The Westing Game

Jake Wexler is Grace’s husband and Turtle and Angela’s father. He’s a podiatrist, although his secret—as revealed by Sandy to Judge Ford—is that he’s also a bookie (one of many instances of Appearances as a (Non)Indication of the Self). His relationship with his wife is passionless until about halfway through the Westing game, when he witnesses his wife acting chummy with Mr. Hoo. He sees that she looks “especially attractive,” managing time for both the “beauty parlor and the sunlamp” before beginning work (93). He begins acting chivalrous, sending her flowers and chocolate. By the end of the novel, he’s left his practice both as a podiatrist and a bookie and works for the state lottery before becoming the state crime commissioner.

After instigating a dare, Turtle is the first character we see step into the mansion. She is a brave, independent-minded, and courageous girl, with a “kite tail of braid flying behind her” (6). She kicks anyone who pulls her braid. At the beginning of the book, she struggles to find meaningful relationships with the members of her family. Her mother finds her stubborn and unruly, blatantly favoring the elder Angela.

Turtle forms a crucial relationship with her assigned partner, Flora Baumbach, whom she nicknames “Baba.” When Grace and Angela neglect to braid Turtle’s hair, Flora takes over. Turtle listens to Flora tell stories about her deceased daughter, whom she believes Turtle would have loved. Flora eventually moves in with Turtle.

Turtle plays the stock market, whether at school or in her free time, catalyzed by the money her team receives to play the Westing game. Her business pursuits, along with her intelligence, draw Westing to her. She grows close with Sandy before solving the Westing mystery and revealing his different personas. After she secretly wins the Westing game, she becomes Westing’s protégé and eventually replaces him as chairperson of Westing Paper Products after his death. As the character whose arc bookends the novel, she is the closest thing The Westing Game has to a singular protagonist.

At the beginning of the novel, Angela is a bride-to-be and “blank-faced pretty as a store-window dummy” (9). She is the object of her mother’s affection, described by all as beautiful and obedient. She grows increasingly independent over the course of the Westing game. She lashes out by setting off bombs in Sunset Towers, one of which explodes in her face and causes permanent scarring, to her mother’s horror. After the Westing game ends, Angela refocuses her attention on academic pursuits. She becomes a successful doctor and later marries her former fiancé, Denton Deere.

Denton is an intern at the local hospital, on his way to becoming a doctor. He is engaged to Angela Wexler. At the beginning of the novel, he only seems concerned about spending time at the hospital and cashing the Westing game check. He slowly develops a personal relationship with Chris, his partner, and ends up introducing Chris to a medicine that improves and changes the course of Chris’s life. His and Angela’s first wedding is canceled, but they marry in later life.

Mr. Hoo owns the restaurant at the top of Sunset Towers. He continuously struggles with a bothersome ulcer, exacerbated by his eating habits. He is a strict parent, constantly reminding his son to study rather than spend time preparing for his track meets. He is an inventor outside of his role at the restaurant and “claim[s] that Westing stole his idea of the disposable paper diaper” (57). Later in the novel, his impulse to invent is fully realized when his idea for paper insoles becomes a national success and is even used by his Olympic gold medal-winning son.

The reader often sees Madame Hoo isolated, as Mr. Hoo brought her to America from China as his second wife and her English skills are limited. Her longing for home and her loneliness in Sunset Towers is apparent, as well as exacerbated by the sexualized and culturally stereotyped outfit her husband asks her to wear while acting as a hostess at their restaurant—a fitted dress with a thigh-high slit. She can be found gazing out the window or “fingering mementoes from her childhood in China” (72). She slowly starts picking up English words after her partner, Jake Wexler, teaches her. When the heirs gather at the mansion to try and uncover Westing’s murderer, she confesses that she has stolen from her neighbors to get money to return to China. No one holds this against her. In fact, after the Westing game, she gains friends in the building, goes by “Sunny” rather than “Madame Hoo,” and, as a chic businesswoman, helps her husband run the paper insole business.

Doug, the Hoos’ son, is a high-school track star. He is usually jogging in place or running to practice, and his skills come in handy when he needs to be the lookout during the Westing house dare or to keep tabs on Otis Amber’s whereabouts for his partner Theo. He often struggles to balance school with track, at least according to his father, but goes on to win two Olympic gold medals before becoming a sports reporter on television.

