Monday, May 19, 2014

Imagine you are Ravi at the end of "Games at Twilight." Write your thoughts.It should be based on how you feel if you were to put yourself in the...

This is a very good question! Obviously, to answer it
well, you need to understand the ending of the story and what Desai is trying to suggest
or say about human experience. The game of hide-and-seek that somehow turns into
something a lot more significant and important causes Ravi to have a kind of epiphany or
sudden realisation about himself and his place in the world. Let us examine the last
paragraph:



He
would not follow them, he would not be included in this funereal game. He had wanted
victory and triumph--not a funeral. But he had been forgotten, left out, and he would
not join them now. The ignominy of being forgotten--how could he face it? He felt his
heart go heavy and ache inside of him unbearably. He lay down full length on the damp
grass, crushing his face into it, no longer crying, silenced by a terrible sense of his
insignificance.



What Ravi
experiences therefore is an ironic moment full of pathos. Having wanted so much to win,
he has won, but only to find that the game has been long forgotten. Wanting glory and
recognition, he is only ignored. He refuses to participate in the funeral game that the
other children are now playing but he has suffered a death--the death of his innocence
and hopes. In the face of our hopes and dreams, the world is often absolutely and
colossally indifferent.


Therefore any response that you
write has to try and capture this sense of insignificance and how specifically Ravi is
changed by the experiences of this short story. He will obviously be a very different
boy after the story than when he started out. Good luck!

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