Previous
Chapter 10
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Discovering Wes Moore, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Choice vs. Chance
Mentorship and Support
Community, Identity, and Belonging
Coming of Age
Summary
Analysis
Wes (the author) again reflects on “how thin the lines can be between our life and another life altogether.” He looks back on his years-long process of interviews and research that went into writing The Other Wes Moore (of which Discovering Wes Moore is an adaptation for young adults), relating that process to his father’s passion for journalism. Wes is still in touch with the other Wes: even though he recognizes the atrocity of Wes Moore’s crime, he realizes that Wes is still a human being, and his story has educational value.
In this retrospective evaluation of his narrative so far, Wes again considers how easily his life could have gone a very different way. Meanwhile, his recognition of the other Wes’s humanity recalls Mama’s lesson to him about the importance of forgiveness and compassion.
Themes
Wes reflects on the visits he made to the other Wes Moore in prison. Awkward at first, they soon enough found themselves comfortable sharing their deepest feelings with one another. Unlike the author, who misses his father every day, the other Wes Moore claims never to think about his absent father at all.
It’s striking that the other Wes doesn’t miss his absent father at all, while the author Wes misses his father every day. The narration doesn’t go into detail about why this is so, but the author Wes’s enduring love for his father perhaps contributes to the book’s broader message about the importance of having positive mentors in one’s life.
Themes
The other Wes challenges the author Wes to pinpoint when he felt like he became a man. The author struggles at first, giving an overly formal answer, before relaxing and admitting that he thinks it was when he began to recognize and learn from his mistakes. The author says that he believes his environment shaped who he is, but the other Wes pushes back, saying that they both had similar environments, yet their lives look very different today. The other Wes counters that others’ expectations are just as important: “If they expect us to go to jail, then that’s where we will end up.” The author sympathizes with this point but wonders if the other Wes is denying responsibility for his actions. The author summarizes the other Wes’s dreary existence in prison.
Neither of the author’s answers to the other Wes’s question about becoming a man are quite satisfying; both are vague and uncertain. This scene recalls Wes’s fascination with the coming-of-age ritual he learned about in South Africa. Unlike in that tribe, the author finds it difficult to pinpoint when exactly he became a man, although he wouldn’t deny that he must have done so at some point. Meanwhile, the other Wes’s invocation of chance and fatalism intrigues the author but finally compels him to reject that attitude.
Themes
Wes (the author) looks back on his own path. He says that following your heart is important, as is working hard at whatever you choose to do. He also says he has learned the importance of sharing stories, which inspire others and promote action. He then says he is still not sure what accounts for the sharp difference in outcomes between him and the other Wes Moore. He thanks his teachers and mentors who believed in him when he didn’t even believe in himself and gave him the power to control his own destiny in the face of unpromising circumstances. He hopes both his and the other Wes Moore’s stories will empower the reader to learn from their failures and successes.
The author’s lingering sense of uncertainty about why his and the other Wes’s lives have turned out the way they have points to the unignorable role that chance plays in people’s lives. Nevertheless, Wes concludes the book with a resounding embrace of the power of personal choice, instilling in young readers the importance of working hard. Yet rather than merely offering that up as a tired bit of moralizing, he connects his own appreciation for hard work to the mentors he's been lucky enough to have and emulate throughout his life.
Themes
Get the entire Discovering Wes Moore LitChart as a printable PDF.
Wes realizes that his father’s death forced him to grow tough and become a man while Wes was still young. He then reflects on the chilling thought that one choice can completely change your life altogether. He says that practice, patience, and support from others help one to get better at learning which choices are the “right” ones. Wes reflects on how the encouragement he got from his family and mentors in military school and beyond allowed him to see possibilities far beyond those which statistics predicted for someone of his background. They helped him see the freedom he had all along, though he didn’t recognize this freedom at the time. He hopes that the young generations to follow him will recognize that they have the same freedom as well.
Wes ultimately comes to believe that randomness and chance do play an important role in people’s lives. Even so, people still have the power to choose how they respond to injustice and strife. In this way, he encourages his young readers to see their power of choice as a path toward freedom and empowerment. In closing, Moore also reinforces how centrally having positive mentors figured into his ultimately happy and successful life.
Themes
