The comparing of parents in The Other Wes Moore and This Boy’s Life Both books, “The Other Wes Moore” and “This Boy’s Life”, are the memoirs of the childhoods of each writer. “The Other Wes Moore” is, or course, authored by Wes Moore. “This Boy’s Life” is penned by Tobias Wolff. As with most children, parents are one of the most important facets of their lives and each writer represents their view of their parents very well in these writings. In the excerpts reviewed for this paper, both parents are placing their children in perils that the children cannot completely comprehend or appreciate at that age. I intend to elaborate, compare, and contrast the different perils and the decision process of the mothers involved. I will also compare and contrast the positive and negative impacts that the authors state and imply. Lastly, I will compare the backgrounds of each mother. Both writers are focusing mainly on their mothers. Both mothers have fled from abusive relationships. Moore gives much detail about his mother’s abuse, but can be captured i just a couple of choice lines. “ But his addiction just got worse, and the physical, …show more content…
The mother is consistently described as being upbeat and keeping both their spirits high with activities like singing Irish.ballads. So even though he could appreciate the hardship they were in, his mother’s infectious optimism made this a positive experience. For Moore, the excerpt showed his father as the positive side of the experience. This is diminished however as only one of two memories that he has of his father with the other being his death. The effective impact from his mother is negative due to her needing to be “talked down” by his father after her overreaction. With his father no longer in the picture, this excerpt sets the rest of Moore’s childhood up to look kind of