Please brainstorm one topic that these stories have in common. Think, for example, about what both authors teach/argue, show about Children? Siblings? Parents? Games? Loyalty?
- Create a thesis that compares the two pieces and talks about a universal lesson; you can use this template if you’d like: Both these texts demonstrate that an argument, a big idea is true about [topic]; they suggest that we should __________ [what authors want to change or help us learn].
- Next, find one passage from each story to support your ideas.
- Introduce the quotes by discussing the literal level of the quote--summarize the situation of the quote to help us see your reading comprehension. Include the person who said it and what the subject of the quote is.
- After explaining each quote, try to analyze the quote--think about how the author writes it. You can talk about the figurative language, the word choice, the tone of the language, or even the rhetorical elements like pathos, ethos, or logos. Try to make a connection between the way the quote is written and the message the quote has.
- Close with an idea about how this topic plays out in the real world; can you think of a real-world example?
“Games at Twilight” and “The Scream” both demonstrate that overreaction is a big part of maturity. The stories suggest that we must overreact in order to learn to become the bigger person and to mature in the long run. In “Games at Twilight”, the children play a very intense game of hide and seek. When Raghu is picked to be the seeker, he is not the happiest about it. Ravi finds a place to hide from Raghu and is then forgotten by the rest of the group. When Ravi finally comes out of the shed, he finds out he was forgotten. The text states, “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.” (Desai 8) The way Desai described how Ravi was feeling it is so powerful that the reader is affected by it too, affecting the way that the reader feels toward Ravi. The feeling that is displayed in the text is so negative, however, Ravi is overreacting a little bit. Ravi won’t get up off the ground after he was forgotten, when he easily could have gotten up and just gotten back into the game that the other children were playing. The same thing occurs in “The Scream”. Anna and Mary are on vacation with the rest of their family, when Mary sees a roller coaster that she wants to ride. The girl's mother asks Anna to take Mary on the rollercoaster despite the fact that roller coasters make Anna very ill. She simply states that her daughter is being ridiculous that she won’t go on a ride with her sister. Anna thinks to herself, “I am ridiculous, Anna thought. I can get on the ride, but I'm not sure I'll get off it again. I could be going around the track forever, and never get off. How horrible.” (Briscoe 4) Anna simply states that she doesn’t think she will get off the ride if she gets on, that she would get stuck forever. She overreacts at the thought of having to get on a ride, cause she thinks that she will get stuck forever. Briscoe wrote the passage as if one was almost supposed to find it comical. Anna won’t get onto a ride over the fact that she is too scared, even though her mother asked her to go. In the real world, children tend to overreact all the time, teenagers especially. It’s just a big part of growing up because, in order to mature, children must learn to overreact. Once they see that what they were overreacting over is not so big of a deal, they become more mature because they learn to not do it again. Maturity is only gained by learning lessons, so once something is no longer such a big deal, the child becomes more mature. Kind of like being afraid of the dark, once a child learns that it’s not such a big deal, they grow up and mature a lot more. Ravi will learn that it's not such a bag thing to be forgotten, it never feels good but it's not as big of a deal as it seemed to him at the time. Same with Anna, she will learn that rollercoasters will never keep going forever, and she will mature when she learns that. Overall, children must overreact in order to mature, which these two authors present in “Games at Twilight” and “The Scream”.
ReplyDeleteBoth “The Scream” by H. Briscoe and Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilights” demonstrate that children learn life lessons about being an adult through experiences while they are growing up. Many life events that children go through teach them skills that they will carry with them into adulthood. Both stories have evident example of this idea. In the story of “The Scream” Anna is scared to go on a roller coaster because it is a big fear for her. After being manipulated be her younger sister, Anna ends up going on the roller coaster be accident. After Anna returns to her family H. Briscoe writes"You don't half look frightened in the picture, Anna," commented Mum. "Anna?" She stared down at the floor. "Anna?"( Briscoe 60) Even though Anna didn’t intentionally get on the roller coaster, Anna still faced her fear and her mother inferred that she might’ve even enjoyed it. Because of this experience Anna learned the skill of facing her fears. As children grow up and are forced to be more independent, it’s important that they aren’t fearful and that they are able to put their fears aside. Anna’s mother said that she didn’t look half frightened in the picture, as a reader we can infer that Anna must have looked happy in the picture based of the language used by the author. Since Anna knows what it is like to get over a fear, in the future she will be able to do that with bigger decisions and in the end be more successful. The same idea of learning life skills as a child translates to “Games at Twilight”. Young Ravi is playing hide-and-seek with his older siblings, he ends up hiding in a shed for hours and is forgotten about. But at the end of the day he won in a different way, he learned an important lesson of commitment. After Ravi waited for hours in the shed Desai writes “There he sat smiling, knocking his heels against the bathtub, now and then getting up and going to the door to put his ear to the broad crack and listening for sounds of the game, the pursuer and the pursued, and then returning to his seat with the dogged determination of the true winner, a breaker of records, a champion.”(Desai 19). Even as the youngest of group of children, Ravi already had the skill of commitment. Because he returned to his hiding position and his determination to be the winner, Ravi’s actions show that he is learning life lessons through games that he plays as a young kid. Desai uses the word pursuer when talking about the voice in Ravi’s head pushing him to just give up on the game, but another part of Ravi tells his to stay committed. This part of Ravi is the part that is growing up and which is learning. In both of the stories, the idea of children learning life skills through experiences is prevalent. The lessons of commitment and facing fears among others are used by adults everyday in life. It’s important for all children to be taught these skills in one way or another. Because a parent may not be present, their child might benefit from by gaining independence. Or sibling rivalry can teach kids to push themselves and to try something new. “The Scream” by H. Briscoe and Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” both illustrate the big idea of the ability for children to learn life lessons for adulthood while they are growing up.
