The Other Wes Moore's Self-Identity

William Shakespeare once said, "To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." Dating back to Elizabethan Literature, self-identity has always been deemed as essential. Fast forward to modern times, the authors of more contemporary works have taken the same concept of identity but have revealed the way actions taken can influence an individual 's understanding of themselves. For example, in John Howard Griffin 's memoir, Black Like Me and Wes Moore 's memoir, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates were both authors encounter lifestyles of similar individuals. Through both comparable lifestyles, Griffin and Moore display the way work can affect the personal and social identities of individuals who would otherwise appear to be the "same man."

Within both texts, Howard and Moore reveal the distinction between themselves and the individuals who are like them. Specifically, Howard and his two lives as two different skin pigmentations and Moore and the young man whom shares his name. Shortly after transitioning into an African-American male, Griffin points out the divergence from himself even though he still assumes the same name. When he announces, "I had a lost a sense of my own being... The Griffin that was had become invisible" (Griffin 20), he conveys a detached tone that enables his audience to recognize the effect his actions has had on his perception of himself. By establishing a tone that mirrors his