Peter senses his brother's terror and, aided by his instinctive grasp of his brother's psychological fears and needs, is able to guess where Francis has hidden. Cozy elements such as an egg-and-spoon race, a three-legged race, and a birthday cake do little to diminish the mounting horror of the story, as Francis is increasingly terrified by the prospect of being required to play hide-and-seek in the dark.Īs the climactic hide-and-seek game begins, the adults present turn out the lights, and the children designated to hide, including Peter and Francis, are required to scatter. The brief appearance of a child's nurse, and other servants, help establish the social setting. Descriptions of the home of the Mortons, where the story begins, and the Henne-Falcons, where it ends, make clear that the ambiance of the story is that of the English upper class between the two World Wars. Peter and Francis will be separated again during a game of hide-and-seek that is the scheduled climax of a birthday party for a family acquaintance, ten-year-old Colin Henne-Falcon. The unnamed narrator speculates that Francis suffered psychological trauma when he was briefly separated from Peter during the birth process. The story makes clear that although they are identical twins, they possess profound psychological differences – Peter, the elder by several minutes, is presented as a healthy child with an intensively protective attitude towards his impaired brother, while Francis is depicted as being challenged by an intense anxiety disorder. The two principal protagonists of 'The End of the Party' are nine-year-olds, Peter Morton and Francis Morton. It is viewed as a classical expression of the English tradition of horror fiction, as it elicits a well-founded and increasingly intense sense of impending doom without inserting any scenes of physical violence. It was first published in 1929, and has been reprinted many times in anthologies. ' The End of the Party' is a short story by the English writer Graham Greene (1904–1991).

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