ReplyDeleteIn the two Short Stories, “Games at Twilight”, Anita Desai, and “The Scream,” H. Briscoe demonstrates that there is a problem with the parents;they suggest that parents should learn how to react to their children. “‘Please, ma, please,' they begged. 'We'll play in the veranda and porch — we won't go a step out of the porch.' 'You will, I know you will, and then—' 'No — we won't, we won't,' they wailed so horrendously that she actually let down the bolt of the front door so that they burst out like seeds from a crackling, over-ripe pod into the veranda, with such wild, maniacal yells that she retreated to her bath and the shower of talcum powder and the fresh sari that were to help; her face the summer evening,” (1). This description shows how the parent in ‘Games at Twilight’ didn’t care about her children's safety while playing outside. The mother made me think that she didn’t even care about her children because she just went to go and take a bath. "Don't be silly Mary," her mother began in Anna's defence. "Of course she's scared. Any person in their right mind would be. But it's only a ride, Anna. Surely you can make it onto a ride without feeling ill for once, you're always afraid of things like that, it's getting ridiculous …,” (4). In “The Scream” the mother was pushing Anna, her daughter, to go on the ride when she perfectly knew why she didn’t want to. The mother made me think that she pushed her to go with Mary because Mary wanted her to come along with her. Instead of it being a simple answer no she pushed her to go on it. In the real world, some parents don’t look after their children or care about them, that they just let them do whatever the child wants to do.
ReplyDeleteBoth Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream” demonstrates that sibling rivalry affects each child in multiple ways. In “The Scream”, Mary used the fact that Anna is older and therefore responsible for what Mary was carrying. Mary said, “"No, of course not," Mary answered. "But you were supposed to be looking after me. You should go back and get the bag."All of a sudden, Anna saw it. How the blame had gently shifted from Mary's shoulders to her own. Once again, Mary had twisted everything to make it seem as if it were her fault.” This shows how younger siblings like to move the blame from themselves onto the older sibling with more responsibilities. Older siblings usually antagonize their siblings using fear and power. In “Games at Twilight”, Ravi’s older sibling says, “'I heard you! I'm coming! Got you—' and came charging ‘round the garage only to find the upturned flower pot, the yellow dust, the crawling of white ants in a mud-hill against the closed shed door-nothing. Snarling, he bent to pick up a stick and went off, whacking it against the garage and shed walls as if to beat out his prey.” Ragu is hunting Ravi and it scares Ravi but helps him grow up at the same time. This quote shows how big of an impact an older siblings dominance has on the younger sibling. The word choice and storyline of these short stories show how sibling rivalry goes both ways and how it affects both siblings.
ReplyDeleteBoth Short stories “Games at Twilight,” by Anita Desai and “The Scream,” by H. Briscoe demonstrate that siblings have the tendency to fight and rival each other that suggests, that parents should make sure the cause of this rivalry does not affect their child's emotional state. In “Games at Twilight,” Anita Desai uses the game hide and seek as a pivotal point to demonstrate how sibling rivalry can affect children and can cause harm to children's emotional state, when Desai describes the predator and prey aspect as “Snarling, he bent to pick up a stick and went off, whacking it against the garage and shed walls as if to beat out his prey...To defeat Raghu - that hirsute, hoarse-voiced football champion - and to be the winner in a circle of older, bigger, luckier children - that would be thrilling beyond imagination. He hugged his knees together and smiled to himself almost shyly at the thought of so much victory, such laurels.” (4-6). The description of this relationship where Raghu is more so trying to beat the fear out of his prey and this overall culminates to the demoralization and emotional break down of Ravi when “He felt his heart go heavy and ache inside 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.” (8 Desai) Even though these sibling rivalries are supposed to be mildly tempered it is found here the where Desai demonstrates how deadly it can be to the human mind. Likewise, in Briscoe’s “The Scream” there are two similar events where Anna is lead into a corner by her sister and her mother as they force her to take her sister on a ride she did not want to go on. Brisco describes the event where Anna is peer pressured as “Oh, go on Mum," Mary pleaded. "I'm sure it isn't half as bad as it looks….Seeing she wasn't going to get Mum to try the ride, Mary scowled, and folded her arms. "It isn't fair," she shouted. "If you don't go on it, I can't either. You never let me go on my own."..."Of course she's scared. Any person in their right mind would be. But it's only a ride, Anna. Surely you can make it onto a ride without feeling ill for once, you're always afraid of things like that, it's getting ridiculous ..."I am ridiculous, Anna thought. I can get on the ride, but I'm not sure I'll get off it again. I could be going round the track forever, and never get off. How horrible."... and I know Mary's older now, but if you go too, Anna, she'll be safe--"Okay," Anna said. "I'll take Mary on. I'll do it.” (5) This peer pressure is implied by her sister as she wants to go on the roller coaster ride. This pressure overall leads Anna to break down after she is forced to ride “The Scream” after mary forgets her bag on the ride. Obviously, These sibling rivalries overall lead to the suffering of Anna and Ravi. Both authors Desai and Briscoe demonstrate how sibling rivalries can force people into unwanted situations that can overall hurt their mental health and development as young children.
