Symbolism In The Other Wes Moore

Is a community capable of corrupting every thought in your mind or compelling you to take actions categorized as sins? Peer pressure, a desire to fit in, poor parenting and a plethora of other motives encourage young people to act in ways they might have never thought they could. However, as the symbol of the yin yang displays, there is good in the bad, and some young people defy the unrelenting, undertow coming from the waves of society, and instead take their own route to climb the ladder of greatness. In the novel, The Other Wes Moore, crafted by Wes Moore, both of the main characters are men with the same name, skin color and birth place, only differentiated by the actions they take—all of which are detrimentally influenced by their mothers.

Exhibited across all three works of literature, children’s identities are often shaped based off of their parents’ level of care and commitment, and the community that surrounds them—whether it be good or

Wes’s mother’s efforts are undying as she is continuously searching for ways to shield Wes from the “metastasizing drug trade”(Moore 56): helping him to find “neutral ground”(Moore 44), finding him a school she views as a “haven” where Wes will be able to “open [his] horizons”(Moore 48), and sending Wes to military school when he “[allows] [his] standards at school to become pathetic”(Moore 54). All of her acts of love, and her devotion to education help Wes to become a highly respected war veteran, and a flourishing businessman; unfortunately, not the same goes for the other Wes Moore, who is now serving life in jail. Wes’s parental supervision immediately skews from the other Wes’s, as his mother—Mary— leaves him home alone at the age of eight, the first time an officer “closed the second cuff”(Moore 35) around his wrist. Without his mother to keep him away from the corruption of the streets, Wes begins to involve himself in local gangs as society and the community around him sweep him up, to the point where there is no return. Similarly, Michael a character in “The Wire” lacks a mother who cares, and despite his initial efforts to stay innocent, he ends up falling to the enticing display of the unity of gangs.