The Westing Game Lies and Deceit Quotes

Well, Barney is actually lying on several levels. He tells each tenant that twenty other folks are "begging" for whatever apartment he's showing, but we know that's impossible – only six letters were sent out advertising the place. He has the same spiel for each tenant and must be doing something right, because by the time his work is done, he's rented the building exactly as he wanted to. As we also know at this point, though, Barney's lying by just virtue of pretending to be someone named Barney.

While these lines do a great job of showing off the book's narrative structure (head over to our section "Narrator Point of View" to find out more about that, and then come back here), they also show how little each of the characters know each other. Everyone looks down on Otis as the kind of slow, elderly delivery boy, but of course he's in disguise. Isn't everyone? In the few asides we get from him we see glimpses of a much smarter person who here is coming up with a pretty good idea of a suspect with a strong motive. Then, the narrator undercuts that by telling us who that suspect suspects. Of course, Mr. Hoo is basing his assumption of Flora's possible guilt based on her inappropriate (smiling) behavior. Of the two, Otis probably has a stronger case. (Even though they're both wrong.)

Poor Theo – here, he's learning the hard way that spying on people doesn't pay. He's mad at Westing, and the guy's game and money, for putting him in a position where he feels like spying was necessary. After getting himself together to follow the suspicious Otis about town, Theo ends up observing him feeding soup to the homeless, which is about as far from the stereotype of a murderer as you can get.

Well, it's hardly the moral parents or responsible adults probably want us to be pulling from this text, but it seems to us that on very rare occasions, lying and deceit can lead to positive outcomes.

Through the entire charade that is the Westing game, full of lies, tricks, and suspicion, Westing has the opportunity to make good things happen for each of the sixteen heirs he selects. (If Sandy had been a real person with a real family, playing the game would've helped him too.) Chris is one of the few people astute enough to see how Westing's idea to pair people off has helped them get a real, true prize: making friends.

In the context of impersonation, death-faking, major lying, and murder, petty theft doesn't seem as bad. Look, obviously, stealing is wrong. But we can sympathize with Madame Hoo pretty easily. It doesn't seem like she has such a great relationship with her husband, she can't communicate with any of the people around her, and she clearly misses her family and her home country. In her isolation, she thinks that the only way to get back to China is by stealing "pretty things" and selling the proceeds. By the way, do you think it's a coincidence that she calls the nice things that she steals "pretty things," which is a term that several other characters call Angela?

The judge has been outfoxed, and she knows it! We can feel a little sorry for her at this point – she's practically saying that Westing played her like a violin. Of all the heirs besides Turtle, the judge is the one that comes closest to figuring out the truth. But perhaps because of her history of practicing strategy with Westing, he handicaps her in this game in a few ways, while pretty much leaving Turtle alone. It makes you wonder, too: why didn't the judge investigate her own partner? How could she let that slip her mind and, more importantly, how did Westing know she would make that significant mistake?

If we're paying close attention, we realize that this is an important reveal about how staged the entire second will reading was – that this emergency situation was carefully planned, and that someone orchestrated it very deliberately. It also shows that the heirs may have gotten so caught up in the game that they're letting their excitement about playing cloud their judgment. An outsider like the sheriff sees that things are "fishy" almost immediately, but the heirs have suspended some of their logic in order to concentrate on obtaining the prize.

Turtle's right – Dr. Deere's accusation is a lie. She didn't kick Sandy. But Dr. Deere is also right – Sandy's body had the scar of one of Turtle's infamous kicks. If Sandy hadn't been silly enough to show up as Barney, he wouldn't have gotten kicked. Turtle's realization that they can't both be lying helps motivate her to figure out what else was going on in the will, and put the process, as well as Sandy's character, on trial.

Theo's loss in the actual chess game, which he played against an anonymous opponent, mirrors the heirs' loss in the game for Westing's fortune. He loses this game just as Judge Ford lost her games so many years ago, and just as the heirs have all lost the game set forth in the will. There's something about thinking a win's coming that makes players (in chess or in this game) overconfident. The players, and Theo, sacrificed their queens (Crow) just as Westing knew they would.

Ultimately, Turtle's the book's best secret-keeper. We defy you to find anyone who could keep a $200 million secret. Forget anyone – can you name any thirteen-year-olds with that kind of ability? Even Westing ends up sharing his most closely guarded secret – his identity – with Turtle, but only when she has successfully figured out the elaborate game of strategy he set in place to protect it. Instead, Turtle masks her lifelong lie of omission with small partial truths: she is going to a library, but it's a private one in the home of a multimillionaire, not a public building. And no one ever questions her.