ReplyDeleteBoth Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream” demonstrate that children possess a heart that has inconsistent emotions and never knows what to expect; The story suggests that human heart is intricate and unpredictable. There's always a reason for a person to experience emotional changes. The person's emotion can be expressed truthfully from the heart or faked to fool someone. “Games at Twilight,” Ravi had this imagination of defeating Raghu and becomes the winner in a circle of older, bigger, luckier children. He expresses his feeling with a smile and couldn’t stop the thrill(Desai 6). When Ravi realized his unimportance to the others, Desai describes his emotions by craving a silent and lonely setting around him and use words related to death and sadness, such as the funeral. Ravi said “he wouldn’t join the game because their heads were bowed so sadly and feet trampled to melancholy.(Desai 8)" The game itself has no sorrow involved, the person with the mournful emotions will look at everything as negative. Desai describes Ravi's condition with extreme depression shows that if Ravi's mother could understand him a little bit more of why he didn't want to join the game with the other children and tries to comfort him with warm words and cares, he wouldn't have to experience the inner struggle that occurs in his heart. Similar emotion change also occurred in "The Scream." Mary has lost the rucksack that contains all the important items. "The tears were running freely down Mary's cheeks now, forming wet tracks like those made by tiny snails. (Anita 7)" Mary's expression turned to one of horror. "I can't!" she cried. "They won't let me back on now without queuing up again! (Anita 7)" Mary's facial expression has persuaded Anna that she's afraid of the punishment and felt sorry for losing the bag. With such an innocent face, you can't possibly think she is lying. When Anna walked out of the rollercoaster and saw Mary with a calm expression on her face, she couldn't understand what had happened. How can a person transform from a second of sadness to a sudden calmness? Anita applies good use of pathos to show how sympathy always trembles people's heart. "I'm sorry I changed my mind about going on the roller coaster," Mary told her, green eyes wide and innocent. "It was just too scary after all. (Anita 12)" If Anna could know more about her sister and understand what her characteristic and personality are like, she wouldn't fall into the trap in the beginning. When they see a girl crying, and the other person looking furious, they always assume that the girl is innocent and the other person has to be evil. Both stories summarize emotion changes and the only difference is that in the first story "The twilight game" Ravi's emotion switch from happiness to sadness and in the second story " The Scream" Mary's emotion alters from Sadness to happiness. You have to focus on details to see if the person's emotion change is real or fake for your and his good. Overall, when comparing both stories, it's fair to say that a person with tears will have more attention than the person with a smile.
ReplyDeleteBoth in Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream” suggest that childhood independence improves maturity; however, the stories suggest that children with a lack of parenting could result in feelings of solitary. In “Games at Twilight,” Desai demonstrates the impact being forgotten had on Ravi when she writes, “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 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” (8). This quote shows the effect on Ravi’s family forgetting him had on his confidence. Ravi’s entire body felt unsteady from the realization of his insignificance; suggesting, that Ravi may suffer from future feelings of abandonment. In “The Scream,” Anna and Mary’s Mum forces Anna to go on the ride with Mary even though Anna knows she will get sick. In this part of the passage, Anna learns her consequences of letting Mary go on the ride alone. “"You lost the bag?" Anna spoke the words very slowly and deliberately, unraveling the implications of them in her mind as she told them. Her mother's purse. The money. The keys. The tickets. The passports” (8). In this quote, Anna and Mary lost the bag containing the keys, tickets, and passports. As a result of their mother’s absence, Mary and Anna had to solve an extremely important issue on their own. This experience shows how Mary and Anna weren’t ready to be given a substantial amount of responsibility and had to solve a vital problem on their own. Furthermore, both stories significant detail and word choices that give both stories a deeper meaning. In “The Scream,” the moment of when Mary loses the bag includes details that influence the meaning of the text. “The tears were running freely down Mary's cheeks now, forming wet tracks like those made by tiny snails” (Briscoe 8). The description of Mary’s tears running down her face and the immense amount of sorrow shows how important the bag was to the family. Additionally, the story “Games at Twilight,” demonstrates strong details and word choices. “And the arc of thin arms trembled in the twilight, and the heads were bowed so sadly, and their feet tramped to that melancholy refrain so mournful, so helplessly, that Ravi could not bear it” (Desai 8). This quote shows detail on how Ravi felt tremendous sadness for his lack of triumph and insignificance at the end of the game. Nonetheless, both stories demonstrated that parents being absent throughout your child's life can result in feelings of loneliness.
