Previous
Chapter 4
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Discovering Wes Moore, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Choice vs. Chance
Mentorship and Support
Community, Identity, and Belonging
Coming of Age
Summary
Analysis
Eventually, after his delinquent behavior becomes too troubling, Wes is sent to Valley Forge military school, in Pennsylvania. On his first morning, the drill sergeant loudly wakes up the whole bunk at 5:30 in the morning. Wes refuses to get out of bed, making his roommate Jason nervous. The drill sergeant enters and flips Wes out of his bunk onto the floor, berating him. At Valley forge, new students are called “plebes” and must refer to themselves as such in the third person, stripping their identity away.
Joy’s threat of military school that Wes previously alluded to has become a reality. On his first day, Wes quickly finds out that his rebellious, slacker attitude isn’t going to be tolerated at Valley Forge. Meanwhile, the stripping away of the “plebes’” former identity is something Wes in the long run will be grateful for, though at the moment he resents it.
Active
Themes
Wes is furious at Joy for sending him to such a horrible place. He attempts to run away the first four days he’s there, fantasizing about returning to the Bronx. He’s also angry at Jason, whose parents told Wes’s parents about Valley Forge. One night, Sergeant Austin, a sophomore, sits Wes down and tells him the staff don’t want Wes around and will look the other way the next time he runs away. He gives Wes a map to the nearest train station. Wes is thrilled and grateful.
Once again, Joy’s tireless efforts to improve Wes’s odds in life and set him on a better path are met with young Wes’s ingratitude and resentment. Meanwhile, Sergeant Austin’s speech to Wes here recalls Wes’s homeroom teacher at Riverdale, who similarly looked the other way about him skipping school. Sergeant Austin’s words here signal to Wes that Wes’s destiny is in Wes’s hands now. When Wes chooses to run away, it signals that he is still too young to fully grasp this—to understand that the choices he makes have consequences.
Active
Themes
That night, Wes gathers his things and sneaks out, but he soon finds himself lost in the woods and terrified. He hears laughter and realizes he has been set up. The officers emerge from the bushes and take him back to campus, where one of the officers, Colonel Batt, allows Wes to make one brief phone call. Wes calls Joy and pleads to be taken home, but she insists that he stay and give the place a try. At the time, Wes didn’t understand the sacrifices she made to send him there: to pay his tuition, she took on debt and enlisted the help of her parents and friends.
Active
Themes
On the phone, Joy tells Wes that “running doesn’t solve anything” and that he has to face his problems. After the call, Wes painfully acknowledges to himself that she is right. His flippant attitude toward his bad grades and struggles at home only led to his problems mounting and mounting, until he finally found himself here at military school.
Active
Themes
Get the entire Discovering Wes Moore LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Cadet Captain Ty Hill, a college sophomore, greatly impresses Wes with his physical stature and discipline, which commands the respect of his peers. In observing him, Wes realizes that he’s in a totally different environment from Riverdale: whereas before he “felt like a leader because [he] was popular,” thanks to his class-clowning, at Valley Forge, class clowns are looked on with contempt, while real leadership is esteemed.
