The Other Moore Summary

According to Marian Erickson, “Most of life is choices, and the rest is pure dumb luck.” Real people’s lives depend on this quote everyday, which leads to the outcome of each problem individuals face. In the passages, characterization of the main personas helps one understand the theme. Conflict and symbolism also help lead to the overall idea that life is not always guaranteed to be full of success. The book The Other Wes Moore, the poem “If,” and the informational text “The Art of Resilience” all share a common theme of how choices and luck contribute to the success of life.

When I was first told that I had to read The Other Wes Moore, I told myself "Great, another boring book to read" as I am not a reader. However, I was wrong; this story about two boys around the same age, same name, raised by single mothers and around the same neighborhood, but as they grew to be adults due to the choices they made, they had different outcomes in life. I was able to actually relate to some parts of the book and knew how they felt at the moment and for me, that is what a great book is about.

The Other Wes Moore is an autobiographical novel that is told from the heart of author, Wes Moore, while showing an illustrative purpose. One section of his book, in the epilogue, shows Moore diving into a more personal note on the roller coaster of a life he has lived, thus far. He uses his tone and diction to reflect on how the environment people grow up in can influence the ways they act and to explain that the people closest to you can change the opportunities you may have later in life, while using imagery and parallelism to show that no matter who you are or what background you come from, it can’t restrict or confine you from doing extraordinary things.

In the small troublesome city of Baltimore, there grew a set of twins. As a matter a fact, these were twins not by birth, but by heart. There paths intersected when Wes Moore had just finished his bachelors at Johns Hopkins and was headed to Oxford University, when he received a phone call. It was his mother, Joy Moore, as he answered his mother told him that in their neighborhood were many wanted posters of a man named Wes Moore. The poster read, do not approach he is dangerous, contact police. His mother’s anxiety abated when she found out that her son had no connection to the crime. He later went on to write a letter to the other Wes Moore about his past. He started to learn that both had grown up fatherless, they had altercations with the

In “The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates,” by Wes Moore, two boys are living in the same city, with the same name, and are in similar situations. The author of the book turns into a Rhodes Scholar recipient while the other Wes Moore is now serving a life sentence in prison. With similar backgrounds what decisions created the difference between the two boys? A major decision was made by Wes’s mother when she chose to move them out of Maryland and up to New York, “… Three weeks later, Nikki, Shani and I all stood outside our car with something like disbelief at our now empty home. This was it. We were actually leaving Maryland.”(Moore 37) This was probably one of the most influential moments in his life because he got out of the drug and

Being that the scholar Wes Moore was bound to be on the better path than the other Wes Moore was a given. The scholar Wes Moore had components in his early life that influenced him to be on the right path. He was able to be see both sides of things and have a sense of direction and create a role model for himself. He was also able to recognize the efforts both his family and his mother has made in the past to help him in the future. There were times where he could have took the wrong path but with his ability to be a loyal and responsible person, he chose to stay on track.

In Wes Moore's book, The Other Wes Moore, he describes both his childhood and the early life of another boy of the same name who grew up near the author in the same Baltimore neighborhood. Moore's book explores the reasons why one boy, the author, succeeded in life while the other Wes Moore was overwhelmed by his struggles and will spend his life in prison. The author Wes Moore addresses different topics for the reader to take from the book.The ideas that are presented by him and should be recognised are the environment the boys grew up in, the motivation they got from family, and the influence from not having a father. The author Wes Moore has always had a supportive family while on the other hand the other Wes Moore had no one besides Tony, who even then was a big factor on why Wes is where he is at today. Their environment plays a big role in both of the boy’s life since they both were around the same things. The only difference is that one had a family who got him out of there to an environment that shaped him up to be the man that he is today and the one that never left will be the one that will never leave prison for the rest of his life.

In the novel The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates it tells the story of two boys with the same name but two very different mindsets in life. “Life and death, freedom and bondage, hang in the balance of every action we take” (xiv). Wes Moore (1), the author, has had many things that impacted to his mindset that led to good and evil choices thought-out his life. Wes Moore (2) had made decisions that set a wrong mindset that would leave him in one place for the rest of his life. The mindsets of Wes Moore (1) and Wes (2) impacted their chances with the law, their choices with education and their opportunities with employment.

