Social Environment In The Other Wes Moore

Words: 917
Pages: 4

In Wes Moore’s novel, The Other Wes Moore, two men share the role of protagonist, the same environment, and the same first and last name. One of these two men grow from adolescence to become a veteran, scholar and novelist, while the other man was given life in prison without chance of parole for the conviction of murder. As their birth environments were so similar, they question what direct ideas caused each of themselves to become into the position where they stand today. In the given passage from Wes Moore’s novel, The Other Wes Moore, a solemn and disgusted tone is utilized to emphasize the theme of how the expectations placed on adolescents in different social environments and the assumptions made towards people of different racial backgrounds cause different forms of harm to maturing youth.
Growing up in a neigbourhood that was known to be dangerous lead Wes to feel as though his limiting social environment applied an assumption on how one may be pressured to make decisions and become who they are in life. Being confined to the exposure of living in a certain social environment opposed to any other may force young men to evolve to become a version of
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The detrimental expectations that were placed on the Weses in environments like Baltimore and the Bronx in turn made them struggle to find success in what they were taught to have been a limiting and enclosed lifestyle where one may fall in an ongoing circle of mentors and failure. The expectations that were addressed about people from certain environments relates to the social commentary of how maturing men may be looked at as being feared, for the dangerous assumptions that they are thought to possess, or for being a mature and celebrated young man from a different