Chapter 4: Marking Territory

Chapter 4: Marking Territory

Theme Statement: The act of selling and abusing drugs can be addictive because of the adrenaline rush which can lead even teens to jail for doing so. 

Quote 1: “Tony had now spent over a decade dealing drugs and knew how much money could be made in the game. He also knew there was no way for someone as young as Wes to make that kind of money DJing,” (page 70).

Analysis: Wes was starting to even lie to himself in thinking that his problem wasn't that bad. Tony had been telling Wes for years to never start but here Wes is symbolizing young Tony as he follows his steps  . He sees the potential Wes has to escape poverty and doesn't want him to follow the ordinary path of a lowlife drug dealer like himself. Also, the drug game usually only has one outcome for those who participate; death. 

Quote 2: "Tony got shot in the chest during a botched drug deal" (Pg 57)

Analysis: This was an incident that could have saved Wes' life from jail time. This was supposed to show Wes how bad drugs are and how you can't just do drugs or sell just drugs. Crime always follows drugs whether you like it or not and this is a prime example for Wes to see that all of that money is not worth it when your health is compromised. Unfortunately, this message does not resonate with Wes and he becomes another Tony of the family. 

Quote 3: "He cautiously put the rolled-up joint to his mouth and inhaled" (Pg 60)

Analysis: This was the moment Wes was freed from his innocence and introduced to the world of drugs, crime and death. This small act led Wes to see the amazing properties of both the idea of selling and using drugs. Even though Tony has made it clear that drug dealing is not cool or fun to do, Wes crunches under the pressure felt from friends to fit into the crowd. 

Quote 4: "A father who left his family and robbed his parents for money to buy rock" (Pg 51)

Analysis: This shows how drugs can possess a person to even leaving their own families to satisfy a fix or an addiction. It also shows his the father's insanity in that he would actually rob his own parents for his fix. This quote also shows how prominent drugs are in Wes' community and how hard it can be to avoid this dark path eventually leading to death. 

Quote 5: "'I hope you really listened to what I told you,' he whispered in my ear, opening up the other cuff to let both of my hands free." (Moore 84)

Analysis: The author included this scene from the book to show how big racial profiling was in the 80's and also how second chances can turn someones life upside. When you almost experience death or escapes trouble, you get this feeling of thankfulness and the thought of living each and everyday a as if it were your last. This event should have scared Wes from ever stepping back into that drug lane and gave him concrete evidence of why to not drug deal; a major difference between the two Moores. 

Title Justification Short Essay: Fathers and Angels

Title Justification Short Essay: Fathers and Angels

The Other Wes Moore is the true story of two boys who shared the same name and hometown, but very different paths to opposite outcomes. While Wes Moore found success in business and academics through the help of a disciplinary school, the other Wes Moore is serving a life sentence in prison for murder. The book is divided into three parts that tell the stories of how the Wes Moores's started out virtually the same but soon split into different paths. The first part, "Fathers and Angels," focuses on each Wes's childhoods in Baltimore, where they had similar family situations. Both Wes' had an absent father, a single mother, and were very close with their grandparents. The title "Fathers and Angels" is appropriate for the author Wes Moore's purpose as it demonstrates his feelings about the role that family had in his and the other Wes' childhoods.

The first section of the book, Fathers and Angels, addresses one of the major challenges for people living below the poverty line. Often times, when a father is not involved in their family’s life, or there is no father, the families life is altered and effected for the worse most commonly. When a father is absent from a child’s life, somebody else becomes the light for the child to follow. In the first chapter, the other Wes Moore tells the author, “Your father wasn't there because he couldn't be, my father wasn't there because he chose not to be. We‘re going to mourn their absence in different ways.” (Page 3) This is the distinguishing factor between the two Moore's in this section of the book and these two reasons why their fathers weren't there made two different outcomes of people shown by Wes Moore and the other Wes Moore. This new light is synonymous with an angel. Wes Moore names this section of the book Fathers and Angels to represent the types of figures that can be present is a family. The father in the title represents the biological father for a child. The angel represents the person that saves the child from falling down without a fatherly figure to guide him. This title of the section in the text foreshadows how the absence of a father in a family can devastate a child mentally which can lead to further trust and motivational problems later in life for that child. 

By titling the section “Fathers and Angels”, Wes Moore is able to convey his purpose of detailing the effect of absent family members on the two young boys. While one Wes’s father died, the other chose not to be present in his son’s life, which created different, more hostile feelings and could be blamed for his violent actions later in life. The presence or absence of positive role models also played a difference in shaping the lives of the two Wes Moores, with the author having more positive influences in his life, and the other Wes having more negative role models. Wes Moore is able to elucidate that humans are guided by role models around them, and the fathers and angels of his life and the other Wes’s life have clearly influenced their outcomes in drastic ways. 