ReplyDeleteBoth Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream” indicate that when parents are not involved in their kids lives the children tend to make poor choices. The way the authors word each of their stories they insinuate that uninvolved parenting may lead to the kids to be indifferent to consequences and/or chastisement from their elders. In “The Scream” Briscoe uses facial imagery to portray the feelings of Mary to the reader, mentioning “Puzzled, Anna looked at Mary, calmly licking the surface of an orange ice lolly. Mary stared solidly back at her, no trace of any emotion on her features.” This portrayal expresses how Mary seems to fake her innocence because she knows that she will not fake consequences even if Anna does tell because her mother favors her and does not get angry at her very often. Similarly in “Games at Twilight” Desai conveys Raghu as almost and animal saying “Snarling, he bent to pick up a stick and went off, whacking it against the garage and shed walls as if to beat out his prey.” When Desai describes Raghu as “snarling” she is trying to convey how savage and violent he had gotten over a small game of hide and seek showing how he has no fear of repercussions because his mother never chastises him so he is not scared for what might happen if he overreacts because he knows that he will not get in trouble because their mom just sits and takes baths instead of getting involved in any problems that might arise. Un Involvement of parents will lead to kids not being afraid of consequences and may eventually lead them to be arrested or to get in trouble with the law because they have never had to face repercussions before why would they start fearing them once they have become an adult. Since their parents were never involved they do not know that they can not get away with everything and this could lead them to be put into jail or facing other consequences.
ReplyDeleteBoth Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream” demonstrates the competition between siblings is much more fierce than close friends, but competition is a sign of a healthy relationship. In “The Scream” H. Briscoe’s does a good job of showing sibling rivalry "I'm sorry I changed my mind about going on the roller coaster," (pg.13)
ReplyDeleteI picked this quote because it really hits the point of siblings competing right on the head because I can almost picture Mary saying this to Anna because she knew that she just tricked her sister so well and she knew that it was going to take a lot for Mary Anna to get back at her for that. Also shown in Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” siblings have their wars and winning them feels really good “'I won, I won, I won,' he bawled, shaking his head so that the big tears flew. 'Raghu didn't find me. I won, I won—'” (pg.7) in this passage Rhavi was playing hide and seek and he really needed a good hiding spot and he found one so good he didn’t know how to get out of it, when Rhavi finally got out of the hiding spot he felt accomplished because he had beaten his brother. I connect to both of these passages because my brother and I are always trying to be the better kid and we usually are always battling about something. The battle isn’t always in let’s say hide and seek but when one of us says something that the other doesn’t think is right we fight about it until we have proof. I think the overall moral of these two stories is siblings are always trying to put the other down or battling to see who is better.
Both these texts demonstrate that Siblings do not care about each other's feelings, a big idea is true about sibling rivalry they suggest that we should _consider how our actions towards other people will make them feel, weather it is siblings or parents or not.
ReplyDelete“ 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.” - Games at Twilight”
This quote is talking about Ravi, and how his siblings and own mother made him feel. Ravi went missing and nobody cared, and his mother did not even realize he was gone. Ravi is very hurt by this, because non of his siblings could even pretend that they cared, and when Ravi got upset by it his mother only told him to stop being a baby.
“Anna was crying as she stepped out of the golden car, returned to the safety of the big, dark room and the warm, friendly glow of the exit sign. She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand, ashamed of being so afraid of a theme park ride. She was trembling all over, finding it difficult to walk straight, her mind and body exhausted.” - The Scream
This quote is referring to Anna and how she felt after the roller coaster. She was so upset after the roller coaster that she was crying, and she was truly traumatized by it, although yet again her sister and mother did not care. Her sister cared so little that she manipulated Anna into going on it. Anna's mother knew And did not want to go on the rollercoaster, and thought she might get sick if she did, yet she still was trying to make her go on it. Overall this illustrates the point that you never know how something that may seem harmless to you is going to affect or make another person feel, so I think both authors teach a lesson that it is important to consider others differences and accept and respect them when making decisions.
