The Other Wes Moore One Name Analysis

In my life I have been fortunate enough to have two parents that went to college, have well paying jobs and take education seriously. Naturally, I have been expected to try my best throughout grade school and after go to college to continue my education. If I had not grown up in a home where my parents ask where I am and who I am with and make sure I am okay, things might have turned out differently for me. “I [have] realized how difficult it is to separate the two. The expectations that others place on us help us form our expectations of ourselves” (pg 126). With those expectations already placed on me from my parents, they become my own. Therefore, I am a product of my environment I grew up in.
In the book The Other Wes Moore: One Name, …show more content…
Having a record like his, it is pretty difficult to get a decent job Wes quickly finds out. After not making enough money to make up for the time that he now does not have to spend with his kids, he decides to get back into the drug games. Soon after Wes finds himself caught up in a robbery and murder with his brother Tony causing him life in prison. No one was there for Wes to help encourage a better, safer life like the other Wes had. Maybe if someone would have been there supporting him in his earlier years in life he could have ended up an equally successful man instead of ending up in prison at 23. It is made extremely apparent in this novel that small decisions can change lives forever. The narrator Wes was going to get out of Valley Forge as soon as he could, but ends up staying there for the education and continuing on to Oxford to get a master's degree. The other Wes only started to deal drugs to earn some money for a little bit and stay on the outside as best he could, but ends up being the head of it all during his peak. Each choice varied the outcome of their lives and “The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his” (pg