Juxtaposition And Irony In Wes Moore's The Other Wes Lee

“This book is meant to show how,for those of us who live in the most precarious places in this country, our destinies can be determined by a single stumble down the wrong path,or a tentative steo down the right one. This is our story.” Throughout the strory, the author Wes Moore created this book The Other Wes Moore, doubling is when two characters are described about their life and they both share the same but different story. The author uses imagery, juxtaposition, and irony to develop coming-of-age themes. Ultimately, the author shows doubling between him and the other Wes Moore and to pick out that their stories couldve been eachothers. The author uses imagery to portray his father as a gentle,caring person,who cares

When the author was twelve years old, the police handcuffed him and put him in the back of the squad car for graffiti. “The cops gave us a gift that day, and I swore I would never get caught in a situation like that again. A week later, Kid Kupid was on the loose again, adding my tag to another graffiti-filed Bronx wall” (84). The author uses juxtaposition and irony to contrast Wes’s thoughts versus his actions. Wes had made the choice to not spray paint walls again, while not listening to the police giving him a warning, he had made the wrong choice. Later in the novel, when the other Wes Moore was fifteen, he is caught by Tony for dealing drugs and he was brutally beaten by his brother. “But the more he liked to be like his brother,the more his brother rejected him. The more he copied him,the more Tony pushed back. Wes wanted to be just like Tony. Tony wanted Wes to be nothing like him.” (72). The author uses juxtaposition to compare how Wes wants to be like Tony and Tony wants to be more like Wes. However, the other Wes Moore ignores Tony advice to get out the drug game. Wes had already made the wrong path going into far too deep in the drug game. Both the author and the other Wes Moore made the wrong choice. They both were going through moral challenges and went the wrong way by not listening to the advice and chances they both had

Later in the novel, the other Wes Moore is in jail for first degree murder of Sergeant Bruce A. Prothero. “Early losses condition you to believe that short-term plans are always smarter. Now Wes’s mind wandered to the long term for the first time. Finally, he could see the future” (157). The author uses irony to show how the other Wes Moore thinks about his future only after he has effecticely destroyed it. The author showed that Wes after finally all these years he was finally thinking about himself and his future. The author showed that Wes after finally all these years he was finally thinking about himself and his future. Meanwhile with the author, he talks about white supremacist Cecil Rhodes and the injustice of society that he and people like him left for people like the author. “Even a legacy as ugly as that of Cecil Rhodes – a nineteenth-century imperialist, white supremacist, a rapacious businessman – could be turned around and used by a person like me, someone Cecil Rhodes would’ve undoubtedly despised, to change the world that Rhodes and people like him had left for us” (163). Moore uses irony to reveal that despite the injustice in society , he would use his gifts to uplift others like him. The author is talking about how he can influence the world and make good changes. The other Wes Moore and the author both experienced awareness of the self