Rainsford, a big game hunter, falls overboard on his boat and falls into the Caribbean Sea. He struggles to keep his head up but he manages to make it to the closest island shore. Rainsford soon discovers that he is on shipwreck island, a island that most people don’t escape. While he explores the island he runs into many life threatening encounters. In order to escape he will have to come up with good skills to keep him alive while he participates in General Zaroff’s game. In order to win this game he will have to hide in the jungle for three nights and to not get seen or caught, and if he does then General Zaroff, another hunter, gets to kill him. Many survival traits are developed throughout the story that keeps Rainsford alive. In the “Most …show more content…
As soon as Rainsford stops running to find somewhere to hide, he thinks of ways that he can lead General Zaroff onto a different trail. According to the text, “He executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled on his trail again and again, recalling all the love of the fox hunt and all the dodges of the fox.”(27). This shows that he is developing survival traits because he is making it look like he is going all different directions so that General Zaroff won’t know which way Rainsford was going which he wouldn't be able to follow. When Rainsford hears a sound he thinks that someone was coming so he finds a way to hide himself. Also according to the short story, “He flattened himself down on the limb, and through a screen of leaves almost as thick as tapestry, he watched. The thing that was approaching was a man”(28). Being able to not be seen is a important thing to do in different circumstance because if he gets seen then he will lose the …show more content…
Rainsford does not want to loose so he wants to slow general Zaroff to slow down. He accomplishes this by setting up a trap. According to the text, “But he was not quite quick enough; the dead tree, delicately adjusted to rest on the cut living one, crashed and struck the general a glancing blow on the shoulder as it fell but for his alertness, he must have been smashed beneath it” (29). General Zaroff falls for the trick and gets injured. The idea of slowing down was accomplished which causes him to go home and take care of his wound. While Rainsford finally gets time alone during the night he thinks up another plan. According to the story, “ He stepped back from the quicksand a dozen feet or so, and like some huge prehistoric beaver, he began to dig”(30). This quote shows that he is developing more survival traits because he is figuring out how he can make certain traps with using natural resources around
How did Rainsford become successful against General Zaroff’s manhunt? That’s the main question to ask. I will be giving three different ways of how Rainsford outsmarted or set traps for General Zaroff. There will be his first trick, first trap, and last trick. There are many others but those are the most interesting.
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.
Lastly, Rainsford would resume hunting for the fact that he needs to hunt for survival. He would need hunting to survive like when he used the “Burmese tiger pit” to claim General Zaroff’s best dogs (Connell 35). In order for Rainsford to survive the pack of dogs he had to dig a hole and stick sharpened saplings to the bottom of it to possibly catch Zaroff or the pack of hounds. Another reason that Rainsford would needs hunting to survive is when he “swam [because he] found it quicker than walking” to General Zaroff’s home (Connell 36). Rainsford swam all the way to Zaroff’s house so the hounds couldn’t track him down by his scent.
In the beginning of when Rainsford first met General Zaroff, Mr. Rainsford could not go to sleep because of how general Zaroff said that he hunted his own kind. Own kind meaning that General Zaroff hunts human beings. Mr. Rainsford thought that General Zaroff was crazy for hunting people when General Zaroff said that it wasn’t murder when it is. Rainsford reaction to his first day on Shop Trap Island is that he gets the creeps and has an eerie feeling once he sees the creepy old Island, then he heard a sound that startled him. That sound was a gunshot that was shot three times then he lost his balance and fell off the ship causing him to freak out and try to survive swimming towards the shore. So you can tell that he was scared to death when
When we read this, we know that Rainsford is terrified of being found by General Zaroff. Throughout the story, we see Rainsford’s many survival attempts. The plot is mainly focused on Rainsford's survival while he is being hunted by General Zaroff. “You’ll never hang me”. I’ll be back in a while!
Rainsford is welcomed into his home and is given clothes, food, and shelter. He later finds out that Zaroff is an experienced hunter and has begun to get get tired of hunting animals. Zaroff says, “Nah, tigers are just too easy at this point.” Rainsford makes the discovery that Zaroff does not hunt animals he hunts people. Zaroff undergoes a major character change when he finds this out because for once he is the huntee. Rainsford has three days to maneuver throughout the wilderness without being killed by Zaroff. Through Rainsfords animal like actions of being the huntee the reader is able to see his many physical difficulties while escaping from Zaroff. He says “new things to learn about fear” referring to the time spent in the jungle. This shows that Rainsford has never experienced fear in this way which causes him to develop a new
Also, on the first day of hunting Zaroff found Rainsford on a tree but lets him go. Since one of the rules to the game is if he finds his prey he will kill them, you would think that he would confront Zaroff. However, this was not the case. Zaroff ended up letting Rainsford
Rainsford experienced how it was to be hunted. The general was going to kill Rainsford another day. “The general was saving him for another day’s sport”(Connell 34). He knows how it feels to be played with and tricked. Rainsford was being hunted as if he was an animal. Rainsford was trying to confuse Zarroff of following his trail. “He executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled on his trail again and again recalling all the lore of the fox hunt and all the dodges of the fox.”(Connell 34). He knows that he has to think to outsmart the general. Rainsford was being hunted so he was trying to confuse the general by acting like an animal. Zarroff was the cat and the mouse was rainsford. “The
In this example Rainsford use valuable time and energy to make a trap that may or may not work,why would he do this. The only good explanation is that he wants to dominate Zaroff by either killing him with the trap or knock him out long enough to do the job
Rainsford hesitated. He heard the hounds. Then he leaped far out into the sea...” This shows that Zaroff's actions scare Rainsford and force him to trust his survival instincts, but in the end, this will cause Rainsford to become a better person. Finally, Zaroff thinks that Rainsford is dead.
In the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” the main character, Rainsford,falls off of a yacht that he is aboard of while on his way to Rio De Janeiro. When falling off the yacht he encounters a few obstacles on the way to shore, Rainsford gets stuck in the waves created by the boat and is slowly drowning, as he calls for help no one hears him and it gets harder for him to cry for help as the sea water keeps rushing into his mouth. At a slow pace rainsford swims himself to land after hearing three gunshots. He looks at the bullet shells and notices that they are large and a big animal must have been killed, and if a big animal is killed then there's someone who killed it, and if there's someone then there's must be food.
He knows it would be insane to blunder on through the dark, even if he had the strength. Rainsford behaves foolishly when he falls into the water because he is curious about the sounds coming from the island. He is also foolish because he assumes that Zaroff will not be hunting him, when it should be clear that Rainsford is exactly the prey he is looking for. He also has a strong sense of moral responsibility.
Rainsford is a good survivor because he is experienced and careful. One trait that makes Rainsford a good survivor is his experience. Rainsford’s experience allows him to survive in any situation. Because he “has hunted for a long time,” he was intelligent enough to climb the tree and hide from Zaroff (Connell XX). His knowledge of hunting helps him when he becomes hunted by Zaroff. He is a skilled survivor because he trusted his experience to guide him to his survival. Another trait that makes him a good survivor is his ability to be careful in every harmful situation. While he was in the tree, to keep him careful “he flattened himself down on the limb,” when he realized “something was coming through the bush, coming slowly, carefully, coming
By Rainsford being able to figure this out, and adapt to the situation that he was put in, he set himself up for survival. (m1MB) In “The Most Dangerous Game,” Rainsford adapts to Zaroff's style of hunting so that he can survive.(m2MB) Rainsford adapts by being the smarter person and sets up traps in order to survive. (Transition)Aside from adaptability(LINK)