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. 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 …show more content…
The author Wes Moore dad was a hard worker and he had dreams & goals set for the future. The other Wes’s parents didn’t have as much drive and ambition. The other Wes’s dad walked out on him and his mother was left to work jobs just to provide for the family. Author Wes’s parents ambitions rubbed off onto him and his mother’s love for education drove her to push Wes academically. The two mothers had different expectations and ambitions for their sons. The other Wes states “‘We will do what others expect of us, Wes said. If they expect us to graduate we will graduate. If they expect us to get a job, we will get a job. If they expect us to go to jail, we will go to jail.” (Moore 126). The expectation the families had on both Wes’s shaped who they were and that influenced the decisions they made, that caused their lives to end up so
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 chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his” (Moore, 2011). This quote perfectly describes the book The Other Wes Moore. This book was a story about two people who have the same name and grew up in similar environments, but had very different lives. The author of the book, Mr. Moore, became successful and was given the opportunity to receive “one of the most prestigious academic awards for students in the world” (Moore, 2011). On the other side of the spectrum, the other Wes Moore “will spend every day until his death behind bars for an armed robbery that left a police officer and a father of five dead” (Moore, 2011). Mr. Moore decided to contact the
In the book “The Other Wes Moore,” Intrinsic factors play a significant role in determining the Wes Moore’s success. This narrative explains the intrinsic challenges that both Wes Moore’s had to overcome in order to succeed and it explains how the people surrounding them, the was main reason that the author was led to a successful life and the other Wes Moore was led to failure.
In The Other Wes Moore, the author and a neighbor have the same name, Wes Moore, and they both begin their lives in similar ways. However, as their lives progress, they begin to part. For example, both “lost” their fathers when they were young. Because of the way their mothers respond to this loss, the boys’ lives begin to separate. Both mothers have different responses to challenges in general, which eventually leads them to respond to their child’s actions in contrasting ways. Throughout this novel, readers learn that depending on how a mother decides to react to the negative actions of their child’s actions, the child can either lead a successful life or lead a life of failure.
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
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
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 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
The factors that surround us when we are young create the people we become in the future. Usually the people and area that surround us influence the people we become in the future. If we grow up in an area with lots poverty crime and with parents that rarely give a care what we are doing with our lives. We are expected to probably lead a life of crime and violence. Unlike a person who is born in a well adjusted place with parents who concerned for their future are expected to lead better lives. We see in the book The Other Wes Moore the path both men end up taking is because of the many factors that influenced their lives during their young age. One huge factor was their mothers. Each were similar that they both raised their kids as single
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?
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.
In youth and throughout life, children look to their parents for answers. Providing advice, tough love, and unconditional support is part of the job description for many parents. In The Other Wes Moore, the audience witnesses first-hand accounts of having a mother that takes on both “mother” and “father” roles. Wes’s mother is strong, courageous, and compassionate, while the Other Wes Moore’s mother is just as compassionate, but naive and in denial of her child’s faults. Wes’s mother, for instance, held high expectations for her son in school, considering the sacrifices she made to send him to the school she wished she could attend in her youth. When hearing of Wes’s grades she says, “Well your grades aren’t bad because you can’t pick this stuff up or because you are stupid, you are just not working hard enough” (76). From there, she proceeds to send Wes to military school, which
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
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.