ipl-logo

The Other Wes Moore Bad Influences

1228 Words5 Pages

The Negative Influences in the Other Wes Moore's Life The Other Wes Moore By Wes Moore is a non-fiction coming of age story, about the path the Other Wes Moore goes in life that leads him to prison. This story is about two guys that have the same name but end with two different outcomes in life. While one Wes Moore ends up becoming successful, the other Wes gets caught up in the drug trade and gangs and is currently in jail for life. Due in part to the negative influences from his family and living in a community where he is surrounded by poverty and the drug trade, the Other Wes Moore ends up in a life of imprisonment. First, Wes’s brother, Tony is a bad influence on Wes because he is a drug dealer and tells him advice that can lead …show more content…

When Wes and Tony decided to stop by at his aunt's house one day, they saw Wes’s father sleeping on the couch. Wes decided to wake him up and say hello considering the fact that it was his father. “He saw Wes standing over him. Still squinting, he looked his son in the eyes. ‘Who are you?’ (Moore 89). This interaction was hurtful and embarrassing for Wes. He had an absent father who chose not to acknowledge and be there for him. A father has a big impact in their child's life, so the fact that Wes’s father couldn't even recognize his son tells us how absent he really was. This goes back to the point of how having an absent father negatively affected Wes because in the future, Wes becomes an absent father himself when he ends up in a life of imprisonment. Wes repeats the trauma he endured by doing the same thing to his …show more content…

Wes knew that school was not for him and that he wanted to be a rapper or professional football player when he grew up. He rationalized himself saying that in the meantime he could make some serious money by dealing, not knowing the negative impact it would have on his life. “As he lay in bed, he realized how time seemed to stop when he was high, how the drug—smoking it, feeling its effects, recovering from it—made him forget everything else. And he understood, faintly, how addictive that feeling could be, and how easy it would be to make some money off selling that feeling to people who needed it.” (Moore 51). The drug trade was very strong in his community. Wes knew how drugs made people feel and that in a poverty stricken environment; he realized how easy it was to deal because there would be many people that he could ultimately profit off of. This impacted his decision to drug deal, because he knew it would make him a lot of money and it would be a successful business for him. Lastly, Wes was negatively influenced by being in a gang in his community. After Wes was beaten up by Ray, he let his anger take over him and he knew he had to ‘send a message’. Wes and his friend chased down Ray and ended up taking things way too far. “As they ran, he and his friend pointed their weapons in Ray’s direction and began taking shots.” (Moore 88). Wes was attempting to kill Ray and his friend was beyond

Show More
Related
107 Words | 1 Pages

The book “The Other Wes Moore” talks about two young kids that has same name, lives in the same neighborhood, but has different destinies. The author Wes mother Joy was a single mother, as the other Wes mother Mary by different circumstances. Also, an important play roll at the book is that both mothers wants to give them education and be successful for the author and the other Wes. Both Wes are going in the same path of getting into trouble and being rebels. They are acting unreasonably by taking the wrong decisions they might.

Read More
522 Words | 3 Pages

Wes’s lawyer claims that Wes simply accompanied Tony to Philadelphia and points out that since being in jail, Wes has converted to Islam and calls his children every day. As Wes waits to hear the jury’s verdict, he is overwhelmed by feelings of isolation and indifference. Wes is found guilty of first-degree felony murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Wes reflects on his fate; he has been to prison before, but never anticipated to spend the rest of his life there. For the first time, Wes has a clear idea of what his future looks like.

Read More
1491 Words | 6 Pages

Eventually Wes dropped out of high school. At the very young age, he started look out for drug which he can make more money in short time and started scanned the streets. Wes and his friend had a code to called out whenever they see police in surrounding. He was several times run in with police which ended with arrested. More money in less time, new clothes, these things keep pulling Wes to be in the streets more.

Read More
629 Words | 3 Pages

At the same time Wesley was destroying the relationship that him and his brother

Read More
1339 Words | 6 Pages

The other Wes, however, got reinforced for his aggressive behavior and drug involvement; he also committed the robbery with his brother (Tony). Social bonding theory (individuals will commit delinquent acts when their bonds to society are weakened or have broken; attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief) – as Wes expressed, “young boys are more likely to believe in themselves if they know that there’s someone, somewhere, who shares that belief” (28). Moreover, this influenced the internalization that ‘Weses’ did with the attention obtained from authorities present in their lives. For example, how one Wes had the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with his teacher because they were both better off when he didn’t attended class; whereas, the lieutenants at Valley Forge not allowing for Wes to go back home – they demonstrated that they believed in

Read More
829 Words | 4 Pages

This only led him to get arrested at only 8 years old. Another bad decision the other wes made was after he moved. He was the look out for people that sold drugs on the streets. He would let them know when a cop was near by. Although he wasn’t the one dealing with drugs, he was still helping and eventually led him to later move up to selling drugs.