“Games at Twilight and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream” demonstrate that siblings are always competitive and will push each other to the limit. The different tones in the story show the rivalries between the siblings, and that the parents should try to step in when the siblings go after each other like they did in this story. In “Games at Twilight” the author uses imagery that makes it feel like the older sibling (Raghu) is hunting the younger sibling (Ravi). The competitiveness of siblings forces them to take just a game of hide and seek very serious, and this makes Ravi want to win so bad that he hides in his spot for hours. “There he sat smiling, knocking his heels against the bathtub, now and then getting up and going to the door to put his ear to the broad crack and listening for sounds of the game, the pursuer and the pursued, and then returning to his seat with the dogged determination of the true winner, a breaker of records, a champion.”(7)
ReplyDeleteThis quote shows that the game was a lot more to Ravi than it was anyone else. He wanted to beat his brother so bad that he hid until they forgot about him. “...wondering at his reappearance...”(8) In “The Scream” the sisters have a similar situation where one sibling loves roller coasters and wants to ride the scariest ride at the theme park while the other sibling is very scared of roller coasters. Anna who is scared of the roller coaster lets her sister ride the roller coaster while she sits on the outside. Mary loves the roller coasters so she gets on the ride and at the end of it she acts like she left the rucksack on the ride. Anna gets super scared and rides the ride to see if she can find the bag. The family however does not realize how scared Anna actually is of roller coasters. “Anna was crying as she stepped out of the golden car, returned to the safety of the big, dark room and the warm, friendly glow of the exit sign. She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand, ashamed of being so afraid of a theme park ride. She was trembling all over, finding it difficult to walk straight, her mind and body exhausted.”(11) Her sister pushed her to the limit with her fears and lied to the Mom so she wouldn’t get in trouble. Anna describes herself as trembling because she was so traumatized with what her sister put her through. The sibling rivalry is present in both of the stories, and the sibling relationships change the way the stories end up. I believe that both of these situations can happen in real life. Sibling rivalry is very real and I believe that games get competitive in most situations.
Both Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight “and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream” stories dementrates sibling rivalry by showing how the characters interact with each other throughout the story. In “Games at Twilight” Ravi, Raghu and their friend splay a form of hide and seek. Raghu is the one that is seeking and Ravi and all of their other friends go to hide. Ravi gets in the shed to hide and hours later he comes out from the shed to find everyone else playing another game without him. Ravi feels very left out and hurt that all of his friends forgot about him. Ravi is mad at Raghu for forgetting about him and that leads deeper into a sibling rivalry. This quote shows how hurt Ravi felt after he learned that they all forgot about him, “Ravi could not bear it. 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 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.” (Pg. 8). In “The Scream” Mary and Anna are in Spain at an amusement park, Mary who is younger than Anna was tasked with carrying the bag with all of the money and passports in it. Mary really wants to go on the roller coaster called The Scream, but Anna is deathly scared of it. Mary eventually gets to go on the roller coaster and when she gets off she tells her sister that she lost the bag with all of their money in it. Anna freaks out and has to go on the roller coaster to see if she can find the bag and when she gets off Mary is standing there with the bag. Anna is really mad at Mary and eventually passes out because she really was scared of the roller coaster. This quote shows how deceiving Mary is, “Puzzled, Anna looked at Mary, calmly licking the surface of an orange ice lolly. Mary stared solidly back at her, no trace of any emotion on her features. Anna's eyes settled on the brown leather rucksack slung over her sister's shoulder, almost as if it had never moved from its current position.” (pg. 12). Both of these stories show the sibling rivalry because they both have done something to make the other mad which later will cause more problems between them. In conclusion both of these stories show sibling rivalry which is one of the many ways these two stories connect.
ReplyDeleteBoth these texts demonstrate that parenthood plays role in kids lives, a big idea is true about parenthood and role models; they suggest that we should be there to support kids and push them to get past their fears but be there to help them when it is needed instead of ignoring the fears/issues. In “The Scream,” H. Briscoe uses description and imagery to describe the roller coaster, "It makes me sick just watching it." Anna followed her gaze a little way across the park, where the metal roller coaster frame was visible, standing high above the groups of people with their heads back, watching the string of golden cars racing around the loops, the noise of the machinery an incessant roar mixed with the terrified shrieks of the passengers” (6). The description of the roller coaster is painting a picture in the reader's mind of how Anna viewed the roller coaster so the readers get an idea of her perspective of the roller coaster. The way Anna was describing the roller coaster gives the readers an idea of how scary the roller coaster looks giving us the idea that she is scared of the roller coaster. The mother should of helped her push past her fears instead of letting her sister deal with the issue for her. The same goes for the story, “Games at Twilight,” Anita Desai describes how the children are on their own due to the mothers actions of not showing interest in the children. She uses description to help the readers understand that the mother wasn’t present so the children were acting out and doing things on their own, “maniacal yells that she retreated to her bath and the shower of talcum powder and the fresh sari that were to help ; her face the summer evening” (4). The author was showing that the mother was returning to her bath so therefore the children were on their on. These authors are teaching the readers that the role of parenthood on children when they are growing up teach them many skills such as right from wrong.
