The memoir The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore is about two boys with similar backgrounds living different fates. Foreshadowing, a literary device in which the author gives clues about events that will happen later in the story, help readers to determine and understand what caused the lives of the two boys to end up differently. Although, the two boys had the decision to make the right choices on their own, Wes Moore wrote the memoir to show that if children do not have strong parental figures they will not succeed in life which leads to their mothers. In several situations, Mary, Wes’s mother, did not provide the proper guidance that her son needed. After skipping school and partying with his friends, Wes came back home intoxicated. Because …show more content…
Wes had started to make large amounts of money. After Tony, Wes’s brother, points out the manifest, Mary was unable to accept the truth that Wes was a drug dealer. “She knew what her older son was into but didn’t think that there was anything she could do for him now. She hoped that Wes would be different,” (Moore 71). Since Mary had no idea how to make Wes different, Mary continued to stay silent. Because of her silence, Wes could not help but to continue selling drugs. Like any parent would have done, Mary could have at least tried to solve this problem by talking with Wes and finding out the truth about the job. If they had an honest discussion, Mary could have gotten to the origin of Wes’ reasons for wanting the job, and come up with other possibilities. Instead, she waits until she is unable to make a difference in her son’s life. If Mary chose to take a disparate, more vital role in Wes’s life, his fate would have turned out differently. As a result of intervention at any one of those crucial events in Wes’s childhood, Mary could have made an impact in Wes’s future decision-making and led him into a different route. Instead, Wes had to be a parent to his children from behind bars. With any luck, he will be able to have more of an impact on their lives compared with Mary on
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.
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
1. When Mary and George were walking and talking about what they wanted to do in the future, she broke a window to wish for the marriage between them and to live a happy life together. Even though after that moment they didn’t talk much to each other, she still kept that wish even though she could have gone to a rich guy named Sam. If she wouldn’t have kept that wish and married someone else then George then her life and George’s life would have been very different.
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.
Walter is confronted by the event of having another child when his wife, Ruth, shares the information about what has happened and what her plans are to resolve and continue the scenario. Walter brings to topic of his importance to the scenario, and decides to break away from the event and think of his answer towards his wife’s information and response. He later is shown the understanding of his wife by the reaction of his mother, who questions his standing on how his father would have reacted. This brings Walter to think of why he should change and not walk out on times of importance. Walter discovers that his turmoil of drinking and appearance on the topic could lose the life of his newly developing child.
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
...her father’s intense racism and discrimination so she hid the relationship at all costs. Connie realized that she could never marry an African American man because of her father’s racial intolerance. If she were to have a mixed child, that child would be greatly discriminated against because of hypodecent. One day, Connie’s dad heard rumors about her relationship so he drove her car to the middle of nowhere, and tore it apart. Then, he took his shotgun and went to look for Connie and her boyfriend. Connie was warned before her father found her, and she was forced to leave town for over six months. Connie’s father burned her clothes, so she had to leave town with no car, no clothes and no money at sixteen years old. Connie had lived in poverty her entire life, but when she got kicked out she learned to live with no shelter and sometimes no food at all.
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 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.
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.
The Younger family such as, Mama, Ruth, Walter, and Beneatha, have their own particular dreams, which create dramatic events within the home. Walter a man who made many mistakes through this play, was the only character that undergo a great transformation. The play displays the audience of how Walter being a chauffeur and not being able
In conclusion, Mary is clearly shown to have a very manipulative and sinister character because she was a cold blooded murderer who had no feelings for her husband when she killed him, and she made people believe her grieving stories to make them feel sorry for her. But, all she wanted at the end was to cover up all of the evidence so she does not get caught and go to jail.
Mary was very upset, she had been trying to get pregnant for two years and was unable to conceive a child. She approached Randy with what Bradley had told her but to her surprise, he wasn't very upset about it, he had always wanted a child. Bradley decided to call Alexis' parents and inform them that she had the baby and he invited them over to welcome her and the baby home, knowing all along that this wouldn't end well. Alexis' parents were from an old country town that was very racist; her father still believed in slavery. Her parents agreed to come down and meet the new baby, not knowing anything about the