SOURCE: Salgado, Minoli. “When Seeing Is Not Believing: Epiphany in Anita Desai's Games at Twilight.” Journal of Modern Literature 20, no. 1 (summer 1996): 103-08.

In the following essay, Salgado analyzes the ways the individual stories of Games at Twilight question not only the concept of epiphany but also the potential for spiritual awareness in general, suggesting that Desai treats this culturally transcendent phenomenon within a culturally specific context.

Epiphany is a central concept in short story criticism. Defined by James Joyce as a “sudden spiritual manifestation,”¹ the idea of epiphany seems to be implicitly accepted by a range of critics as one of the key elements structuring the short story. Mary Pratt, for example, claims that “the moment of truth stands as the model for the short story, the way of life stands as a model for the novel,”² suggesting that the revelatory nature of epiphany is somehow supported by...