28 pages • 56 minutes read
Anita DesaiGames at Twilight
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Heat
The author spends the first six paragraphs describing in vivid detail the effects of the summer heat on all living things, using similes of death to describe how plants, animals, and humans struggle in the extreme heat of the day: “[T]he birds still drooped, like dead fruit, in the papery tents of the trees […]. The outdoor dog lay stretched as if dead on the veranda mat, his paws and ears and tail all reaching out like dying travelers in search of water” (Paragraph 5). The heat is such a strong force in this story that it almost becomes a character itself. It has an effect on the children’s mother, who retreats to the bath after letting the children outside to “help her face the summer evening” (Paragraph 3). The heat serves as a motif symbolizing frustration and entrapment—first the children’s entrapment within the stifling house, and later Ravi’s entrapment in his Feelings of Inadequacy and Insignificance.
Light and Darkness
The interplay of light and darkness is used in this story as a motif, with light representing freedom, comfort, and familiarity, while darkness evokes fear, discomfort, and danger. This is seen at several points in the story, the first being the description of the children feeling as if they will be suffocated if they don’t get out of the dark, closed-up house and into the bright afternoon outside. The children are desperately begging and pleading to go outside in the light despite the extreme heat and strength of the sun. They escape the darkness of the house and “burst out like seeds from a crackling, overripe pod into the veranda,” feeling free in the light of day (Paragraph 1).
Light and dark are also at odds with each other when Ravi hides in the shed during hide-and-seek (Paragraphs 22-26) and wrestles with his fear of the dark. He describes the darkness and fearing the unknown creatures lurking around him. The author writes, “Ravi stood frozen in the shed. Then he shivered all over” (Paragraph 24) because he was frightened of something crawling on him or touching him, such as spiders, snakes, or rats. He almost gives up trying to win the game just to get out of the dark shed and rejoin the others, “as long as he could be in the sun, the light, the free spaces of the garden” (Paragraph 26). The author repeatedly expresses the idea that there is goodness and comfort to be found in light places, and that dark places can bring about fear or danger.
Water
In this short story, water symbolizes life, restoration, and revival. The mother’s bath in Paragraph 3 is the first time readers see the relief and restoration that water can offer. This is something she looks forward to as a way to revive herself in preparation for the outdoor activities that face her during the evening. Paragraph 26 contains a vivid description of the restorative effect that water can have on living things, as the author says, “The gardener would fix the hosepipe to the water tap, and water would fall lavishly through the air to the ground, soaking the dry yellow grass.” Finally, the life-giving effects of water are detailed in Paragraph 29, with it being described as “[t]he sound of water gushing, falling. The scent of earth receiving water, slaking its thirst in great gulps and releasing that green scent of freshness, coolness.” Water restores what the heat takes away.
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By Anita Desai