ReplyDeleteBoth Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream” provides that children's games have a bad effect on them if it involves their fears, however the stories give examples on how the children could have avoided their conflicts if they did not overreact . In “Games of Twilight” It was more of Ravi’s fault that he didn't check if the game was still going. Desai notes that “After standing in that position - his hand still on his neck, feeling the wet splodge of the squashed spider gradually dry - for minutes, hours, his legs began to tremble with the effort, the inaction.” how Ravi should have checked in on the game to see if everyone was still playing. Ravi was so caught up in his game he had no control over himself. Hide and seek can be a fun game but needs to have a time limit, or someone might be forgotten, Ravi did not realize that fast enough. In “The Scream” The game would be considered to be the roller coaster. Anna had to deal with her fear (rollercoaster/ game). Similar to Ravi, Anna did not notice that Mary was messing with her to go on the rollercoaster. Desai implies that “Anna began to panic. She sat up in the seat for a moment, and tried to think what could have happened to Mary's rucksack. Why wasn't it under the seat? Too late, Anna realised a metal bar had come down over her legs, leaving her unable to get out of the car.” Anna was thinking to fast and her stress was controlling her more than she was. Anna didn't even think that Mary was trying to get her on the ride and she just rushed to a conclusion that it wasn't a joke. In both the stories Ravi and Anna could have been fine and not gotten themselves into a conflict if they both did not overeat.
ReplyDeleteBoth of these texts demonstrate that siblings have a tendency to compete against each other. In Anita Desai’s “ Games at Twilight” she writes “ but, as Raghu's whistling grew angrier and sharper and his crashing and storming in the hedge wilder, Ravi suddenly slipped off the flower pot and through the crack and was gone.” (3-4) I don’t see why he would take the risk of going in there not knowing what was in there if he didn't really want to win. I think this demonstrates the competitiveness because he doesnt know whats in there and if it could hurt him or not. In H. Briscoe's “The Scream” he writes “ Mary stared slyly at her sister, narrowing her eyes and turning the corners of her mouth into a half-smile. ‘You're not scared are you Anna? You're scared of everything.’” I think this is Mary competing with her sister and trying to get her to go on the ride. She doesn't know how deep Anna’s fear of the roller coaster truly is. She is just trying to get her sister to do the same things she wants to do.
ReplyDeleteBoth Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream” demonstrate that children have the tendency to struggle with what’s fantasy and what’s real. The dark tones in both of the stories show a lot of fantasy and exaggeration in them. In “Games at Twilight,” Desai shows how all kids play and learn with the drive of wanting to be ‘big and grown up’. In the text Ravi the youngest child thinks, “To defeat Raghu - that hirsute, hoarse-voiced football champion - and to be the winner in a circle of older, bigger, luckier children - that would be thrilling beyond imagination. He hugged his knees together and smiled to himself almost shyly at the thought of so much victory, such laurels.” Throughout the story, Ravi fabricates this idea in his mind that he is lesser than his brother only because Raghu can do things Ravi cannot. Likewise, in the scream “The Scream,” Briscoe uses Anna’s imagination to show this fantasy that children create. In the story it says, “It was carved in the shape of an open mouth, thick red lips stretched in a silent scream, white teeth showing beneath and a black gaping hole.... She was suffocating, incapable of taking in oxygen with the scream wedged in her throat. The roller coaster pulled out of its dive and into the first loop, Anna hanging disorientated the wrong way up.” The fear Anna feels is irrational and she makes it so much worse than it actually is. Both these texts demonstrate that most of what we think is real is just a figment of our imaginations. These stories suggest that we should teach our children that fear while it is healthy shouldn’t be something that holds us back.
ReplyDeleteBoth “Games at Twilight” by Anita Desai, and “The Scream” by H. Briscoe show how easily siblings trust each other. Trusting too quickly and easily can lead to someone doing something they don’t want or being in an uncomfortable situation. In “Games at Twilight” Ravi trusted that Raghu would come find him and then he’d win the game, but then when he didn’t Ravi felt betrayed and forgotten. “'I won't be It - you have to find them all - all - All!’ ‘I know I have to, idiot,' Raghu said,” In this quote Manu tells Raghu that he has to find everyone, even though Ravi wasn’t there he assumed Raghu would find him because that’s the point of the game. Another quote shows how Ravi feels after he had trusted Raghu to find him and didn’t. “In this quote Manu tells Raghu that he has to find everyone, even though Ravi wasn’t there he assumed Raghu would find him because that’s the point of the game.” In “The Scream” it is also shown how trust can be broken easily. Mary convinced Anna that she had left the bag on the ride. Anna trusted her and went to go get the bag, but couldn’t find it and ended up stuck on the ride having to ride it. This conversation between the girls shows how Anna trusted Mary. “‘Mary replied flatly. "But Anna ... Anna I've lost the bag."..."Where did you lose the bag?" Anna said, trying to keep calm, but with a sense of urgency in her voice. "Where did you last have it?" "I had it on the ride," Mary sobbed. "In the car. I put it under the seat so it wouldn't fall out when it went upside down and I forgot to pick it up when I got out."...
