GAMES AT TWILIGHT – ANITA DESAI

GAMES AT TWILIGHT – ANITA DESAI

This story explores the range of feelings that a young boy (Ravi) has during the course of an afternoon/evening. He feels trapped when his mother keeps him indoors; he feels ‘released’ when he is allowed out to play; he feels ‘relief and jubilation’ at not being chosen to be ‘it’; he feels ‘panic’ as Raghu approaches his hiding place and ‘fear’ as he desperately looks for a better place to hide; he feels small as he is unable to reach the garage key; he feels ‘delight’ and ‘self-congratulation’ when he avoids capture by hiding in the shed. However, as he takes in his surroundings he feels a sense of unease which is intensified by a spider that tickles the back of his neck.  After some considerable time in the shed Ravi thinks of the triumph he will experience as the winner of the game and he visualises himself as a hero: ‘such laurels’. His run for victory, however, is far from heroic as he falls over and hurts himself because his legs have gone numb.  At this point he feels ‘rage’, ‘pity’ and embarrassment at ‘the disgrace of it all’.  When he charges the other children and bawls: ‘I won’ he is forced to realise that the other children have moved on and not even noticed his absence: ‘All this time no one had remembered Ravi’.  His misery is compounded at this point and he is left lying on the damp grass with: ‘a terrible sense of his insignificance.

There are a lot of children in this story – brothers, sisters and cousins (reflecting the strength of the extended family within Indian culture) – and, as in many families there appears to be a hierarchy as the children compete for attention.  Mira seems to possess the most authority,  with Raghu following and then Ravi and little Manu. The competitiveness is extreme and the children’s  world that they live in can be unpleasant.  Raghu seems particularly rough and aggressive, whilst Mira’s motherliness is in actual fact bossiness.

There are key points in this story where conflict and suspense are built up.  The sense of release when the children are let out is tangible: ‘The children, too, felt released. They began tumbling, shoving, pushing against each other’… The seriousness of the game of hide and seek is illustrated in the violence that accompanies the choosing of ‘it’: ‘The shoves became harder.  Some kicked out’.  Raghu’s counting increases the tension and the fact that his pursuit of the others is accompanied by a ‘blood-curdling yell’ gives the game a genuine sense of being a hunt.  This hunting imagery is supported by Raghu’s whistling, his crashing around and his stick whacking.  Ravi’s glimpse of Raghu’s legs as he hides gives you the feel that he is being hunted and the growing dark (193) and silence (176) contribute to the suspense built up by Anita Desai.

Perhaps the central question to the narrative of this story would be Will Ravi win the game?  Winning is so important to him because up to this point: ‘Nothing more wonderful had ever happened to him than being taken out by an uncle and bought a whole slab of chocolate all to himself’… Beating the older children ‘would be thrilling beyond imagination’ as it would cement Ravi as BEING SOMEBODY.  However, the ending represents a complete reversal of Ravi’s hopes and expectations. (there are many parallels between this story and ‘Death of a Salesman’ – Miller wrote about the image in his mind as he sat down to write ‘Death of a Salesman’ as…’the image of a need greater than hunger or sex or thirst, a need to leave a thumbprint somewhere on the world’).

There are many ideas that may be central to the story – it is up to you to decide what you think are the most important ideas and to find quotes and details from the story that support your selections.  Overpage are some suggestions:

• Childhood is not always a happy and innocent time.
• Childhood play is a serious business.
• It’s very difficult to be the youngest or smallest in a family.
• Sibling rivalry can be fierce and competitive.
• Young children are always desperate to be older and bigger..
• Life is very short and death awaits us all.
• The most important thing in life (and death) is to be remembered.
• Individuals don’t really matter in the great scheme of things.

The characterisation of Ravi is an important aspect of this story.  We experience the hunt from Ravi’s point of view and thus we sympathise with him.  The contrast between Ravi’s ‘short’ legs and Raghu’s ‘hefty, hairy footballer legs’ gives us a sense of the difference in the size of the two boys and encourages us to side with the underdog., The references to nose picking and snot add a touch of humour to the story but also remind us of a less sophisticated time in our lives when we were less aware of social niceties..

The story is very descriptive, but the Desai’s  descriptions do more than just set the scene.  She uses a number of images of LIFE, TIME and DEATH.  Perhaps she uses these images to support the idea that this episode in some way marks the end of childhood for Ravi – it is the first of the many bitter lessons that life will throw at him.  The passage of time from the children leaving the house: ‘’like seeds from a crackling, over-ripe pod’ through to the ‘funereal’ feel of the final game represent one afternoon/evening but they also support the idea of a lifetime passing.  Maybe Desai is trying to remind us that life is a precious gift and is over all too quickly.  The description of the hiding place as a ‘mortuary’ which has the smell of ‘graves’ along with the growing darkness and the repetition of ‘dead’ in the children’s chant all reinforce the idea that death is never far away.

The use of violent imagery such as Manu appearing as if ‘he had dropped out of an invisible cloud or from a bird’s claws’ and Raghu stalking off ‘in search of worthier prey’ remind us that childhood can be as cruel as adulthood and that human nature is often destructive and violent.