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Most Dangerous Game Figurative Language Analysis

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The self-enthralling tale of an expedition gone awry, titled “The Most Dangerous Game”, written by Richard Connell, centers around an individual named Rainsford who wishes to go to Rio de Janeiro to hunt for animals in the jungle through yacht travel. However, after stumbling off the yacht when hearing gunshots, he swims in the direction of the gunfire and encounters a human hunter referred to as General Zaroff. In his short story, "The Most Dangerous Game", Richard Connell utilizes figurative language to accentuate the multitude of moods displayed throughout the course of the text. The employment of these literary devices implies that Connell aimed to elicit motifs of angst and peril in his piece.
Connell deploys the literary device of metaphors perpetually throughout his thriller to delineate a suspenseful mood. Subsequent to the complication of the plot, Connell writes, “The lights of the yacht became faint and ever vanishing fireflies” (14). Here, Connell portrays the current setting, of the yacht moving farther away from Rainsford in the middle of the ocean, through analogizing the lights of the yacht he occupied previously to fireflies. In turn, this leaves the reader to feel a sense of enticement and allows them to question where the fate of Rainsford now lies, since he presently has no form of transportation to achieve tranquility, thus abating Rainsford’s chances for survival. Furthermore, the author manifests a theme of trepidation in this moment of the short story due to vividly describing the scene as greatly dark and sullen, which therefore unveils mere fear in Rainsford since he will soon have to formulate an elaborate plan to find safety. Moreover, one observes the concept of menace in this portion of the text, for the author writes current destiny of Rainsford as rather cryptic which presents danger for Rainsford and his life. Whilst Rainsford partakes in General Zaroff’s lethal game, narrator remarks, “The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse” (24). Taking into consideration that mice are cat’s prey, Connell, through comparing General Zaroff to a cat and Rainsford to a mouse, limns how General Zaroff has more dominant in the game thus far, ergo diminishing Rainsford’s possibilities for

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