ReplyDelete"Stay here," Anna said, and thrust her own shoulder bag into Mary's arms. "Don't move. Just look after this bag, okay, and I'm going to go and find the rucksack.’” After Anna got off the ride and went back to her sister and mother she has a similar feeling to Ravi that she was deceived and abandoned. “Her legs gave way from under her, and she couldn't stop herself falling. Down again. Would she ever stop falling? The world went black as her eyelids folded closed.” In both these stories it’s shown that trust can be broken easily, and that between siblings it’s easy to trust each other.
Both Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream” demonstrate that siblings have a tendency to beat eachother down,and make eachother feel worthless at times. In “The Scream” Mary betrays her sister into going on the rollercoaster she refused to go on, the author writes “ Too late, Anna realised a metal bar had come down over her legs, leaving her unable to get out of the car. Looking around at the roller coaster, she saw that the same thing had happened to everybody else in the cars.” Even Though Mary knew Anna was deathly afraid of the ride she manipulated her older sister into getting on the ride, and as I was reading this story I thought her sisters betrayal was cruel, but as I continued reading the story and put all of the parts together I realized Mary did that out of nothing but love for her sister, she had good intentions. When Anna realized it was too late, and she was stuck on the ride she was nervous, and the story illustrates even once she got off, Anna blacked out. Although the author expresses Marys ride as a very traumatic and awful experience, according to the picture Anna’s mother bought Anna doesn't show any sign of fear. “"You don't half look frightened in the picture, Anna," commented Mum.” This quote from the short story makes me imagine in a couple of years, Anna may look back at the photo and wonder why she was ever scared, and may even laugh about it. To many people don’t take advantage of being young and living life to its fullest, so without Anna’s sister, Mary, manipulating her into getting on the roller coaster Anna would have never ridden it, and possibly could of been forever afraid. In the story “Games at Twilight” written by Anita Desai’s the relationship of the siblings is seen troubled, and distant. Ravi, a sensitive and imaginative boy feels constantly pushed down from the rude and aggressive behavior of his older siblings. He is tired of being kicked around by his big brother. “She pulled the boys roughly apart. There was a tearing sound of cloth but it was lost in the heavy panting and angry grumbling and no one paid attention to the small sleeve hanging loosely off a shoulder.” At the beginning of the game, when Ravi suggests Raghu as the seeker because he is the eldest, there's a scuffle between them, and Raghu tears his shirt sleeve. As I think of this quote it just expresses how sibling rivalry can be so competitive and fierce. Although the story of “The Scream” illustrates this more than the short story “Games at Twilight” I believe that siblings will always compete and challenge one another, but at the end of the day they will do anything for one another. Being young is not always an innocent and happy time ,but I think both stories showcase that life is very short and we are insignificant in the large scheme of things, so I think all siblings will someday depend on each other and love each other.
ReplyDeleteBoth Anita Desai “Games at Twilight” and H. Briscoe “The Scream” prove that sometimes family members can be a negative impact on each other. “With a whimper he burst through the crack, fell on his knees, got up and stumbled on stiff, be numbed legs across the shadowy yard, crying heartily by the time he reached the veranda so that when he flung himself at the white pillar and bawled, 'Den! Den! Den!' his voice broke with rage and pity at the disgrace of it all and he felt himself flooded with tears and misery.” This quote from “Games at Twilight” really puts into perspective how hurt Ravi was once he found out his family completely forgot about him and continued to play other games. With the way Anita wrote this passage, you can almost picture this or put yourself in that situation. She uses so many strong descriptive words while talking about Ravi’s feelings. After reading the first few words the energy just drops and you can feel him falling onto his knees in dissapointemnt and the tears streaming down his face. The fact that no one even relized or acknowaged he was gone or missing is really negitive to him cause now he doesnt feel important and thats not fair or true. Along with that in “The Scream” by H. Briscoe her mother isn’t paying attention to how frightened Anna is from rides. ‘"Don't be silly Mary," her mother began in Anna's defence. "Of course she's scared. Any person in their right mind would be. But it's only a ride, Anna. Surely you can make it onto a ride without feeling ill for once, you're always afraid of things like that, it's getting ridiculous ...’" The mother claims Anna is being ridiculous for having a COMMON REASONABLE FEAR. So the fact that Anna’s mother encouraged Anna to go is pretty toxic because well I mean facing your fears is one thing but facing your fears against you will is another.
ReplyDeleteSo in the real world when someone feels insignificant or is forced to do something they can get really sad and like yikers.
Both Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream” demonstrate that childhood sometimes isn’t fair, however, the way the parent treats the kid will have a great effect on his/her life. Anna from “The Scream” was at the amusement park when she was forced to ride the ride, “The combination of Mary's grinning face, the swirling colours of the theme park, and the painful heat of the sun was too much” (Briscoe). Anna had just finished the the ride and everything was too hard to deal with at the time. When no one could find Ravi after a while he came out and everyone forgot about him, “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”(Desai). The tone that each author uses is very serious and dark. When Ravi form “Games at Twilight” lies in the grass, it is like he has given up on everything. Also, “The Scream” is very dramatic when Anna was thinking about normal things at an amusement park and she said it was all to much. In the real world, people wouldn’t have time to deal with people who are this dramatic.
