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Peter Pham

Dr. Morgan

ENGL 1A

October 17, 2017

The Power in Your Hands

Literature often is about the power of the individual; sometimes they follow the

development of a protagonistboth fictional and nonfictionaland the protagonists ability to

determine his/her own life, whereas other times they challenge readers to live up to their

potentials as individuals to choose their own lives. Yet, some do both, including The Other Wes

Moore and James Baldwins open letter to his nephew. Both tell stories grounded in reality, but

engineer those stories to also challenge people to take more control over their lives.

Starting with The Other Wes Moore, the novel follows two African American boys from

Baltimore who share the same name, Wes Moore, and similar backgrounds. Yet despite all of

their extremely similar circumstances, their lives gradually diverge into polar opposites when

they mature into adults; one becomes an author and decorated military officer, while the other

ends up sentenced to prison for attempted murder. In other words, the author, Wes Moore, tries

to narrativize James Baldwins experience, which he writes about in his My Dungeon Shook

letter addressed to his nephew: that only people are the dominant determinants of their lives. His

My Dungeon Shook Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of

Emancipation accounts his experiences as an African American in a still-racist country, where

he advises his nephew to not let others dictate his life and to take control of his own by

recognizing the powers of his decisions.

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Fundamentally, the book and the letter ask about what is the dominating determinant of

peoples lives: their choices or their surroundings. While both works purportedly seems to imply

that peoples surroundings emerge as the determining factor of ones life at first, the two authors

may actually refer to the contrary. Certainly both written pieces remain distinct in style and

medium, but their message remains the same: only people can control their own lives through

their responses to their environments and should do more to lead their own lives. With a novel

and letter, both try to detail a truth that can significantly change how people perceive, react to,

and live in the world. The author Moore even explicitly advises readers, specifically growing

boys and girls, who come after us [to] know this freedom [of being able to choose ones

destiny] (Moore 180), and [hopes that his and the other Moores story] will illuminate the

crucial inflection points in every life, the sudden moments of decisions where our paths diverge

and our fates are sealed (xi).

The author Moore argues that how people choose to interact with their environment is

more important than the environment itself. Growing up in the Bronx, the author Moore starts to

tag, or do graffiti, Once I felt the coast was clear, I began, first drawing the connected Ks and

finishing with a wide circle around them (80). Yet, all actions have their own consequences and

the author Moore ends up on the hood of the car, with the officers hands pressing against every

part of me, searching me (81). From that moment, the author Moore understood where this was

going. I was being arrested [and] I began screaming as I tried to wrangle my hands free as

[the officer] cuffed my left wrist and roughly pinned down my flailing right arm (81). Despite

his disagreement and resistance to the arrest, the author Moores decision to graffiti, which is

against the law, leads to his arrest where In that moment, I became aware of how I had put

myself in this unimaginably dire situationthis [officer] now had control of my body [and]
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my destiny And I couldnt deny that it was my own stupid fault (83). By admitting his own

fault, the author Moore makes it clear that his own decisions are the main determinant of the

consequences that he faces.

Yet, James Baldwin warns of consequences far more grave than arrest: destruction and

death. Based on his lifes experiences, he advises that One can be--indeed, one must strive to

become--tough and philosophical concerning destruction and death, for this is what most of

mankind has been best at since we have heard of war, (Baldwin). By striving to become strong

willed people capable of remaining calm in the face of aggression. Even the author Moore lives

out this wisdom when he and his friend, Dalio, walk to get pizza when suddenly a rock or bottle

slammed against my mouth (Moore 120) after he heard a voice yelling. Go home,

n****r! (120). With [his] mouth was aching. [being] embarrassed to be called a n****r in

front of my comrade. And embarrassed by my reaction (121), the author Moore can stand there

and retaliate in violence. Instead, Id decided to flee back to campus [even if] Part of me was

aghast when I decided that the answer was no [to fighting] (121). In doing so, the author Moore

protects himself and his friend from harm, and exemplifies the virtue of choosing to be

composed, which Baldwin suggests. By choosing not to fight, the author Moore showcases the

magnitude of a single decision, including the difference between life and death.

From there, Baldwin expands that point by observing that it was intended that [his

nephew and all African Americans] should perish, in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to

go beyond and behind the white man's definition [each persons identity] (Baldwin). Despite the

harsh circumstances, Baldwin encourages his nephew and everyone to never follow those

expectations and love all to the point where we with love shall force our [white] brothers to see

themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it, for this is [our]
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home (Baldwin). He admits to his nephew that It will be hard, James, but you come from

sturdy peasant stock, men who picked cotton, dammed rivers, built railroads, and in the teeth of

the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity (Baldwin). Since his

nephew come from a long line of great poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. [that]

One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, my dungeon [of understanding myself]

shook and my chains [of expectations and externally forced identity] fell off (Baldwin),

Baldwin challenges his nephew and all people to recognize their own potential to set their own

self-standards and not let others dictate how people view themselves.

Even the author Moore writes about the power of valuing ones own dignity after

interviewing the other Moore in prison, where he asks that other Moore if people are a product of

their environment. After some hesitation and thought, the other Moore suggests that people

[may be] products of our expectations. Others expectations of us or our expectations for

ourselves? [the author Moore asks] I mean others expectations that you [choose to] take on as

your own [the other Moore clarifies] (Moore 126). In answering the author Moores question,

the other Moore reaffirms Baldwins conclusion that people choose their own expectations to

live by, which further points back to the power of individual decisions. Furthermore, Baldwin

asks that while recognizing this, people should also Please try to remember that what [other

people] believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your

inferiority, but to their inhumanity and fear (Baldwin) in an effort to demonstrate how

extraneous other peoples expectations are when only peoples own expectations matter most.

A testimony to this would be the author Moore, who freely decides on the life that he will

live. As I started to think seriously about how I could become the person I wanted to be, I

looked around at some of the [military] men I trusted (Moore 132) and decides to follow
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their career paths and examples. Fundamentally, this displays the freedom that people have in

determining their lives by setting their own expectations and model that each person will strive

to live out.

In other words, the individual has a lot of power relating to determining ones life. Both

Moore and Baldwin make this observation, prove it, and encourage more people to recognize and

maximize it. Regardless of the circumstances that each must face, Moore and Baldwin contend

that how one responds is significantly more valuable than the circumstances themselves. Maybe

life itself is a test for all people, in that without suffering there can never be relief. Without

struggling in life, people may never come to recognize their true potentials as the dominant

determinants of their own lives.

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Works Cited

Baldwin, James. "A Letter to My Nephew." Progressive.org. N.p., 01 Jan. 1962. Web.

Moore, Wes. The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates. N.p.: Spiegel & Grau Trade

Paperbacks, 2011. Print.