Father Figures

A theme that stood out was father figures, or a lack thereof. Growing up without a father was not uncommon for young boys in that time period, so the Wes’ situations were not unique per se, but it is still relevant to how their life played out and how they behaved. If that fatherly figure would’ve negatively or positively impacted their life is up for debate but the fact is, they were still fatherless. Not only did Wes Moore’s father die at a young age, but he also witnessed it. What made it worse was that it could’ve been prevented, he didn’t have to grow up without his father, but he did. Not having a father figure in his early childhood greatly affected the way Wes thought and how he behaved, whether he realized it or not. Unlike the other Wes Moore, Wes actually had a fatherly presence in his life, so having it ripped away from him, no matter how young he was when it happened, was traumatic. Losing a loved one is hard, and it’s exceptionally harder when that someone was the person you looked up to, the person who you were supposed to spend your life trying to be like, the person you felt understood you more than anyone else in your life. Unlike Wes, the other Wes Moore did not know his father, so he did not ‘miss’ a fatherly presence, but the lack of one still affected him. And the first time he met his father, he was drunk and not in his right state of mind, so Wes was forced to turn to the only manly figure in his life, which was his brother, and he was not that good of a role model. Even though Tony would warn Wes about the lifestyle that he had adapted, Wes still looked up to him and wanted to be like him because to Wes, that was the only thing he knew. Tony knew better and tried to warn Wes about the drug lord lifestyle, but Wes still looked at Tony’s life with envy and was still trying to be like him. Both situations, though slightly different, affected the boys in similar ways. They both grew up without a father and had to seek that fatherly validation from someone else. That’s not to say that their absent fathers was the determining factor for the way their futures played out, because if that were the case, they both would’ve ended up in the same place, but it definitely played a part in it. 

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