Chapter 3: Foreign Grounds

Chapter 3: Foreign Grounds 

Theme: Overcoming Obstacles: Many kids face problems in two different aspects of life, school and at home and overcoming challenges and obstacles from both facets of life can be very stressful and can lead to a lack of motivation to strive for success and to change their current social path.

Quote 1:

" I was becoming too 'rich' for the kids from the neighborhood and too 'poor' for the kids at school. I had forgotten how to act naturally, thinking way too much in each situation and getting tangled in the contradictions between my two worlds." (Page 53)

Analysis: At the same time he was able to attend this a wealthy school in Riverdale while the rest of his friends in his community attended a regular local public school, and so he was considered rich and snobby compared to them. Because of this difference, Wes had a hard time balancing the way he should act that it was as if he was living a double life. One trying to be friends with his old friends and keep his lingo and clothing similar but his second was trying to fit into his new private school. 

Quote 2: 

“The buildings themselves were dilapidated-crumbling walls and faded paint- and even if you were one of the lucky 50 percent who made it out in four years, it was not at all clear that you’d be prepared for college or a job,” (Page 47).

Analysis: When your community is suffering from poverty, it can make it much harder to overcome obstacles like leaving poverty. When poverty strikes a town, education often begins to fail. In Wes Moore and his family’s situation, his mother decides to try to escape the failing public school system, and sends Wes to a prestigious private school out of the Bronx. This would help because when everyone around is failing most people will also have a tendency to fail as well which is what is happening where Wes lives. If you are around successful people, you more likely to become motivated to push yourself more often. Although, even when Wes goes to a prestigious private school however, he never truly escapes the poverty because as a teen, he wants to feel accepted to in two polar opposite group of friends which is confusing for even Wes. During this time, families attempted to shield their children from the poverty outside their house, but this was impossible, which was why many kids began to start trouble in their neighborhood as they got older.

Quote 3: 

"My mother saw Riverdale as a haven, a place where I could escape my neighborhood and open my horizons. But for me, it was where I got lost." (Page 48)

Analysis: This quote is a foreshadow of the obstacle that Wes Moore would have to overcome later in life. The obstacle is that his double life is finally confusing him morally leaving him feeling lost. Also, Riverdale is predominately white, so there would also be a racial obstacle or barrier for Wes. This would bring tension among the students and could create anger or stress within Wes because of the leaving not being wanted for simply his skin color and not his personality. 

Quote 4: 

“Marijuana, cocaine, and heroin all took their turns as the drug of choice. But crack was different. After it officially introduced itself in the early 1980’s, it didn’t take long for crack to place a stranglehold on many communities,” (page 51).

Analysis: This is another example of how your surroundings can affect poverty-stricken communities and eventually drown kids like Wes from ever leaving. These drugs eventually take over the life of the other Wes Moore because of Tony's influence and the loss of a fatherly figure to guide him. These variables all contribute to the great obstacle that drugs present themselves to kids.  

Quote 5: 

"Justin lived a few train stops away from me, and taking the train home after dark was a different journey than the one we'd made earlier in the day.Justin knew the rules." (Page 51)

Analysis: This introduces some of the obstacles that Justin has to go through sometimes when he has to get to his home. For Justin, his community is a little more on the violent side because of drugs. So when he's going home, he has to abide by the rules of not taking the train home after dark because of the chance of getting killed, or mugged which says something to Justin because it reinforces that violence is okay because everyone else is doing it but when really its not okay. 

The Other Wes Moore Characterization Sonnets

The Other Wes Moore Characterization Sonnets

Wes Moore:

A young boy, who lost thou father,
No longer had a light to look up to,
In the Bronx, where no drugs or crime came to bother,
For a time where his mother could say grief adieu.

Finally Wes hath moved to military school,
Whither bravery and courage art tested.
And the only lodging Wes hadst been with ground rules,
At last his drug and crime spirit hath rested.

The school had separated him from the dark,
Where he had once been,
Destined to beest hath carried by fate's hark bark,
Which saved his grieving mother and likewise kin.

A knave turned to sir shown light,
Wes has beaten the hasty burial site.

The Other Wes Moore:

An innocent boy at heart,
Father, a name that gent nev'r hath learned,
Living with mother and Tony who hath not given him a fresh start,
His brother only looks behind himself, with a behold of unconcern.

Yet his brother told him to depart from his footsteps,
But that Wes didst not hark and hath kept selling his life away,
The path to prison innocent Wes Moore kept,
It seems as if fate had taken his life astray.

Thy tough demeanor pulled him down,

Farther away from the point of return,

Soon Wes was about to drown,

Setting his future on fire to burn.

