The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates - Book Report/Review Example

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates This book discusses the plight of two individuals with a similar name who stayed some blocks apart from each other found within the same neighborhood of a decaying city. The two children have more than just a similarity in name but have also been presented with similar family settings and difficulties in life, but the results of their decisions in life are ultimately different as they settle down in adulthood. One grew up to become a business leader, an army officer, a Rhodes Scholar and the White House Fellow. The other Wes Moore is serving time in prison for the crime of felony and assaulting a police officer beside dealing in drugs. The author had just been offered a scholarship and the story was run in the paper, the same paper ran a story of the other Wes Moore from a similar neighborhood and had assaulted a police officer and was on the run after his friends had been arrested. After the author had read the story and was intrigued by the way their names were similar, and the intrigue got wider from the fact that they were not just sharing names but were also sharing space in the same paper. The kinds of childhood that the two individuals had outstanding similarities and after the author had followed the story about the other Wes Moore; he wrote down a letter to the latter who was now serving a life sentence in prison and the kinds of letters that were exchanged between the two are what inspired the story because the author could now join the dots and was fully aware of the kind of life the Prisoner Wes had been subjected to while growing up. (pg 12) The story is told dramatically to capture all the aspects of losses and redemptions from the perspective of African American boys trying to make it through a hostile world. The boys both grew up in fatherless families, had difficulties maintaining school attendance, had experienced trouble with the police at several occasions, had a habit of keeping the same company in similar corners and both had a feeling that a better life was somewhere beyond their reach. As they were both growing up, they had been faced with a moment in time when they had to make outstanding decisions that would greatly impact their lives forever and alter their fates for the best or worst. The author has always made it clear that the intention was not to draw a distinction between a good Wes Moore and a bad Wes Moore, but aimed at showing the similarities shared between the two and to appear as a mirror to which the rest of African American society youths could view themselves. From abusive families, (pg5) to absentee fathers and expectations from the family and friends have contributed so much in shaping the outcomes as witnessed in the two individuals. The author seeks to create a clear understanding that there exists a very thin cord of attachment between the opportunities for him and the other Wes Moore. The author’s family has been able to gather up necessary resources, albeit in small quantity, to provide him with an opportunity to pursue education, unlike the other Wes. This shows that the choice of schooling also made an impact in the way the two individuals ended up later on in life. The author paints himself to be proud of the accomplishments derived from the choices he had made and an account of his adolescent stage in development shows the type of bad choices that were at his disposal but was wise enough to choose the right path. The other Wes Moore has shown an insight of how smart and resilient he had been, but failed terribly after his single mother failed to insulate him from the glamour of crime and the use of drugs that made him thrive so much in crime as early as his teenage years. The author ends up in military school and becomes a successful person in life while the other Wes is pictured to be a teenage father, a school dropout, a drug dealer and ends up in prison thereby making it easy for readers to make a judgment and pick a favorite. Range of work The book does not explore many subjects, but ones particular subject being discussed in depth, in this case is the influences that an environment may have in the choices a person makes in life. The story revolves around personal options with regards to the type of life offered by the environments in which the characters grew up. This clear because the author has drawn comparisons on the ways the two grew up and how they end up making life-changing decisions while they are older. Point of view/bias of the book The author of the book provides equal insight into his life as well as in the life of the other Wes Moore. The descriptions of circumstances, however, start to show a certain level of bias because the other Wes has been depicted to come from a broken family while the Author Wes paints a brighter picture while describing his own family. The outcomes are also biased because the level of success that the author accords himself in the story is outstandingly wide while the picture painted in regards to the other Wes is a gloomy one and the fact that he has been handed a life sentence while the author is doing better in the army and is a public figure working with famous people in his employment. The author sympathizes with the African Americans who grow up in broken families or in families that have single parents because they may lack adequate guidance when growing up. The fact that inspired the author to write this book was the compelling similarities he had noted in his story and that of the prisoner Wes as well as the striking differences in the paths they had chosen. Criticism and opinion of the book The book discusses an issue that affects the society directly, and that is inequality in opportunities for the African Americans in the urban space and the author has used the platform well to show that some of the African Americans can be successful too. The book does not do well as a biography of the history of the blacks because it lacks the animation qualities seen in the other biographies of great African Americans like “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” The author paints the other Wes as a drug dealer who is very successful and provides the statistics that, in Baltimore, there are close to 100,000 drug dealers, but fails to recognize that that the city had a population of a mere 700,000 which makes the statistics so disturbing. The author fails to appreciate the problem caused by racism, especially in area and period when 58% of all the convicted felons were blacks, showing a trend that should have featured in the expressions of the book. The amusing aspect of this book is a poem on page 183 that states that, as individuals, we are the ones who design our individual fates and this interesting because it captures the two different situations that the two main characters in the story were going through. The poem is believed to be drawing a picture that each of them had a chance to change their fortune and alter their fates as early as possible and the author took that opportunity while the other Wes just let it slip through his hands. How the book applies to sociology The book provides environmental conditions that appear to be fundamental in shaping one’s choices by contributing to the terrain responsible for shaping the journey that individual travels in life. The importance of family matters has also been depicted to be partially responsible for the sociological paths that individuals follow in their lives. When the author draws a conclusion that paints one Wes Moore as highly successful in life while the other Wes has been depicted as a failure represents the stereotypic narratives facing different races in the society. The negative and positive depictions contribute towards making the story thrilling for the readers, with better depictions of the problems from urban inequality and a biased criminal justice system that convicts large percentage of one race as compared to the others. In sociology, the power of the mindset has often been depicted to shape lifestyles and this idea has been applied explicitly in the story by the writer. Work cited Wes, Moore. The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates. Spiegel & Grau Trade Paperbacks. New York. 2011. Print Read More