Comparing Whitney And Rainsford In The Most Dangerous Game

In my opinion, General Zaroff shows more diligence than Rainsford throughout the story. General Zaroff is one who does not give up, no matter what the situation may be. He mainly does not give up on hunting and this is why he shows more diligence. For example, “Hurled me against a tree,” said the general. “Fractured my skull. But I got the brute.” This direct quote from the general shows how he does not quit hunting for prey until they are dead. Like he had said, he had a fractured skull, but that still did not give him a reason to just give up. Diligence is to show effort into things and that is exactly what General Zaroff did when hunting. He not only showed diligence, but he showed his dedication in hunting.

Zaroff is purely unconscious, and has no compassion or remorse for his actions. His demented mind forces him to believe that it is moral to hunt all living creatures, when in reality he is actually murdering a human soul. The general is sadistic as well as arrogant. He is mentally unstable, insane, and he denies the fact that he is committing something as bad as what he is doing. According to General Zaroff, hunting for him has been consumed by boredom and he no longer sees hunting as a challenge. Consequently, he chooses to hunt a certain “creature” with a higher mental stability of the creatures he has hunted before.(Connell 21) As Zaroff became comfortable with Rainsford, he

Rainsford is not a hero due to his egocentric attitude and hypocritical behavior. After Rainsford hears the hounds and sees Ivan and General Zaroff approaching, he then creates a trap to kill General Zaroff. When Rainsford hears the footsteps stop, he looks back at the trap and “[sees] in the shallow valley that General Zaroff was still on his feet. But Ivan was not. The knife, driven by the recoil of the springing tree, had not wholly failed” (Conell 14). This quote proves that Rainsford does not obtain the qualities of an altruistic and civil being. This is due to Rainsford wanting to kill General Zaroff for his own survival. Furthermore, once Rainsford accidentally kills Ivan, he swims away in refuge from General Zaroff.

Throughout this journal, Zaroff can be characterized as mysterious and evil. First off, Zaroff is mysterious. One way he is mysterious is that he knows Rainsford’s name and he read Rainsford’s hunting book. In the book it says, “I’ve read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet…” (Connell 3). This quote shows that Zaroff is interested in hunting dangerous animals and knows that Rainsford is good at hunting

Rainsford was justified in killing General Zaroff. For instance General Zaroff said “Your brain against mine, Your woodcraft against mine.” (Connell 6). This shows that General Zaroff gives right to rainsford to try and outsmart him and try to win by surviving. If rainsford outsmarts him then he will get the victory or he can do what Zaroff wanted to do to him which was kill him. Also Rainsford disagreed when Zaroff told him about the hunting game. “No,General,”he said “I will not hunt.” Then Zaroff basically said he had to or ivan will kill him.(Connell 9).This quote means that Rainsford did not like the idea that he had to stay in a jungle and

To begin, Zaroff and Rainsford can be compared by their most common interest, hunting. Rainford expresses his genuine enjoyment for hunting early on as he states proudly to Whitney, “The best sport in the world.” (Connell 1) When speaking to General Zaroff for the first time, the general seems to already know who he is, justifying it due to his familiarity with Rainsford’s novel on hunting; “It is a very great pleasure and honor to welcome Mr. Sanger Rainsford, the celebrated hunter, to my home.” (Connell 5) This demonstrates Rainsford notoriety for the hunt, as well as Zaroffs infatuation with it. Furthermore, Zaroff appears to be obsessed with the hunt as he displays countless mounted heads/hunting trophies, and dedicates his entire island and life to the hunt. We see this to be further evident based on the similar skill levels displayed by both characters in the hunt. Both men appear proficient in tracking prey, identifying weaponry, techniques in killing prey, and survivalist methods. Rainsford effectively identifies the technique and weapon used by Zaroff when we awaked on the island to evidence of a hunt; “A twenty-two…The hunter had his nerve with him to tackle it with a light gun.” (Connell 4) Later within the hunt, Rainsford evades Zaroff with crude trails (recalling the lore of the fox hunt), techniques and traps learned from people of his travels, as well as logical level-headed thinking. These efforts are noted as impressive but seemingly ineffective to Zaroff , as he finds Rainsford at every turn; tracking his path in pitch black darkness within the heart of the jungle, a feat doubted by Rainsford. Finally, their common experience of war, a key factor in revealing Zaroff’s perception of human life, allows us to compare these characters. Zaroff

In the short story ”The Most Dangerous Game”, Rainsford was justified in killing General Zaroff. General Zaroff was a hunter who lived on an isolated island where he hunted stranded humans. Rainsford was also a hunter, who had been stranded on the island. General Zaroff intended to hunt Rainsford, which lead to Rainsford effort to survive. The only way for Rainsford to survive was to kill General Zaroff.

After the visit and the survival of the 72 hour bet, Rainsford killed Zaroff in his room, but we do not know what happened after that. If Rainsford decided to stay at the

Firstly, Rainsford and Zaroff differ in their personal hunting styles or in what they hunt. In fact, Zaroff hunts people. Rainsford once said to Zaroff “Hunting? Good God, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder” (Connell 64). This shows that Rainsford is proving to the audience that Zaroff is a murderer not a hunter.

We see this from the beginning of the story, Zaroff is cold, cruel, and dishonest from the start of the story until the end we can never truly trust what he says. We see examples of his dishonest behavior when he tells Rainsford that he won’t use dogs then he inevitably does. Rainsford on the other hand is a more compassionate individual although he hunts and kills animals for sport we see early in the story he questions these actions when he realizes how the animals might feel when he is put in the same situation as them. Despite the fact he is actively trying to kill Zaroff during the story, he’s only doing it for self-defense even at the end when he willingly chooses to duel and kill Zaroff we can still see he is trying to protect the life pf the next poor soul to come to the island by ending Zaroff’s reign of

The more we learn about Zaroff, the more we learn that he doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong. At one point, he describes himself by saying “I’m a hunter, not a murderer.” Additionally, when Zaroff is ready to begin the game he is quite calm and full of confidence. He had no idea that Rainsford would be able to fight back and win the game. This personality given to Zaroff was crucial and made the plot twist even more

Rainsford wants to show General Zaroff that he is wrong but he knows that the only way to reason with him is by being hunted. Rainsford knows that he must be quick- witted when he is making these decitions. Rainsford knows that he is morally better that General Zarofff but since Rainsford is so humble he lets his actions speak louder than his word. In the end, they did. It might have helped General

Rainsford got hunted by Zaroff,

Rainsford sees General Zaroff studying him or going to tell him something. When Zaroff tells Rainsford what he really hunts, Rainsford was surprised that Zaroff hunts only

Once Zaroff goes back to his house because he thinks that Rainsford is dead, he sees that Rainsford is in his house standing in front of Zaroff. Rainsford kills Zaroff and gets to leave the island.