Study Notes: "Games at Twilight" by Anita Desai

Hello and Welcome!

Hey everyone! Get ready to explore one of the most powerful short stories on your syllabus: Anita Desai's "Games at Twilight". Don't worry if you find literature tricky; these notes are designed to break everything down into simple, easy-to-understand parts.

This story is about a simple children's game of hide-and-seek, but it's also about so much more. It explores big feelings like the desire to win, the fear of being forgotten, and the tough moment when childhood innocence meets the real world. Understanding this story will give you fantastic skills for analysing characters, themes, and literary techniques – perfect for your HKDSE exam!


Part 1: The Story Step-by-Step (Plot Summary)

Let's walk through the story together. Knowing the plot inside-out is the first step to a great analysis.

1. The Oppressive Beginning: Trapped by the Heat

The story starts in India on a boiling hot day. The children are desperate to go outside, but their mother makes them stay in because of the heat. The atmosphere feels suffocating and tense, just like how the children feel being cooped up indoors. When they are finally allowed out, they burst out with wild energy, like animals freed from a cage.

2. The Middle: The Game Begins

The children decide to play a game of hide-and-seek. The oldest boy, Raghu, is chosen to be 'It'. He's described as a powerful, almost scary figure. Our main character, Ravi, is a younger boy who really wants to win and impress the older kids. He finds the perfect hiding spot: a dark, forgotten shed.

3. The Climax: Inside the Shed

This is the most important part of the story! Inside the shed, Ravi is initially terrified. It's dark, smelly, and full of creepy-crawlies. He feels like he's in a tomb. But as time passes, his fear turns into a feeling of excitement and power. He imagines how glorious his victory will be. He is so lost in his fantasy of winning that he doesn't realise how much time has passed. The sun has set, and it is now twilight.

4. The End: The Forgotten Victor

Ravi finally emerges from the shed, ready for his moment of glory. He runs to the 'den' (the safe spot) and shouts "Den!", believing he has won. But then comes the crushing blow: the other children are playing a completely different game. They had finished the hide-and-seek game long ago and had totally forgotten about him. He hadn't won; he hadn't even been a part of the game's end.

5. The Final Moment: A Painful Realisation

Ravi is devastated. He tries to get their attention, but they just see him as a little kid who is trying to spoil their new game. He lies down on the wet grass, feeling his own "insignificance". He has learned a harsh lesson about life: sometimes, even your greatest efforts can go completely unnoticed.

Key Takeaway: The story follows Ravi's emotional journey from excitement to fear, then to imagined victory, and finally to the crushing reality of being forgotten. The plot is simple, but the emotions are deep and complex.


Part 2: Character Analysis

Understanding the characters is key to unlocking the story's meaning.

Ravi (The Protagonist)

  • His Desire: Ravi's main goal is to win. He wants the recognition and respect that comes with beating the older, stronger Raghu.
  • His Journey: He goes from being a hopeful, slightly fearful child to a boy who experiences a deep and painful disappointment. This experience marks a loss of his innocence.
    • * His Internal World: Ravi has a rich imagination. Inside the shed, he turns a scary place into his secret kingdom. This shows the conflict in the story between imagination ("I will be the champion!") and reality ("They forgot all about me.").

Raghu (The 'Antagonist')

  • His Role: Raghu isn't a villain, but he is the force that pushes Ravi to hide. He is bigger, older, and represents power and authority in the children's world.
  • His Portrayal: He is described with powerful, almost animal-like imagery ("huffing and puffing"), making him seem like a hunter searching for his prey.

The Other Children (The Indifferent World)

  • Their Role: They represent society or the world at large. They are not intentionally cruel; they are just self-absorbed and move on quickly.
  • Their Significance: They show Ravi (and the reader) how easily a person can be overlooked and forgotten by the group. Their new game symbolises how life moves on, with or without you.

Key Takeaway: Ravi is the heart of the story. His personal journey from hope to despair is what drives the central themes. The other characters are important because of how they affect Ravi's experience.


Part 3: The Big Ideas (Key Themes)

Themes are the main ideas the author wants us to think about. For your exam essays, you MUST discuss themes!

Childhood vs. The Adult World

The game of hide-and-seek is a microcosm (a mini-version) of life. Ravi learns a very 'adult' lesson: life isn't always fair, and your personal struggles and victories might not matter to anyone else. The end of the game at twilight symbolises the end of a certain kind of childhood innocence.

Think of it like this: Imagine you spend weeks practising for a school talent show, but on the day of the show, it gets cancelled and no one seems to care. Ravi feels that same sense of crushing disappointment.

The Pain of Insignificance

This is the core theme. Ravi's greatest pain is not losing the game. His greatest pain is the realisation that he didn't matter at all. He was completely forgotten. This feeling of being small and unimportant is what Desai calls Ravi's "ignominy" and "insignificance". It's a universal human fear.