Read More
76 Words | 1 Pages

In this quote, Wes Moore, the author, recalls one of only two memories he has of his father. The first memory is when Wes’ father protected him, then in the second, Wes foreshadows a life changing entve. The loss of his father. This reveals that Wes remembers little of his father and has missed a fatherly influence in his life. Through missing his father, Wes is able to have a connection with the other Wes

Read More
1179 Words | 5 Pages

Each and everyone of us has been shaped by our family, our education, our friends, and our surroundings. We like to think that we are, for the most part, our own people, but in fact life really changes people in ways many don't recognize. A novel by Wes Moore, “The Other Wes Moore” presents a narrative that shows the ways that our circumstances and inspirations determine our fates and how nature & nurture affect us. Within “The Other Wes Moore,” Author Wes and Prisoner Wes are immensely affected by nature vs. nurture in many ways: Author Wes was affected by his fathers death, transitioning to a new school, his declining relationship with his mother and then moving to military school. On the other hand, Prisoner Wes was affected by his father leaving, Tony's influence, getting into drug dealing, dropping out of high school, and getting a girl pregnant.

Read More
777 Words | 4 Pages

Many of them are young, relentless, and possibly want attention. Many of these males will wind up with the wrong crowd making stupid, terrible decisions, for example, drug dealing. The quote that follows will back up the previous statement, “He was a veteran of the drug game at 18” (Moore 57). In this part of the story Tony and the other Wes were hanging out and Tony, the other Wes’s brother grew up quickly hanging with the wrong crowd and got in the ‘street business’ of drugs. The altercations leading up to the quote were that Tony was trying to get Wes to go down the same path he did and he wasn’t going for it.

Read More
497 Words | 2 Pages

After the father breaks the bind that kept him to his trauma, it could be assumed that he lived the rest of his life with his

Read More
1528 Words | 7 Pages

He projected the typical American stereotype of a father which is a man who is always there to protect and provide for his family, and it seemed Watts filled these roles. Living a normal life with no problems or worries, Watts takes a turn. His lovely family of four is brutally murdered by this man who was supposed to be “family”.

Read More
1196 Words | 5 Pages

After Wes’s mom received this news and an incident that

Read More
1412 Words | 6 Pages

While this must have been difficult for him, he did what needed to be done. In addition to talking to Ollie about his brother’s crimes, Wes had to interrogate Marie, the Native American girl who originally accused Frank of his crimes. When Gail asks if she can stay with Marie during the interrogation to make her feel more comfortable, Wesley insists that she stay outside. She argues that there may be some way that she can help, but Wesley explains that “Some of this [he would] just as soon you didn’t hear” (53). This proves that Wesley is a hero because he is trying to keep this conversation quiet and without palaver or commotion.

Read More
761 Words | 4 Pages

He was going up to random people in his school offering them good deals on what he was selling, telling them that it would change their lives for the better. He did not care that all of these once-healthy students were now relying on drugs to get by. That was until one day he sold someone the drugs that would later end their life and end up getting Elliot caught by the police. The story of this person's death was all over the news, he knew the police would be looking for who sold the person the drugs and that everyone would immediately point fingers at him. He had been the top seller at his school yet he had never considered the possibility of what could happen if he got caught.

Read More
1055 Words | 5 Pages

In Lerner (2002), commented to Lerner’s way to talk; if you don’t stop trying to talk like me, I will kill you, unnerstan’ what I’m saying. Over the years that Lerner passed in jail he learned more and more about how the system works. Being around people that do or sell drugs influenced Lerner to get involved by selling drugs. The reason that, he did not want to demonstrate fear while he was in prison, caused him to do things that he would not normally do. The authors did not realize the transformation that he went through while behind bars, for the reason that he was not trying to change but only adapt to his new environment.

Read More

More about The Other Wes Moore Bad Influences

Open Document