The Westing Game Identity Quotes

Right away, the will splits up the concepts of names and defined positions from the identities people "really are" deep inside. In a way, figuring out who everybody else is becomes almost as much of a mystery as figuring out who the murderer is/winning the game. As we know from Sam Westing's experiences, names have very little to do with a person's real identity.

Judge Ford defines herself here both by what she is and what she doesn't want to be. She's worried about being a "token" – being evaluated based only on her looks/race – so she thinks about what she has done, defining herself by hard work and a clean record. She's conflicted between sounding arrogant about her achievements and trying to justify her understandable pride in them to herself.

We see Theo as one of the more conscientious, thoughtful characters throughout the book. Here, even though he's defined himself as a "brother," he finds himself resenting it, not without reason. No one else puts down a familial relationship as a position during this defining-identity process. Yet he then feels even worse for thinking this way, when he compares himself to his brother, and reminds himself that's the way things are. Chris, in contrast, with all his struggles and challenges, works extremely hard to define himself outside of his body or his relationships.