“The Most Dangerous Game,” by Richard Connell, is a narrative about Mr. Sanger Rainsford, a celebrated hunter, who finds himself on a secluded island after falling overboard a yacht. Rainsford locates a large building on the island and meets General Zaroff, who invites him to rest and replenish his health in his home. After Zaroff explains that he also enjoys hunting, he also reveals that he has discovered a new, more dangerous animal to hunt: humans. Zaroff forces Rainsford to become the hunted in order to win his freedom and return to the mainland. Connell’s central idea suggests that instinct does not always yield to reason.…
Id, ego and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche. In The Most Dangerous Game, three characters, Zaroff, Rainsford and Whitney correspond respectively to id, ego and super-ego. What’s more, these characters also correspond to three parts of the theme.…
An author uses literary devices to allow the reader to engage. The author uses descriptive writing to enhance the individual’s imagination. It also gives them ways to relate and a divergent way to think about writing. The three most important literary devices used in The Most Dangerous Game are similes, imagery, and foreshadowing. Richard Connell utilizes these devices to create a fun and inspiring story.…
Commercial fiction is meant to excite the reader, to help them escape reality and "The Most Dangerous Game" has both mystery and suspense do to the nature of the continuous adventure throughout the story. This forces the reader to continuously read on to discover the next piece of the puzzle or the next twist that may occur. This could be shown through the two characters in their continuous ultimate battle against one another, this giving the example of man vs man. The two characters include, the Protagonist, Sangor Rainsford and the Antagonist, General Zaroff. Both characters present themselves to be stock characters, Rainsford being recognized world-wide for his writing and considered to be known as the western “good guy”, whereas Zaroff is made out to be the “bad guy” a recognizable Russian, with facial elements such as his thick eyebrows along with a pointed military mustache. Russians being strong enemies to the West, this begins to demonstrate elements of good vs evil. Commercial fiction is also expected to have a defined plot, majority of the time people refer to this specific plot as “page turner”.Rainsford built a Malay man-catcher and a Burmese tiger pit to try and escape Zaroff. After these traps have been set, the reader can’t help but wonder whether it is going to serve its purpose and work in his favor. After finding out the results of the traps, you can’t help but wonder what will happen next. Towards the end of the hunt, Rainsford “leaped far out into the sea.” As the reader reads this, they can’t help but wonder what Rainsford was thinking and what was going to happen to him.…
Sanger Rainsford and General Zaroff are very alike in some ways. Both want to have the upper hand in an argument or situation. In the beginning of “The Most Dangerous Game”, Zaroff has the upper hand as he knows the terrain and has a threatening bodyguard. He allowed Rainsford to eat and stay at his château after he fell overboard. At the end of the story, Rainsford has the upper hand as he won “the game”, surprises Zaroff, and forces Zaroff to play the game he forced himself (Rainsford) to play.…
Can a man be driven from humble humanity to gross inhumanity by circumstance or situation? What effect do one's choices and training have on his morals? At some point in our lives we will all be forced to answer questions similar to these, and two characters in Connell's story "The Most Dangerous Game" are not exempt from these life decisions. Sanger Rainsford and General Zaroff are both wealthy, both are hunters, and eventually both men are put into situations where critical choices must be made. The choices the men make are derived from different situations, but both have similar results.…
Authors use many literary elements, such as figurative language, to write out the theme of their stories. In the two short stories, “Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe and “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, the themes are described by literary elements. “The Cask of Amontillado” is about a man trying to get revenge by tricking another man telling him about having expensive wine. “The Most Dangerous Game” is an eccentric short story about a General who lives on an island and hunts humans. The theme of irony delineate the themes for both of the short stories.…
The short story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell is composed of character, setting and conflict. One of the critical themes in the short story is irony, which plays a major role in the story. There is irony in the setting, a remote jungle island, the conflict, murder verses hunting, and the characters, General Zaroff who is a crazed man-hunter and Mr. Rainsford, his prey.…
In an action movie, producers and directors add certain music to certain scenes to make them more suspenseful, sad, etc. Many authors add details to a story about the setting to accomplish the same goal. In the story, Most Dangerous Game, the author adds many details about the dark night, General Zaroff’s mansion, and the jungle to add more suspense, or terror, to the story.…
The exciting suspense of action of Richard Connell's " The Most Dangerous Game" brings in a dark, mysterious, and evil setting as it takes us to a young man's storm of thoughts about the game of hunting and the instinct to survive. Rainsford was his name, and he was a proud hunter full of wit and reason. He loved hunting and did not care nor know about the feelings of the "huntees". He eventually meets up with another hunter named Zaroff who gives him the feeling of being hunted and changes his ideas of hunting. Zaroff was bored with hunting because his intelligence exceeded the animals' instincts. Therefore, he set his eyes on the most dangerous hunt ever, the hunt between him and Rainsford.…
The first irony in the story is the title. “The Most Dangerous Game” becomes a horrifying reality rather than a game for Rainsford when he becomes the hunted. Rainsford has been the hunter his whole career until he landed on Shiptrap Island. By the time he realizes what he had gotten himself into, he finds himself fleeing for his life. The readers may think this short story is about a mere game, but it becomes more than that in actuality.…
Rainsfordss passion for hunting is very evident within the story. He considered himself a hunter because he has traveled all around the world and wrote many books on hunting. He expresses his feelings for the sport during the story calling it the best sport in the world.…
Without conflict, there would be no brilliance or appeal to a story. It is a vital element in literature that presents the character a challenging struggle from an opposing force, whether it be nature, an antagonist, or the character himself. Such as, “‘Rainsford,’ called the general, ‘if you are within sound of my voice, as I suppose you are, let me congratulate you. Not many men know how to make a Malay mancatcher’” (Connell 13). This demonstrates a competition for General Zaroff, granted that he was a hunting prodigy. Very rarely, has someone been close to winning the game, Rainsford being one of them. General Zaroff recognized that possibility and perhaps have had glimpses of fear and uncertainty. On the other hand, “Rainsford knew he could do one of two things. He could stay where he was and wait. That was suicide. He could flee. That was postponing the inevitable” (Connell 14). This was the climatic struggle for Rainsford from the story because of his hopelessness. He could not dismiss the fact that at one point, he would die from the…
This type of point of view adds a chance to view the story from two different perspectives. It works out because it also adds more interest to plot, instead of reading the story through the eyes of one character. If “The Most Dangerous Game” were told in a different perspective, like an objective point of view, the story would lose a lot of important aspects to it, like the thoughts and feelings of Rainsford and General Zaroff, and it would also lose it’s uniqueness. The point of view for this story affects the reader’s responses to the characters by helping the reader understand the characters better. When Connell writes, “Rainsford's first impression was that the man was singularly handsome,” he is explaining Rainsford’s inner thoughts about…
“Are you,” Abby, the player whom I had just met recently, questioned, “gonna be our goalie for the tournament?”…