Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University is a symbol of hope for a better life for not just the Wes Moore, the author, but also the mother of the other Wes Moore. She had become the first member of her family to ever enroll in college and looked upon the acceptance letter from the university as a “golden ticket to another world.” Unfortunately for her, Johns Hopkins is also a symbol of hope crushed by cold hard reality when the widescale termination of Pell Grants forces her to drop out of college.
Murphy Homes Projects
The other world of Baltimore is represented by this housing project characterized by graffiti-covered walls, dangerous cinder-block hallways dimly lit by flickering lights, broken elevators and the perpetual presence of gun-toting drug dealers. It is the symbolic opposite of the promise represented by the University; it is the place where the other Wes Moore loses all promise of making a better life for himself.
The Bronx Basketball Court
A basketball court that the author plays on while living in the Bronx is situated by him as the symbol of brotherhood. Within the fence enclosure of the court came to play all manner of humanity: the scrubs, the thugs, the drug dealers, churchgoers and athletes both in the prime and well past it. All played together on an even field of trust and bonding as long as they were inside the fence.
The House to Protect His Daughter
The other Wes Moore enrolls in the Job Corps where he receives training in carpentry where he and the other students are assigned the task of creating a project of their own design. Wes decides to make a house just large enough for his young daughter to actually get inside. It will be, he says, “a house to protect her” and after seven months of hard work he completes it against all initial expectations of his fellow students. The completed house becomes symbolic of one of the book’s overarching themes: that when expectations of a person are low, he will meet them, but when they are raised, he will also meet them. The completed house becomes emblematic of the idea that the failure of the other Wes Moore to live up to expectations are not the result of a flaw in his character, but an absence of the kind of support that allowed Wes Moore the author to thrive.
The Military School Uniform
The uniform is a symbol of the military school itself, of course, but the author interestingly describes the uniform specifically as “a force field that kept the craziness of the world outside from getting too close to me.” A uniform carries with it tremendous symbolic power that transcends the institution it represents; even when another person doesn’t necessarily know what that institution might be, there is a natural reaction to seeing a person in a uniform that significantly differs from seeing that same person in civilian clothes. Military school has not just instilled discipline into the author Wes Moore that will effectively set him on a more successful path than the other Wes, it has also become another revelation of the power that the expectations of others can have a person.
