Wes Moore and The Other Wes Moore: a Comparative Analysis of Two Lives

While reading the Story of The Other Wes Moore, written by Wes Moore, I realized that small details or changes in someone’s life can change their fate severely for the better or worse. My purpose is to show that when Wes Moore, a banker, meets someone with the same name and almost exact background as him, yet a very different life, as the other is sentenced to life in prison, he realizes how much your fate can be shaped by a simple, second chance.

I will be analyzing the things that compare/contrast throughout both of the Wes Moores lives, to figure out the reason that one of them became a banker, and the other in jail for life. The story begins as a small summary of an event is Wes’s life, I will refer to the “good” Wes as Wes and the “bad” as Moore to not draw confusion. Wes was young and agreed to go tagging with a friend, they did but were caught by the police. “Wes couldn’t believe it. He was being arrested. Then again, maybe it was the direction he had been heading in for a while. I see kids like you here every day. If you don’t get smart, I am certain I will see you again.” His life was going down a bad path, similar to how Moore’s did, but the officer gave him another chance, one that Moore wasn’t given.

When Moore was caught by his brother, instead of an officer, he was beaten by him. His brother attacked and his mother had to stop it. “He had been dealing since before he was 10, by 18 he had people working for him.” Moore wanted to follow in his brother’s footsteps and had been caught. “The next move was his” Around 10 years later, an article in the Sun covered a case of two brothers that were wanted in officers killing during a jewelry store robbery in Baltimore County. Moore was the one who had shot him. He was sent to jail for life after escaping the death penalty by confessing to the murder. After hearing of this, Wes found that they both lost their fathers, shared a name, were born in Maryland at almost the exact same age, done poorly in school as kids, and had trouble with the police. After learning of this, he came up with an idea for the two to collaborate on a story he was going to write, named “The Other Wes Moore.”

The two met in the prison, where Moore told Wes how he had gotten into the situation that ended him up in jail and as a criminal in the first place. Both Moores had the same background and tried to get out of the terrible life they were dragged into, yet Moore was unable to escape, unlike Wes, who was given a second chance by a police officer. The significance of the author showing us that a second chance can change our fate is so the reader may think about the life that these two have gone through, and how if you make bad choices, you may not get a second chance, and end up where you want to be the least.

Works Cited:

1. Bradbury, R. (1977). The Martian Chronicles. Bantam Books.