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The Other Wes Moore analyzes the shared early circumstances and very different life paths of two men who share the same name, and the book’s unique structure reinforces how complicated this comparison is. Moore, the author, is a classic American success story, who overcame childhood poverty in inner-city Baltimore and the Bronx to thrive as a well-educated professional and author. Wes’s impoverished childhood experiences in Baltimore mirror those of Moore in some ways, but he is serving a life sentence for murder following a botched robbery. The book shifts between the men’s stories, allowing them to unfold simultaneously. The juxtaposition of the two men’s lives helps to highlight the similarities and differences between them, which is further aided by the interludes that depict their present-day conversations, when Moore visits Wes in prison. As Wes points out to Moore, on the subject of them both having absent fathers, they may be in similar circumstances, but their experiences still contain key differences. Notably, Wes’s alcoholic father was never a presence in his son’s life while Moore’s father died rather than abandoning his family. A similar dynamic is at work as the narrative probes their respective childhoods and family backgrounds. The side-by-side telling of the two stories presents Wes’s personal history as a narrative biography and Moore’s as a memoir, a structure that allows Moore to reflect on both of their lives and the impact of key people and events that set them on such different courses.
The key element of conflict within the book is not a conventional antagonist but rather the harsh reality of life on the streets and the systemic racism that traps generations in poverty. Wes and Moore learn the code of the street, but Moore’s youthful criminal activities remain fairly tame compared with Wes’s. One key difference between them is that Moore never gets a criminal record, while Wes wracks up an early juvenile record for serious crimes. Moore reflects that the contrast between them comes more from random circumstance than from his being a better person than Wes. Both men receive warnings to stop their illegal behavior, but Wes does not. Wes’s brother Tony is not an antagonist so much as a tragic figure who wishes his brother could have a better life, but has no idea how to help him due to his own limited knowledge and experience. The same random quirks of circumstance lead Moore on a path to a different world. Though both Joy and Mary move their sons away from the inner city of Baltimore to remove them from gang life, neither is successful: Moore finds a similar environment when he moves to the Bronx, while Wes’s relocation to Baltimore County cannot keep him away from the streets. The key difference is that Joy and Moore’s grandparents have the resources to keep moving him further away, eventually to a distant military school in Pennsylvania, while Wes’s family does not have the support system to do so.
Pride and a desire for respect motivate both Wes and Moore, but without being channeled constructively, these understandable impulses can be highly destructive. On the streets, Moore and Wes both learn the importance of maintaining an icy, composed exterior. Reputation is everything, and even seemingly minor incidents that suggest disrespect receive a ferocious response. Once Wes becomes involved in dealing drugs, he makes a lot of money and becomes committed to demanding and enforcing the respect he believes he is owed. This commitment, however, only creates more problems for him, especially when he is charged with attempted murder after a dispute with a romantic interest’s boyfriend. At Valley Forge, though Moore initially bitterly resents his new environment, he also sees a new model for pride and respect in model cadet Ty Hill. A Black teenager like Moore, Ty commands the respect of other students and does so without resorting to intimidation tactics. By the end of his time at Valley Forge, Moore himself emerges as a leader who gains the respect of hundreds of his classmates as the regimental commander. Ultimately, Moore sees his time at the military school as instrumental to his formation as an adult.
A key side effect of living in inner-city poverty is how it robs people of the idea of a future, which also makes despair a significant force in the book. All the characters have dreams for improving their lives, but Mary and Wes are unable to achieve what they want, as Mary loses her tuition grant and Wes starts dealing drugs. Life on the streets is so precarious that people without resources are unable to plan for the future because they are so desperate to meet their immediate needs. As Wes’s criminal behavior escalates, it feels like death can come at any minute, sapping his motivation to take a long-term view of his life. When Wes takes concrete steps to become a carpenter through Job Corps, the daily grind of working minimum-wage jobs discourages him, and the pressure to provide for his family soon leads him back to dealing, which provides easy money. He only clearly sees his future when he is finally sentenced to life in prison.
Ultimately, the concept of freedom, and the responsibilities that come with it, set Wes and Moore apart more than anything else in their shared story. In prison, Wes learns that freedom constitutes more than just freedom of movement. Even when Wes was free in the legal sense, he wasn’t free from the constraints, apathy, and mindset that life in poverty force upon young people in the inner city. Many of Wes’s earlier actions, from nearly killing Ray to chasing down a neighbor boy with a knife during a petty dispute, stemmed from his beliefs about maintaining honor, reputation, and social standing in his environment. He was also, as Moore points out, not free to make mistakes without curtailing his future then and there. Moore’s education offers him freedom by helping him see past the limits of his background, but Moore also recognizes that with freedom comes responsibility and accountability to others. Wes himself, despite his intelligence and devotion to his family, struggles to understand this as he denies any responsibility for Bruce’s murder, even though he was an active and willing participant in the robbery that led to Bruce’s death.
