The Other Moore Analysis

Summary
The Other Wes Moore is a story about two boys who ironically both happen to share the same name, “Wes Moore”, and grew up in the same area. While the two boys shared the same name, they never managed to meet as children, despite living blocks apart and being born within a year of each other. In fact, the two Wes Moores would never officially meet until they were both well into their adulthood. The story follows the two boys on their separate journeys into adulthood in an effort to determine what factors might have caused each Wes Moore to end up in the situations that they ended up in later in life; one a criminal and convicted murderer, and the other one a successful businessman, veteran, Rhodes Scholar, and White House Fellow. Wes
Similar to the author Wes Moore, the other Wes Moore also grew up in a home without a father, although the other Wes had never actually met his biological father. The other Wes Moore’s mother, Mary, took care of him and his brother Tony, who was older and happened to be involved heavily in the drug game. Tony was very protective over Wes and always tried to make sure that Wes didn’t get involved in the drug game as well, but Wes always found this to be hypocritical. One of the first few glimpses that the readers get into the other Wes Moore’s childhood was of him seeing his mother cry. The other Wes’s mother had been enrolled at Johns Hopkins University, but due to the budgets for Pell Grants eventually being cut, she lost her funding and was unable to afford getting an education anymore. This caused the other Wes Moore’s mother to take the family to his grandmas’ house, where he met his drunken father for the first
The only difference is that, eventually, this Wes makes it off this broken path. His first arrest, and only, occurred when Wes was spray painting on a wall with his friend and eventually get caught by police. This experience upset Wes because he felt that he had let his mother down, and vows to never put himself in that sort of situation again. Before this, the author Wes had been showing a lot of defiant behavior towards his family and in school as well. In an effort to get her son a good education, Wes’ mother enrolls him in private school. He doesn’t attend class much and begins struggling in school. This is where differences between author Wes and the other Wes become apparent. The author Wes’ mother decides it is time to send him to military school and ships him off to Valley Forge. Valley Forge eventually transforms him from a rebellious and undisciplined child into a highly respected young man. Eventually, Wes would go on to attend John Hopkins University and after that would get to experience studying abroad in South Africa. The author Wes would end up on a path much more favorable than the other