ReplyDeleteBoth these texts demonstrate that parental absence can lead to having too much freedom and ignoring instructions from superiors. They suggest that parents should be more involved and enforce guidelines that they set. In "The Scream," when Anna goes back to find the rucksack from the roller coaster and then realizes that Mary had tricked her into getting on the ride, the amount of freedom given to the girls allows Mary to lie and tell their mother that Anna chose to ride the roller coaster. In “Games at Twilight,” the mother allows the kids to go outside but instructs them to stay on the porch because of the sun. She then promptly goes to the bathroom and leaves the kids alone. Seeing as they are not being supervised, the kids disregard their mother’s instructions and leave the porch to go play. A real world example of how kids disregard rules is when there is a substitute teacher and students disobey normal rules because they know that they can get away with it. Overall, parents should be more involved when their kids need to follow rules, otherwise, kids will have too much freedom and ignore the rules that have been set.
ReplyDeleteBother these texts demonstrate that parental absence can lead to bad decisions and making decisions based on how other people think of you. They suggest that parents should teach and have kids make their own decisions based on what they taught them hat was right and wrong. In "Games of Twilight" by Anita Desai, the mother in the house tells the kids not to exit the porch the first thing the kids was leave the porch. I believe that if the mother was watching the children that Ravi would not have gotten forgotten about, and if she had taught them the correct thing to do they would have stayed on the porch without super vision. A real world example would be kids ending up doing drugs and drink alcohol because of peer pressure if parents teach them the right thing and instill the right thing in them, they never fall to peer pressure. Yet in "The Scream" it's a different scenario instead of the parents not telling their kids the right thing it's parental absences if the mother was there she would have told her kids to do the right thing and not trick mary into going onto the ride. A real world example would relate back to peer pressure and parents staying close to their children and making sure their in check. So in conclusion, parents should always keep up with what their children are doing and make sure they aren't going to fall to peer pressure and know whats right from wrong.
ReplyDeleteIn both Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream”, both articles show that siblings have a very fierce competition “factor” but is a sign to a very healthy relationship between them. In H. Briscoe’s “The Scream”, Mary tries to get Anna to get on, but Anna refuses again and again. In point in the story, Mary says to Anna, "Mum said you had to," was all Mary said. "You promised." (Briscoe pg5). I picked this specific quote because I know this same situation all too well. I connect most to Anna in this story, because I am the older sibling who cares too much, but I’m also more cautious. (At one point scared of rollercoasters as well.) and my brother is Mary. Fearless, but irresponsible. Now, in the story it doesn’t state who is older, but I can tell Anna is the older sibling because of the way she acts. I have run the same way she has towards the ride, felt the same fear, and came up with the same excuses that the author describes she has. In Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight”, however, we get a closer look into a younger sibling’s feelings, in a game of hide and seek. In this story, the author writes, “. The ignominy of being forgotten - how could he face it? He felt his heart go heavy and ache inside him unbearably.” (Desai pg8). I picked this quote because while I haven’t ever been a youngest sibling, I have been in the same situation as Ravi in this story. All throughout the story, Ravi is hiding from his older brother, Raghu, and he is almost caught several times, but towards the end, he feels a sensation of victory, until he shows himself, and learns he has been forgotten by his peers. I think this is one of the worst feelings in the world. Just Imagine, losing Hide and Seek for a long time, and being the first one found every round. Until you find a new spot, that no-one knows about, so you decide to hide there. As the round goes on, you are not the first one found, instead you are thinking about what your peers are thinking like “Where’s Luke?” and “We can’t find Luke!”. Eventually, you’ve had your fun, and decide to show yourself, only to find out that your peers have completely forgotten about you, and they treat you poorly for being so forgettable. I think both stories are very similar, because both stories have a very good understanding of how a child’s mind works, and how a different roles as siblings make all the difference.
ReplyDeleteIn both Anita Desai’s “Games at Twilight” and H. Briscoe’s “The Scream” short stories, it demonstrates that there is almost always sibling rivalry within every family. However the authors show us that it is a normal thing and that it can help learn things. In “Games at Twilight”, Desai explains how when Ravi came out of the shed that he had been in for hours, he was hit with disappointment as he did not get the reaction he wanted. In the Scream Mary used her age against her to go be more responsible and to get the bag, “Mary said, “"No, of course not," Mary answered. "But you were supposed to be looking after me. You should go back and get the bag." That connects back to Games at Twilight when Ragu sacred Ravi but it was to help him grow up at the same time. “Snarling, he bent to pick up a stick and went off, whacking it against the garage and shed walls as if to beat out his prey...To defeat Raghu - that hirsute, hoarse-voiced football champion - and to be the winner in a circle of older, bigger, luckier children - that would be thrilling beyond imagination. He hugged his knees together and smiled to himself almost shyly at the thought of so much victory, such laurels.” This goes to show that siblings will always fight and have a relationship but in the end it will help them in some sort of way.
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