How was the sale of the villa a battle of wits between Gaston and Juliette in the play Villa For Sale? Discuss the values Gaston should have possessed with regards to moral ethics.
Answers
The entire situation changes on the arrival of Mrs Al Smith. Fortune also favours Gaston. He seizes the opportunity. He senses Mrs Al Smith's vanity, pride, inexperience, and haste. His clever eyes see a huge profit he can make by being smart. He takes the decisive action and sells the villa for three hundred thousand francs. The same villa he buys for two hundred thousand francs from Juliette.
Gaston should have behaved ethically. Firstly, he should have bought the villa for two hundred thousand francs for his wife's happiness. He had the money with him. Secondly, he should have told the truth about the ownership of the villa to Mrs Al Smith at the time of the deal.
Gaston did not want to buy any property in France as he was afraid that it would only cater to the delight of his in-laws. He criticized the house and garden in an attempt to dissuade Jeanne from purchasing the villa. He called the garden 'a yard with a patch of grass in the middle', described the inside of the house as 'twenty five yards of cretonne and a dash of paint'. He called the house a 'shanty'.
He pretended to be the owner of the place and managed to sell the 'shanty' for an amount much higher than what was quoted by the owner and earned a quick lump sum of one hundred thousand francs. His apathy turned into cunning and opportunism. He expressed a false generosity towards his in-laws, the family of Jeanne, and agreed to buy the house for the lowest figure of two hundred thousand francs offered by Juliette.
In this way he cheated everyone. He should not have cheated Juliette and the other buyer and earned money by wrong means.