A story that ends in gore,

Starts with a name, Wes Moore. 

Chapter 2: Drug/Crimes and Fate

Chapter Two: The Other Wes Moore

 In Chapter Two, drugs and crime are starting to affect the lives of both of the Wes Moores through fate, and are two the many themes of this chapter.   Wes #1 has a strong personal connection with drugs and crime through his older half-brother, Tony.  Tony started selling drugs at a young age of 14 and Wes #1 says, "Tony had started dealing drugs in those shadowy hallways of Murphy Homes before he was ten. By the time he was fourteen, Tony had built a fierce reputation in the neighborhood"(Quote 1).  The Murphy Homes were where Tony lived and they had slowly deteriorated into a community filled with crime and drug dealers, which is how Tony was already involved at such a young age.  And where drugs are, crime usually follows, which again involved Tony who was involved in a corner shooting, and Wes says, "... ended up in a shoot-out with a few of the corner boys"(Quote 2).   The author included this quote to show how 
these groups of people felt they had to fight for what they thought was their property when it truly wasn't and how this type of behavior was deemed normal and acceptable in this community. 
    
Wes #1 experienced drugs himself in his home at the Cherry Hill Apartments which was, "... a breeding ground for poverty, drugs, and despair," while also remaining, "... busy with drug activity"(Quote 3).  Wes #1 and his mother could not avoid the drugs in their neighborhood, so they moved to a safer neighborhood, but there was not much change there as Wes soon got into trouble with the law when he put a threatened another man with a knife.  
    
Then, Wes #2 shared his experiences with moving to the Bronx and how the neighborhood his mother knew as a child had changed for the worst.  The first piece of evidence was when they drove in and saw a drug deal happening in person, and later his, "... grandparents talked about how drugs and violence had slowly crept in the neighborhood"(Quote 4). This also shows the theme of fate and how drugs and crime were an inevitable fate for the two Wes'.  Finally, Wes also finds that at the basketball court among the other people there, and says, "You'd find the drug dealers, mostly playing on the sidelines..."(Quote 5).  This showed the diversity of people that were involved in the drug game.  Wherever either boy went, drugs were always the inevitable fate for them. Furthermore, crime followed drugs, especially in Tony's and Wes #2's lives, which is why it is also a major theme in this chapter that.  Altogether, fate is a recurring theme in this chapter that cannot be escaped by either boys.

Chapter 1

The Other Wes Moore: Chapter 1 

Theme Statement: Absent fathers can have a big impact on everyone especially young kids because of the loss of a fatherly figure which leads to questions early on and possibly trust issues later in life.

Quote 1: "That is one of only two memories I have of my father. The other was when I watched him die."
This quote is from the first Wes and is significant because it shows the effect that an absent father can have on a child. In Wes' case, he watched his father die and to this day, he still thinks about that tragic day. He remembers his dad as his "protector" and a calm and collected man. One way this could affect him later in life is that if his mother remarried, he could compare his new dad to his deceased dad and only think of the negatives of his new dad which could cause tension.

Quote 2: "My father was dead five hours after having been released from the hospital with the simple instruction to 'get some sleep.'"
This quote is also from the first Wes and is very similar to the first quote in that this one experience will scar him forever and leave him with regret and anger. He expresses his anger towards the hospital because they told him to "get some sleep" and did not see his life-threatening but treatable virus. Also, he lives with regret because of the thought that he could have done something to help dad from dying. Both regret and anger will live on with Wes and could haunt him in the future while in other similar situations that could be totally unrelated. 

Quote 3: "Wes reluctantly got up from the red plaid couch and turned off the television, but the truth was that he liked going over to his grandmother’s house. He had never met his father, at least not that he remembered."

This quote is from the second Wes and is similar to the first Wes' situation but differs in that the second Wes' dad did not die but rather left the family. This also has a big effect on kids because it leads them to question why their father left and if it was because he didn't love them or that it was there fault. These negative thoughts can lead to insanity mentally while trying to answer those hard questions.

Quote 4: "Wes was the man of the house."

This quote is from the second Wes and is significant because it shows the big tasks that these young children with absent fathers feel they need to fill. While Wes' older brother is also absent most of the time, Wes feels as if it is his job to be the man of the house which is ridiculous for a kid who should be watching cartoons and playing and enjoying their childhood while it lasts.

Quote 5: "'Sorry, guys, Mom’s dead,' he finally blurted out, blunt to the point of absurdity."
This quote is from the second Wes and is different because it gives an example of how an absent mother can have its affect on those around her. After their mother's death, her husband falls into a drunken stupor and finally decides to tell her kids that there one and only figure they look up to has died and he does so with no sympathy for the little kids at all. This affects the kids because now they have no one to look up to which could lead to behavior problems or rebellion in their older years.