Family Ties in The Other Wes Moore James Baldwin once said, “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” In any family, one can see how parental guidance makes or breaks a child’s future. The author of The Other Wes Moore, Wes Moore, explores this idea by contrasting the outcomes of two men with the same name. As a decorated veteran, Rhodes scholar, and White House Fellow, the author hears of a man with his name wanted for murdering a police officer. Haunted by the coincidence, he reaches out to the “other” Wes Moore after he is imprisoned years later. From there, Wes Moore uncovers countless decisions, sacrifices, and mistakes that diverged the two men’s seemingly similar lives, …show more content…
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 …show more content…
In The Other Wes Moore, the author discusses the importance of parents and activity in their children’s lives by revealing how expectations from his family influenced his self-motivation and goal-setting. “With our mother working so much, and our grandparents obviously slowing in energy, my sisters and I were supposed to look after one another. Nikki was older, so she was always the one looking after me, and it was my responsibility to look after Shani” (77). Here, Wes discusses how Nikki was someone he wanted to emulate. Despite Nikki’s “turbulent” high school experience, she was always there to look after Wes and guide him. In addition to his mother, Wes’s sister was also a role model for him. When he didn’t have his mother around to ask for advice, he was always able to talk to Nikki and receive thoughtful advice. Additionally, Wes was responsible and accountable for his sister, Shani, which resulted in character growth and an understanding of what was expected of him. Throughout the book and in interviews, Wes Moore states that expectations are crucial.“Do you think that we 're products of our environments? I think so, or maybe products of our expectations. Others ' expectations of us or our expectations. I mean others ' expectations that you take on as your own. I realize how difficult it is to separate the two. The expectations that others place on us
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 Moore is a novel that shows the different paths of two different men, one successful and the other not so fortunate. Wes 1 was led by his brave, intellectual mother who impacted his life positively through small decisions. Wes 2 was led by his step- brother who had good intentions but never delivered or cared enough to help Wes through the obstacles of his life. Most of us are fortunate enough to choose who will impact our future but we have no control over our family members and whether they will help or hurt
In The Other Wes Moore, male figures, specifically male role models, play an important part both Wes Moores’ lives and and are eventually what make or break their futures.
In the memoir, The Other Wes Moore, the author Wes Moore compares his life with another man's, whose name was also Wes Moore, and shows how shockingly similar they were. Particular coincidences are certainly strange, like the fact that both of their fathers were not around, both mothers cared about their child's well being, they both lived in the Bronx at one point in their childhoods, and the obvious one, their names are the same. Not only were their home lives similar but they also had similar social experiences, including being caught breaking the law; however, this book also illustrates, through these social experiences, the subtle differences in their lives as well.
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 this memoir, James gives the reader a view into his and his mother's past, and how truly similar they were. Throughout his life, he showed the reader that there were monumental events that impacted his life forever, even if he
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
In life, multiple factors work together to influence the choices one makes, and these choices affect both one’s present and their future. In a narrative about two boys who share the same identity, their two seperate lives are compared to one another by the differences of their futures. Choice versus Fate is a theme in The Other Wes Moore that is developed throughout the plot to display how the two forces work together and against each other in the two characters’ lives, and to also emphasize the reality that at times, one’s fate is already pre-destined and the choices that one makes may not be impactful enough to change their destiny.
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?
Moore, Wes. The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2010. Print.
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.
This has shaped me to be who I am today, because I greatly appreciate what I have and take advantage of the opportunities I am given because not everyone is lucky enough to have what one has family plays and will always play a big influence in our lives and in this novel, we are given a great example of how it does. Although Wes didn’t know his father for long, the two memories he had of him and the endless stories his mother would share with him, helped guide him through the right path. His mother, made one of the biggest changes in Wes’s life when she decided to send him to military, after seeing he was going down the wrong path. Perhaps, the other Wes’s mother tried her best to make sure he grew up to be a good person, but unfortunately Wes never listened.
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