become involved, he began to prepare him through fights and him protective advice. By being a drug dealer, Tony injured Wes’s future, and when Tony associated Wes with the jewelry store robbery, he destroyed Wes’s future. The men that influenced Wes Moore throughout his lifetime were the ones that made him the human destined to spend the rest of his life in
Education standards. One Wes’s family took education very seriously and the other Wes’s family let education standards slip. This was one reason the two Wes’s went down completely different life paths. Author Wes Moore mom took education very seriously and did not let Wes get away with slacking. When author Wes Moore mom found out he was slacking so much in school she collected as much money she could and sent him to Military school.Author Wes states about going to military school “I knew my mother was considering sending me away, but I never thought she’d actually do it.” (Moore 87). Military school is a big factor in the reason author Wes turned out to be as
A child will not change their behavior if their parent does not show disapproval and does something about their behavior we they act out. With both of these combine, it made Wes’s opportunities starting from a young age, very slim of being successful. Growing up, Wes Moore had his mom and family around him to support him and when things got bad, his mom sent him to military school as a disciplinary action. This saved Wes from further becoming a bad kid because there, he learned discipline and respect. On the other hand, the other Wes Moore was off selling drugs and doing other bad things while his only influence was his brother. The other Wes Moore was so involved in his profits from selling drugs that he even sold to a cop even though he knew that he was undercover (Moore 112). Wes took this chance because he was so desperate for the twenty dollars he was going to receive, he didn 't care what the consequences were. I believe that if the author Wes Moore never went to military school, that he would have turned out just like the other Wes Moore. Weich from Lincoln County Jail stated that when investigating the jail, inmate were forced to garden as their “hardwork” this was supposed to change them. The inmates just had to be on good behavior and they were then able to garden while in jail (Weich). The point of going to jail is to be disciplined and learn and grow as a
C. Stephen Evans is stating there is a problem with the philosophy of religion having a neutral stance. Evans rejects both fideism as well as neutralism, and believes that by trying to have a, “neutral, disinterested posture,” a person could, “cut themselves off from the possibility of even understanding what religion is all about,” (Evans, 1985 p. 115). Evans notes that the view of faith and reason, by some religious believers think it is an impossibility to have “rational reflection” on religion. After his arguments that disprove many ideas in both fideism and neutralism, he proposes an alternative solution which he has named, “critical dialog”, that he hopes will, “preserve the strengths and eliminate the weaknesses of the initial theories,” (p. 115). “Correct thinking about religion is rather a genuine faith, a personal commitment,” (p. 116).
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
They both grow up in a similar environment and was raised by a single mother. Author Wes can see how the other Wes 's life went and saw that there were Decisions and actions that were taken that made them made them into the people they become. American people are always talking about “keeping up with the Jones 's” and “the grass is greener on the other side”, and most people don 't ever know about a person who shared their name and grew up in the same environment. So it makes sense that if a person becomes aware of a person like that, who shared a name and grew up in the same environment, they want to know more about what that person 's life was
Moore quote including said, “It was a different psychological environment, where my normal expectations inverted, where leadership was honored and class clowns ostracized” (96). The quote The (author) Wes Moore seen in his Military School that the lower freshmen was respects the higher ranking. The (author) was very amazed that in his military school the students were respect their superior and follow their command and their honor code rules to obey by. At the Military School teaches (author) Wes Moore about learn the discipline, leadership, and teamwork. The military do care about the (Author) Wes Moore successes. The (author) Wes Moore have the stronger mentor giving him the responsibility of their trust on him to force him to change his bad behavior that impact his teenage and adulthood
“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.
In chapter 5 of The other Wes Moore by Wes Moore, both protagonist are encountered with being taken out of their environment. In the 5th chapter the author Wes was sent to military school and the other Wes is arrested after shooting a “jump off's cousin”(105-106). For Wes being taken out of his loose Bronx environment and being put into a strict military environment drove him crazy. The insanity Wes faced can be attributed to the apparent structure the military school had, unlike the Bronx. Like the title of chapter 5 both Wes and the other Wes are lost beyond belief, although they are both lost they both have an opportunity to grow from an change in environment.
The other Wes’s father was not a good father because he was a drunk, and cannot guide his son better. The author Wes’s father gave positive influence to him, although they lived together just a short amount of time. The author Wes writes “I tried to copy his walk, his expression. I was his main man. He was my protector” (11). After the Wes did not know why his mother mad at him, his father patiently explained that Wes could not hit people especially women and you should defend them rather than fight them. Later, his father also led the Wes apologize to his sister and mother. As a matter of fact, the series of behaviors have deeply affected the Wes. Therefore he wanted to copy his father and become a good man. For the other Wes Moore, The author writes, “Finally, after some more jostling, his father’s eyes cracked open. He saw Wes standing over him. Still squinting, he looked his son in the eyes. “Who are you?” (102). When he met his father on his aunt’s house, his father was sleeping on the couch. At that time, the Wes had not seen his father in years. Therefore, his father did not care about his life. Although the other Wes considered leaving the house, he still intended to say hello to him. As a result, his father said that who was Wes when he woke up. Obviously, the other Wes did not feel any love from his father, and he was not responsible for the Wes’
People use the word okay nearly every day. It is a word that everyone knows and uses due to its vast meanings. To be okay, is what Gary D. Schmidt’s novel Okay for Now really tries to get readers to understand. He poses the question: just what does “okay for now” mean? These answers are found through examining the characters in the store. While, okay can mean many different things, being okay means that the person is in a state where while things are not perfect, but they are tolerable and satisfactory and can improve.