Did you know? This theme is very relatable in today's world of social media, where people often seek validation through likes and comments and can feel invisible if they don't get it.

Imagination vs. Reality

While hiding in the shed, Ravi lives in a world of imagination. He is a king, a champion, the hero of an epic story. When he steps out of the shed, he crashes head-first into the cold, hard reality that the world has moved on without him. The story highlights the painful gap that can exist between our inner hopes and the external world.

Key Takeaway: The story uses a simple game to explore deep themes about growing up, the need to feel important, and the clash between our dreams and the real world.


Part 4: Literary Toolbox (Techniques and Style)

This is how Desai tells the story so effectively. Mentioning these in your essay shows you have strong analytical skills!

Setting and Atmosphere

  • The Heat: The story opens with "oppressive" heat, which creates a feeling of being trapped and irritable. This mirrors Ravi's feelings of being a small child stuck in a world controlled by bigger people.
  • The Shed: This is a powerful symbol. It is like a tomb (dark, scary, a place of 'death' for the game) but also like a womb (a safe, dark place where Ravi is 'reborn' with a new, sadder understanding of life).
  • Twilight: The title is no accident! Twilight is the time between day and night, light and dark. It symbolises the transition point in Ravi's life from pure, innocent childhood to a more complex and disillusioned awareness.

Imagery (Painting with Words)

Desai uses vivid sensory details to pull us into Ravi's world.

  • Sound: Raghu's "hoarse roar", the "hissing" of the garden sprinkler.
  • Sight: The "blinding white" sun, the "thick, purple" darkness of the shed.
  • Touch: The "hot, sticky" verandah, the "damp, cold" feel of the grass at the end.

By using this sensory imagery, Desai makes us feel the heat, see the darkness, and sense Ravi's emotional state.

Point of View

The story is told from a third-person limited point of view. This means we are following Ravi and we know his thoughts and feelings, but not everyone else's.

Why is this important? Because we experience the entire journey with Ravi. We feel his fear in the shed, we share his dream of victory, and so his final devastation hits us, the readers, much harder. It creates empathy.

Key Takeaway: Desai uses setting, imagery, and point of view to create a rich, emotional world. The oppressive heat, the symbolic shed, and the focus on Ravi's inner thoughts all work together to make the final scene so powerful.


Part 5: Get Ready for the Exam!

Here’s how to use all this information to ace your HKDSE Paper 1, Section C.

How to Analyse a Key Quote

Let's take a quote: "...the ignominy of being forgotten—how could he face it?"

  1. Context: This is at the very end of the story, after Ravi realises the other children have started a new game and have forgotten him.
  2. Technique: The author uses a rhetorical question to show Ravi's internal turmoil and disbelief. The powerful word "ignominy" (which means public shame or disgrace) highlights the depth of his pain.
  3. Connect to Theme: This directly links to the central theme of the pain of insignificance. It shows that his hurt comes not from losing, but from being made to feel completely unimportant. It is the moment his childhood fantasy of glory is destroyed.

Potential Comparison Points (For Essay Questions)

Your exam will ask you to compare two or more short stories. Here are some ideas for "Games at Twilight":

  • Compare with "The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu: Both stories explore the painful experiences of childhood and the gap between a child's inner world and the outside world. Both protagonists feel isolated and misunderstood.
  • Compare with "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury: Contrast the parent-child relationships. In "Games at Twilight," the parents are distant figures, and the conflict is between the children. In "The Veldt," the conflict is a deadly one between children and parents, driven by technology. Both stories, however, show children escaping into fantasy worlds.
  • Compare with "Thank You, M'am" by Langston Hughes: Contrast the lessons learned. Ravi learns a harsh, lonely lesson about insignificance. Roger, in "Thank You, M'am," learns a positive lesson about trust, kindness, and dignity from an adult figure.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

  • Don't just retell the story! Assume the examiner knows the plot. Your job is to ANALYSE it. Use the P-E-E method (Point, Evidence, Explanation).
  • Don't forget the literary techniques. Always try to mention things like imagery, symbolism, or point of view. It shows a deeper level of understanding.
  • Don't be vague. Instead of saying "The ending is sad," say "The ending evokes a profound sense of pathos as Ravi is confronted with his own insignificance, a theme reinforced by the imagery of him lying 'silenced' on the grass."

Quick Review Box

If you remember nothing else, remember these four things!

Protagonist: Ravi, a young boy who wants to win.
Main Conflict: Ravi's desire for recognition vs. the indifference of his peers (Imagination vs. Reality).
Key Themes: Insignificance, loss of innocence, disillusionment.
Key Symbol: The shed (a place of isolation and transformation) and Twilight (a time of transition).


You've got this! "Games at Twilight" is a story that gets richer every time you read it. Go back to the text, find your own favourite quotes, and think about how Ravi's experience connects to life. Good luck!