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Chapter 17
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Westing Game, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Solidarity vs. Individualism
Capitalism, Greed, and Inheritance
Prejudice and Bigotry
Mystery and Intrigue
Summary
Analysis
Flora and Turtle have settled into a routine each day: Flora braids Turtle’s hair while Turtle reads The Wall Street Journal. One morning, Turtle announces that the newly elected chairman of the Westing Paper Products board, Julian R. Eastman, has predicted that the company’s earnings will double in the next quarter. Turtle urges Flora to sell every other stock and put all the money into WPP at the broker’s office. Flora, addressing Turtle as Alice, says she will. Turtle says she likes being called Alice and wants to think of a nickname for Flora too—she asks if she can call her Baba. Flora happily agrees, telling Turtle how smart she is. Turtle says she bets Flora’s daughter Rosalie was smarter.
Flora and Turtle are growing closer and closer all the time, learning more about one another and helping each other to feel seen, understood, and appreciated. Turtle’s family doesn’t really get her, and Flora lives all alone—they are each other’s support not just in the game, but now in life.
Themes
Down in 4D, Sandy continues compiling dossiers. In his file on Flora Baumbach, he notes that her husband left her years ago, abandoning her with their daughter Rosalie—who was developmentally disabled. Rosalie died last year at age 19 of pneumonia. When Sandy gets to the file on Otis Amber that the investigator has prepared, he begins laughing out loud.
Sandy’s revelation about Flora’s tragic past shows that Flora—like all the other heirs—has a difficult past and all the baggage associated with it floating just below the surface.
Themes
At school, Theo is still perturbed by his encounter with Crow the night before. He remembers Crow giving him something, but this morning, all he found in his robe was a Westing Paper Products handkerchief. He has convinced himself it must have been a dream. Theo tells Doug about having solved the clues, and he asks Doug to follow Otis Amber. Meanwhile, across town, Flora sits at the broker’s office and watches as WPP rises in value by the minute.
The heirs continue trying to one-up one another and figure out each other’s motivations. They don’t all trust one another, even as several of them begin forming deep friendships.
Themes
After school, Doug follows Otis as he picks up packages from the baker and the butcher and heads to Sunset Towers. Doug then follows Otis to the house of Plum the attorney, and then to the hospital. Doug waits at the entrance—several minutes later, Otis dashes out of the hospital again. On foot, the track star follows Otis to a stockbroker’s office, the high school, and Sunset Towers. In the parking lot, Otis spots the exhausted Doug leaning against the side of the building. Otis approaches Doug and hands him a piece of paper—all heirs must sign the receipt and report to the Westing house Saturday night. Doug signs it.
Doug has been following Otis all around town only to realize that Otis is doing a very benign task: collecting the heirs’ signatures in advance of their second gathering at the Westing mansion soon. This demonstrates that even though the heirs still harbor suspicions about one another, these suspicions are largely unfounded—and often only harmful.
Themes
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Back at Ford’s apartment, Sandy reads to her three dossiers. Otis Amber is, at 62, a delivery boy with a low IQ who lives in a grocery basement. His connection to Westing his that he regularly delivers the letters from Plum. Denton Deere is a plastic surgery intern whose only Westing connection is that he is engaged to Angela, who looks like Violet Westing. Sydelle Pulaski is the secretary to the president of Schultz Sausages. She is currently using six months’ saved-up vacation time. Before moving to the towers, she lived with her mother and two aunts. Her Westing connection is unknown. Ford feels Sydelle somehow doesn’t “fit in” to the Westing game.
The dossiers reveal little about the heirs’ deeper motivations or the truth of who they are—yet they are helpful in piecing together the various heirs’ connections to Westing. Sydelle, however, doesn’t seem to have one—it is almost as if her presence among the heirs is some kind of mistake.
Themes
In the hospital, Angela receives a visit from Denton and his superior, a plastic surgeon who advises her to make an appointment for a graft to repair her cheek in two months. After the doctor leaves, Angela complains to Denton that they’ll have to postpone their wedding. Denton suggests they have a small wedding. Angela says her mother wouldn’t want that. Denton asks Angela what it is that she wants. She doesn’t answer. Turtle busts into the room. Denton tugs her braid, and she kicks him in the shin. Denton leaves, and Plum enters with a large male nurse whom Denton has sent to remove Turtle. Turtle runs away, warning Angela not to tell the lawyer anything. Moments later, Grace enters—seeing the man she believes is the murderer standing over Angela, she screams.
The chaos of this scene mirrors the chaotic response Angela is having to the idea that even after her scheme has worked—she has landed herself in the hospital and delayed her wedding—she still cannot escape her fate. Angela is so disconnected from herself and her needs that she doesn’t know how to express even to her fiancé what it is she wants out of a wedding—or a relationship.
Themes
Back at Sunset Towers, Chris is excited about receiving three visitors in a day: Otis with the letter, Flora, to talk about her daughter, and now Denton, his partner. Chris wants to talk about clues, but Denton has news—he has found a neurologist who thinks a new medicine may help Chris’s condition. Denton has already secured Chris’s parents’ approval and now just needs Chris to pack a bag for the hospital so the doctor can run some tests. Chris smiles and laboriously tells Denton he can have the money. Denton helps Chris get ready to leave and wheels him down to the parking lot. Chris is excited.
Even though Denton has been loath to play the Westing game, Chris finally feels a connection to his partner in this scene as he realizes the magnitude of what Denton is doing for him. This demonstrates that though the heirs have been placed into unlikely pairs—and often have conflict between them—there are still ways in which they can profoundly change one another’s lives.
Themes
