In the beginning of the novel, the cellar was mentioned briefly and gave the impression that something ominous happened down there. At the dinner table at the anniversary celebration, Paul drunkenly says ,”I think we should play a game after dinner. We should play the cellar game.” There was silence after this mention of the game, and Alison questions what Paul was talking about. The next chapter is all about this “cellar game” and does not seem to move the plot forward. It does, however, give the reader and idea about each of the children’s roles and memories of childhood. In addition, the reader gains an insight regarding the relationship among all of the children and how they interacted. 

At the first mention of this game, it seems as if this is some horrible memory that haunts all the children. However, this chapter describes it as a place of imagination and creativity where the cellar could be made into anything they wanted, or more importantly, what Paul wanted. He is the oldest, so he gets to make all of the rules. If one of the children do not comply to his rules, they must “forfeit”  which results in being forced to do something entertaining to the others.This could mean being forced to eat a spider, like Sandra had to one time, or walking around the house in underwear and getting in trouble with Alison or Charles. If someone refused to accept a forfeit, he/she must take a penalty which is “chalked up on the board, to be there for perpetuity.” As kids, the appeal of this game was the sense of privacy and secrecy and a place that belonged solely to the six of them. 

It is significant that there is an entire chapter in this book that is devoted to just describing the cellar game. The six children despise it now, but it had significance. They could be whoever they wanted and lived whatever life they pleased in the cellar without their overpowering mother. It was maybe even painful for them to grow out of that childhood stage of pretending because they were always forced to live with reality and with no escape.  It could also be a painful memory because it was a time when they were once dominated by Paul, who now has grown to be their mother’s favorite despite his troubled life.