Leaving Home
The narrator describes the feeling of leaving the house the family had called home for six years. Leaving without a father and with a mother trying desperately to put on a good face:
“It already felt like a past life.”
Foreshadowing Through Metaphorical Imagery
Following an Introduction and then a short flashback conversation written in italicized form, Chapter One commences with a childhood memory of playing a game with his half-sister Nikki which always ended in a chase. His metaphor describing the first time this chase ended with his actually catching her is a bit of foreshadowing that will be applicable to his entire childhood:
“I caught her and realized, like a dog chasing a car, I had no idea what to do.”
The Other Baltimore
The two Wes Moores at the center of the narrative both grew up in the same city. But the city, like the two Wes Moores, is not a singular entity and it is the diversity of place that is at the driving force behind the divergent paths of two men sharing one name:
“Baltimore is a territorial and tribal city.”
Life's Driving Force
Moving the Bronx becomes a pivotal moment for the narrator who later comes to a philosophical conclusion about life’s great motivator; that element of existence which can so easily drive an entire community to apathy or even straight to nihilism:
“Life’s impermanence is what makes every single day so precious.”
The Golden Ticket
Mary, the mother of the other Wes Moore, learns that she has been accepted into prestigious Johns Hopkins University. Though already pregnant by age 16, this will make her the first person in her family to ever attend college. And not just any college, but Johns Hopkins which makes the announcement letter more than just an official acceptance, but
“a golden ticket to another world—but also to the dizzying idea that the life she wanted, that she dreamed about, might actually happen for her.”
