The document summarizes the short story "Games at Twilight" by Anita Desai. It provides background on the author and story. The story is about a boy named Ravi who feels misunderstood by his family in India. On a hot day, Ravi plays hide and seek with his siblings but stays hidden in a shed too long. When he emerges thinking he won the game, his siblings have forgotten about him, making Ravi feel insignificant. The story illustrates how growing up can be a cruel experience and highlights themes of abandonment and loss of innocence in childhood.

1. GamesatTwilight
By Juana Perez Muñiz, Lola Villegas Argento y
Victoria Landolfo

2. Writer’sbackground,AnitaDesai
★ Born in 1935, in Delhi, India
★ Youngest of four children
★ Grew up speaking german at home and Bengali, Urdu, Hindi and English at school
and city streets
★ Grew up surrounded arounded Western Literature and music
★ Married a businessman at 21 raised several children before becoming know
★ First book was “Cry, the Peacock” published in England in 1963
★ Never published in India, first published in England

3. Story’sbackground
★ Social conditions: a family in middle class, with a routinary life and condition by
the weather.
★ Weather: "too hot" (intolerable hot)

4. ImportantEvents
★ Beginning: From the start of the story until when Ravi hides in the shed.
★ Triggering event: When Manu is caught, Ravi feels it could have been him “it”
★ Climax: When Ravi realizes he forgot the other half of the game until he realizes
they have forgotten him.
★ Ending: When Ravi realizes he’s been forgotten until the end of the story.

5. LiteraryDevices
★ Characters:
○ Ravi: he is the middle brother, his older brother bothers him but Ravi still looks
after him. He feels like they leave him out. Ravi wants to prove that he is brave.
○ Manu: he is the little one, the smallest. He is Vulnerable, weak and fragile. Manu
is the baby that everyone manipulates and bothers
○ Mira: she is the oldest, very responsible. The leader, the one that everybody
listens to, the one that solves the problems, like a mother. “Motherly Mira”
○ Raghu: he is the strongest, the ¨bully¨. The one nobody dared to defy.
○ Mother - tries to be strict; not much control over the children; not very
persistent.
★ Epiphanies: When Ravi realized he should have left the shed long ago
★ Specular moments: When Manu is caught, Ravi feels it could have been him
★ Mood: tense, confinement (in prison), "Curtained, shuttered" "lungs stuffed with cotton
wool" meaning that it couldn't breath. "Choke" meaning suffocation.

6. ★ Dramatic irony: We know that the game finished, but Ravi does not.
★ Protagonist: Ravi is the protagonist.
★ Foreshadowing: the story foreshadows Ravi's loss of innocence by metaphors about
animals dying. For instance, "the birds still dropped, like dead fruit, in the papery
tents of the trees", as Ravi's innocence will do.
★ Themes: growing up is cruel, death/loss of innocence, rite of passage, ignorance,
abandonment, childhood, being misunderstood.
★ Simile: "as if dead"
★ Symbols: twilight, the moment of revelation, epiphanic moment, revelation of the dark
side of the self.
★ Setting: The story is set in India. In the house it is very stuffy and hot, when they
go out to the veranda, it is very hot and humid. The shed that Ravi when to hide
in was dark, creepy and scary. " the shed smelt of rats, ant hills, dust and
spider webs."

7. ★ Point of view:
○ 3rd person omniscient (outside) with formal elevated language (metaphor,
symbols)
○ 3rd person limited (inside) with informal, simple, use of questions and
exclamations-emotions

8. Summary
Games At Twilight was written by Anita Desai. The story is about a young boy named
Ravi, who is misunderstood by his family making him feel insignificant.. The day starts
off boiling hot. the children desperate to go out " that they burst out like seeds from a
crackling, over- ripe pod", Anyway, they start their day off by playing games such as '
Hide and Seek,' and Raghu the older brother was the seeker.. Ravi hid in a shed, "it
was dark, spooky," and Ravi stayed there for a very long time. He was not found, but
after a while he realized that to win the game, you have to touch the 'Den.' He came
out of the shed fast and ran and shouted out, " Den, Den, Den." Everyone looked at
him with amazement. The 'motherly' Mira said " Stop it, Stop it, Stop it, Ravi, Don't be a
baby." Ravi made himself think that he won, but no one even bother looking at him. " he
is silenced by a terrible sense of his insignificance." Ravi was looking forward to
winning but was heartbroken when the other children left him out because they forgot
about him. The story concludes when, Ravi realises that, growing up is cruel and runs
away crying all by himself on the grass.