The Other Wes Moore book analysis
Every single event or incident a person commits is driven by some kind of motivation whether good or bad. Regardless of the intention there are two types of motivation: Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation, intrinsic is being motivated by self-satisfaction and extrinsic is motivated by en external reward. In the memoir The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore, there are a series of events or incidents in the second half of the book that display that variety of motivation that exists. Having read the book one may argue that the author Wes Moore was motivated by more intrinsic drive whereas the other Wes was motivated more by extrinsic drive. Both of the Wes Moore’s had varying motivations for their incidents throughout the second book that prove that the author runs by a more varied motivation whereas the other Wes runs on a more selfish aspect of intrinsic motivation. In the Memoir, The other Wes Moore, the author gets to the point where he’s slacking off in school and something motivates him to hurt his own little sister “…As she did, my right knuckles skipped off her shoulder and into her bottom lip, which immediately stained red. In more shock than pain, Shani saw this as an opportunity …. She smiled slyly as the blood covered her bottom row of teeth…(Moore 88). In this portion of the book this was Wes’ mom’s last straw that got him sent to boot camp, but what motivated him to do so? It mentions in the text that he was punching his sister lightly because he was bored and that is a very intrinsic thing to do. It was the “carrot and stick tactic” in the sense that he was doing something repetitively for the sake of intrinsic satisfaction of getting himself out of being bored, but in the end he got the stick, which in this case was having done to him what he thought was all bark an no bite (Pink 63-64). He did not expect to get sent to military school. When he thought that he was going to get an intrinsic reward of eliminating his boredom he ended up getting the