“One name, two fates,” that what the author of the Other Wes Moore stated on the cover of his book. Two boys that were born in the same neighborhood in Baltimore, and had a difficult childhood since they both grew up fatherless. The coincidence was that the two boys were called Wes. They both shared a lot of similarities from living in a poor neighborhood and growing up in Baltimore street corners with their squads. However, their futures were completely different as one achieved the impossible and the other was a convicted murderer serving a life sentence. People may think that how could this happen since they both were living the same circumstances. However, in the book Wes Moore, the boys did not have equal opportunities in terms of parenting, education, and environment.

There's a theory where any given person has infinite paths of life. For every action there is a new path, and the paths keep dividing and extending, each one having new sets of outcomes and opportunities for the person to encounter. The book The Other Wes Moore, by Wes Moore, is a philosophically interesting book as it talks about these paths. Two boys named Wes Moore grew up in similar situations, yet their actions led to them going on two different paths, leading to two completely different lives. The book gives some insight into how these two Wes’ actions as youth led them on their paths. One theme occurring in the text was chances, and specifically second chances, which shaped Wes and Wes throughout their youth. While both Wes’ got their first and second chances, they each treated them differently.

“Children learn more from who you are than what you teach,” stated W.E.B DuBois. As illustrated by the quote, the people and the environment that an individual surrounds themselves with affects their future. The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore, is a narrative that tells the story of two males, who share the same name but take two different paths in life. The two Moores experience similar situations, however surround themselves with different types of people, resulting in different paths. One Moore is successful while the other is incarcerated, proving an individual’s environment influences ones future. Ultimately, after analyzing Wes Moore’s novel and Terry Pratchets quote in the excerpt, it is evident that the

This was only the beginning of his big accomplishments. Wes played sports as his hobby to keep him busy. He says, “I was a starter on the Valley Forge basketball team, the only sophomore on the starting squad that year and the first sophomore starter in over five years” (Moore 115). By having a hobby and being on a team, like basketball, Wes distracted himself from other bad things in his life. Wes described some of his biggest accomplishments when he walked “across the stage as a Phi Beta Kappa graduate who was also the first Rhodes Scholar in thirteen years at John Hopkins and the first African-American Rhodes Scholar in school history” (Moore 169). Wes Moore worked towards the long-term goal and by doing this he changed his life completely for the better.

One reason why Wes Moore the author is successful is his family who pushed him to succeed. Wes mother always tried to set good examples for him; she wanted him to succeed in life and be educated. Wes states, "When we 're young, it sometimes seems as if the world doesn 't exist outside our city, our block, our house, our room. We make decisions based on what we see in that limited world and follow the only models available."(Wes Moore 178). This quote relates to his mother because its explaining how we do stuff based on what we see and how we are educated. When Wes was in high school he was skipping class and not paying any attention. At a time, Wes’s mother found out about his bad grades and made a big change in Wes life by sending him to military school. In the scene, Wes’s mother states “Wes you are not going anywhere until you give this place a try. I am so proud

Role models play a huge role in shaping an individual and the paths that they go down in their lifetime. Whether it is a good or bad influence, it will depend which path they will take that will determine their fate. Often family members, especially parents, act as the most influential factor in a person’s life. Coincedientaly, The Other Wes Moore, is about two boys who have the same name and who have lived in the same city. One went on to become a Rhodes Scholar, combat veteran and a White House Fellow. Whereas, the other Wes Moore is sentenced to life a in prison for robbery, which led to the death of a police officer. In this book, both Wes Moores’ are influenced by at least one significant other that has influenced them to become the people

When most people hear the name Wes Moore, they think of the Wes Moore that is a decorated veteran and author, but when Wes Moore hears his name, he thinks about not himself, but the Wes Moore serving life in prison for first-degree felony murder. They both grew up in similar settings and both had trouble with the police, but there lives are the complete opposite now. Most people wonder how that could happen. Each Wes ended up on totally different paths as evidenced by actions and events that took place in each of their lives. Throughout the following paragraphs, how each Wes’s life slowly became different will become clear.