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Chapter 20
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
Theo comes up to Flora’s apartment, where Turtle and Flora are counting their stock market winnings, to ask if he can borrow Turtle’s bike—it is his turn to follow Otis Amber. Turtle does not reply. Theo says he had a conversation with the police earlier—and didn’t mention anything about Turtle being the bomber. Turtle asks what Theo means. Theo, of course, believes that Turtle is the bomber. He demands that Turtle lend him her bike. She reluctantly agrees, tossing him the keys for the lock. As soon as Theo leaves, Turtle calls the hospital and asks to speak to Angela—the operator tells her that Angela’s room is not accepting calls. Turtle worries that her sister will confess to being the bomber. Turtle makes a hasty excuse and leaves.
Turtle knows that Angela is the bomber, and so does Sydelle—but Theo is in the dark. Turtle, however, interprets his statement to mean that he knows about Angela and is going to do something about it. Turtle rushes off to protect her sister, planning to do something that will help Angela escape suspicion and trouble at all cost. Even though Turtle and Angela are not partners in the game, Turtle cannot help but defend her sister.
Themes
Theo follows Otis and Crow on a city bus bound for a gritty downtown neighborhood. Together, the two of them enter a shabby storefront: The Good Salvation Soup Kitchen. As Theo watches homeless people flood the soup kitchen, he hears the sounds of hymns coming from inside. Theo approaches the window and looks in: Crow and Otis are serving together. Theo pedals back to Sunset Towers, disgusted with himself for spying.
Theo and Doug have both been following Otis with suspicion—now, though, as they see him arrive at a soup kitchen with Crow and begin helping the less fortunate, Theo sees that they have misjudged the man all along.
Themes
Ford and Sandy have nearly completed their dossiers. The only files left are their own. Sandy finishes his, noting that his Westing connection is that he was fired by Westing for trying to organize a union. When Sandy asks Ford for her help in filling out her own biography and Westing connection, Ford admits that her parents worked in the Westing house: her mother was a servant and her father was a gardener. Ford herself lived in the house for years. While she was not allowed to play with Violet and rarely even saw Mrs. Westing, Sam Westing himself often played chess with the young Josie-Jo. At age twelve, she went off to boarding school and never returned to the house again: Sam Westing himself financed her entire education, she admits, and she has never repaid her debt to him.
Sandy’s Westing connection is well-known, but this is the first time that Ford has revealed the full truth about her connection to the Westing family. Ford is embarrassed by her lowly roots, by Westing’s cruel treatment of her as a girl, and by the debt she nonetheless owes the man who was the architect of so much of her shame. Ford’s relationship to Westing—and to the game—is thus more complicated than anyone could have imagined.
Themes
Theo returns to Sunset Towers and calls the elevator. When it arrives in the lobby and the doors open, rockets and fireworks whiz out of the elevator. The final firework does not explode until the elevator returns to the third floor. By the time the bomb squad reaches the scene, the smoke has cleared. Turtle is huddled in the hallway, crying. Most of her braid has been singed off. As the police investigate, they find a piece of paper in the elevator. “THE BOMBER STRIKES AGAIN!!!” says the front; “‘How I Spent My Summer Vacation’ by Turtle Wexler” is written on the back. Grace, furious, asks Turtle if she is the bomber. Turtle replies only that she wants a lawyer.
Turtle sets off a bomb in the elevator in order to disguise the fact that Angela is the bomber. Turtle doesn’t care what others think of her, unlike her angelic sister—she knows that she can take the heat, whereas being outed as the bomber would all but destroy Angela.
Themes
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The bomb squad brings Turtle to 4D to see the judge. As Ford questions Turtle about her actions, it becomes clear to her that Turtle is not the bomber—but that she is protecting whoever it is. Ford asks if Angela is the bomber and Turtle furiously replies “no.” The judge, however, is convinced that the unsuspecting, quiet, beautiful Angela has enough hidden rage to be the bomber after all. Ford asks if Turtle has anything else to confess, and Turtle begins telling her about going into the Westing house on Halloween night and finding the body, though she admits that the body looked more like a “wax dummy” than a brutally murdered corpse. Ford is intrigued by the idea of a wax dummy, and Turtle is excited by the judge’s intrigue.
After speaking with Turtle, Ford is unconvinced that the mercurial young girl is indeed the bomber—but Turtle does provide Ford with some intriguing information. Turtle and Ford are two of the heirs most attuned to how tricky, divisive, and purposefully misleading Sam Westing has designed his game to be—and by putting their heads together in earnest for the first time, they’re able to hedge at a breakthrough in the case.
Themes
Turtle asks for some bourbon on a piece of cotton to put on her bad tooth. The judge gives her some and sends her on her way. Turtle heads for Flora’s apartment but runs into Sandy in the hall. Smelling alcohol, Sandy asks Turtle jokingly if she’s hitting the bottle. When she shows him her tooth, he notes that she has a large cavity and suggests she visit his dentist tomorrow. Sandy asks Turtle if he can buy one of her striped candles for his wife’s birthday tomorrow. Turtle offers to sell Sandy her most beautiful candle for a discounted price.
Turtle and Sandy are friends, and in this scene, they help one another out with the things they need. This passage further cements how, over the course of the game, the various heirs have come to like and respect each other as people in spite of their restrictive pairings. All the heirs are breaking out of their shells, shying away from their suspicions, and learning to trust and befriend one another.
Themes
In their hospital room, Angela and Sydelle reshuffle the clues they’ve gathered, trying to make sense of them. A note slipped under the door, signed Denton Deere, includes a bonus clue sent from Chris: PLAIN. As the women reshuffle their clues once again, they find they have the phrase “PURPLE MOUNTAIN MAJESTIES.” Recalling Sydelle’s notes on the section of the will urging the heirs to “Sing in praise of this generous land,” they realize that the song “America the Beautiful” is an important part of the game.
Angela and Sydelle are not the first heirs to hit on “America the Beautiful” as an important tool in interpreting the clues—but after compiling the clues that a mysterious individual, likely Crow, has given Angela, they can no longer deny that the clues all seem to point to the lyrics to the song.
Themes