Sydelle is an outsider because she is the only character who was not supposed to play the Westing game; Westing meant to summon Sybil Pulaski (Crow’s childhood friend). Sydelle is the black sheep of Sunset Towers, and, at the beginning of the novel, mutters cryptically: “No one ever notices Sydelle Pulaski, but now they will. Now they will” (13). This threatening statement ends up being about her new set of crutches. Her need for attention is her guiding force for much of her time playing the Westing game. She yearns to gain social status and enjoys the presence of her teammate Angela for that very reason. Although she initially takes Angela as just a pretty face, she forms a meaningful relationship with her, which helps Sydelle stop relying on a fake illness to gain acknowledgment from others. She ends up marrying the man she was once secretary to—the president of Schultz Sausages.

Otis Amber is initially presented as a 62-year-old delivery boy. He is the first character the narrator introduces as he hands out invitations to tour Sunset Towers. He is generally playful and carefree in his demeanor and likes to go around the building yelling “BOOM,” scaring residents amid the turmoil of the bombings. Theo, whose clues lead him to believe Otis is the murderer, tracks him only to witness Otis volunteering at a soup kitchen with Crow. During the makeshift court hearing after Sandy’s death, Otis confesses that he is a private investigator for Judge Ford; he has also worked for Westing for decades to ensure the safety of Crow. He and Crow eventually get married and remain together, running the Good Salvation Soup Kitchen, until their deaths.

Flora is a dressmaker and is “polite to everybody” (54). Her history remains enigmatic until she grows close to teammate Turtle and tells Turtle that she once had both a daughter and a husband. The daughter, Rosalie, had Down syndrome and passed away before reaching adulthood, and the husband deserted her. Turtle becomes a daughter figure to her. She braids Turtle’s hair and calls her by the name “Alice.” She moves in with Turtle years after the Westing game is complete.

Chris is a 15-year-old boy who loves birdwatching and has a broad knowledge of the field. For the last few years, he has had a disease that causes physical disability, so he uses a wheelchair, stutters, and experiences what appear to be seizures or spasms. His game partner, Denton Deere, is at first dismissive of his potential, although he eventually leads Chris to a medicine that helps him maintain his health for the rest of his life. Chris is observant and bright. He becomes a successful ornithologist and professor and marries a fellow ornithologist.

Theo is Chris’s older brother and a close friend of Doug Hoo. He works at the coffee shop owned by his parents on the first floor of Sunset Towers. He aspires to be a writer, although he is shy about sharing this dream with others because he plans on foregoing school to take care of Chris. He is extremely supportive of his brother and dedicated to his family, while retaining a competitive edge in the Westing game. He winds up marrying Turtle years later, finishing his first novel, and beginning his second.

Judge Ford is educated and independent. She dedicates herself not only to work but to the larger pursuit of truth and the “rational,” thus serving as a vehicle for the novel’s exploration of The Use of Rationality to Explain an Irrational World. She has a complicated history with Westing. Her mother was a servant at the Westing house, and her father—when not working on the railroad—was a gardener there. Ford used to play “hour after hour” of chess with Westing (127), and he sent her to boarding school when she turned 12. Westing also helped her get into Ivy League universities and paid for her degrees, but her memories of her childhood imply experiencing a degree of racism and classism from the Westings; she remarks, for example, that their daughter, Violet, was not allowed to play with her. Ford is therefore suspicious and somewhat resentful of Ford’s charity, which she attributes to his desire to have a judge friendly to his interests, and she keeps her history with him a secret throughout the book. This history somewhat shapes her interpretation of the Westing game, which she assumes is an attempt to frame one of Westing’s enemies. Nevertheless, next to Turtle, she comes closest to winning the game, as she realizes both Sandy’s true identity and the gambit Westing has orchestrated vis-à-vis Crow.

The narrator introduces Crow as cadaverous. Her “clothes [are] black; her skin, dead white. […] [She is] rigid and righteously severe” (11). Her dedication to prayer is unwavering, and she often goes unnoticed by other characters, though she forms a bond with her game partner, Otis Amber. Her secret is that she was once Westing’s wife. She has a special interest in Angela—“that beautiful, innocent angel” (113)—whom she sees as the reincarnation of her own daughter, Violet, who died by suicide. Crow ran away from Westing after this trauma and developed an addiction to alcohol, which she recovered from after finding religion. Subsequently, Westing hired Otis Amber to watch over her.

The characters believe Crow, whom the clues appear to name as the murderer, avoids prison because she did not in fact kill Sandy. While the latter is true—“Sandy” was not even dead—Westing has also orchestrated the game in such a way that Crow was never in real danger. After the game is over, she goes on to marry Otis, with whom she runs the soup kitchen and lives happily until their deaths.