Identity Crises

            One of the main themes that I really enjoyed while reading The Westing Game was identity construction.  As the plot developed and more and more was revealed about characters, the reader witnesses multiple characters as they grow and, seemingly, change their identity.  Through creative partnering, each couple grew throughout the game.  As we examine each couple, the reader can find multiple examples throughout the text of ways that each character develops.  It may be that Uncle Sam elects these partnerships specifically to enhance and enable better growth through The Westing Game.

            I think the reason I enjoy this theme is because, as the story progresses, the characters tell us their “identity” changes.  The greatest changes I experienced were evident in the development of the Wexler sisters.  Turtle, being the most obvious of changes, starts the book out as identifying herself as a witch.  By relating herself to a character that she dressed up as for Halloween, to the end of the book where she finds her identity as a lawyer who is the chairman of the board, we experience the most change in identity.  It could be that her character is the most to change because from start to finish we experience her as an adolescent into adulthood, where the other characters have already matured past adolescence.  Another identity change we discover in Turtle is the witnessing of her pulling away from her mother, who frequently demeans her, toward Baba, who helps to nurture Turtle’s struggle through adolescence.  Turtle also brings the identity theme to life as we witness her change her name not once, not twice, but three times.  By the end of the book, Turtle’s identity has changed so much that she resolves her identity with a new name, T.R. Wexler.

            Angela Wexler goes through a similar detachment from her mother as well, as she struggles to identify who she is.  From the beginning of the book where she identifies herself as having no identity to the end of the book where she elects to break off her engagement to Denton we witness an individual come into her own.  Throughout the book, we witness Angela, through her friendship with Mrs. Pulaski, find ways to strengthen her independence and work toward what it is that she wants, and does, by the end of the book which is to pursue her education.  At the climax of her struggle for identity we witness Angela permit herself to be harmed, of her own accord, to allow herself a way off of the path that she is set down.  I feel that the scar she obtains during the firework accident is a literal representation of her desire to be free of the beauty that ails her.  The scar permits her to be recognized, not simply for her beauty, but also for the intelligence that she was unable to demonstrate because of the identity inflicted upon her by her mother.

            The Wexler sisters are just a small representation of the identity struggles we rode through as we experienced this story.  Samuel Westing himself was an individual in the book who had more identities than any of the other characters.  We also witness change as we watch the other characters venture away from the first identity they offer in the first meeting of the heirs to the final chapters where Turtle fills us in on the identity each heir landed upon.