Zaroff's The Most Dangerous Game

Brief summary: The Most Dangerous Game is about hunter Sanger Rainsford, who washes up on the shore of an island called Ship Trap Island that has a terrible infamy, where he soon meets General Zaroff, who hunts human beings which is the most dangerous game for sport. Zaroff hunts Rainsford, but in the end Rainsford gets the better of him.

It had been a week since Rainsford managed to kill the nefarious General Zaroff. The challenging part was almost over or so it seemed. There was not a clear way for Rainsford to escape. As days passed, Rainsford tried to escape. He tried making a boat from driftwood that he found, he tried swimming, he even tried sending a signal by using a flashlight. Rainsford had become so desperate that he even tried some ridiculous plans like trying to pole vault across the ocean. As a result, Rainsford ended up having huge gashes in his left leg ,which got infected, and he had to amputate it. As days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, Rainsford had lost hope and became bitter.

In the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” the author, Richard Connell, does an outstanding job of portraying the bizarre adventure of an insane, however experienced hunter, General Zaroff. The protagonist, Rainsford, another experienced hunter from New York City, appears on General Zaroff’s island, explores, and eventually encounters with Zaroff. They introduce themselves, settle down, and begin to talk. During the talk with the general, Rainsford soon learns that the General was not only a hunter; but a murderer as well. Zaroff has lured and ceased many sailors to his island to play a game. Although, they did not hunt with the General, the General hunted them! Zaroff claimed that hunting “had become too easy”, therefore, hunting began

This quote shows that Rainsford is insane because during this part, he is saying that he wants to hunt something that can reason with him, and only one animal can do that. That animal is a human. During the story, General Zaroff is also competitive. He shows that he is competitive when he fights to win the game over the humans. He always believes he will win. “If my quarry eludes me for three whole days, he wins the game. If I find him”... “he loses.” (Connell

When he tracked Rainsford to the tree he was hiding in, Zaroff felt that taking Rainsford would have been too easy so he left him for another day’s sport. Near the end of the story, Zaroff continued to see Rainsford is an adversary. The General came to see Rainsford as a formidable opponent. When Zaroff faced Rainsford in his bedroom he had to realize that Rainsford was presenting him with the danger he sought. The General’s view of Rainsford changed from seeing Rainsford as a fellow hunter to seeing him as an opponent he could not defeat.

After the conversations between Rainsford and the General, Rainsford wants to leave, but can not due to the knowledge of Zaroff’s corrupt game; he ends up playing the amoral game for the preservation of his life, although he could lose it.

When many people think of hunting, they often think of searching through forests, jungles, and fields to find certain animals that they will stalk and then kill. However, Rainsford, a character in “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, is forced to try a very different form of this sport invented by a mysterious man he meets on Ship Trap Island. General Zaroff, another character in this short story, traps people on his island and hunts with them by seeing if they can survive three nights and evade his attempts at killing them. Before arriving on this obscure island, Rainsford was already an experienced hunter, already heard of by quite a few people. After falling off his yacht and relying on his instincts to safely make it to

Rainsfords is panicked and running for his life, he's also scared of what General Zaroff will do to him when he catches him. Rainsfords force himself towards the gap between these two trees. He got closer to gap to see open water, and then he went to for it, he jumped. ‘“I am still a beast at bay, Rainsfords said, in a low hoarse voice, Rainsfords said this after he jumped off the cliff and swam back to the land. As he swam back he seen a big house, he walked closer to it and seen General Zaroff.

I will not.” That quote that I show you, shows you that he is not willing to give up and that he must stay calm if he were to make it out alive. Rainsford is working through internal conflict here. This supports my thesis because the author shows the reader how even when being hunted by Zaroff, he somehow managed to stay calm through it all.

Rainsford had hid in a huge thick tree. Zaroff might have figured it out but we don’t know. In this new paragraph I will be talking about when Rainsford made his first trap for General Zaroff.

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

Rainsford had to come up with a plan and fast. He thought of the Malay mancatcher. It is a unstable tree that hits a cut down living tree and the living tree hits a person when they step on the trigger. “ Three hundred yards from his hiding place he stopped where a huge dead leaned precariously on a smaller living one” (Connell 26). The tree did not kill Zaroff but it injured his shoulder and gave rainsford a slight advantage.

The General then goes on to talk about how he liked to hunt but there was nothing else to hunt to give him excitement. He says animals have no reason, and only instinct, and then he says there is but one animal with instinct... Humans. As Rainsford comes to realization he is shocked at what the General truly is, a murderer. Rainsford tries to tell the General he will let

“Not many man know how to make a malay man - catcher “(pg.30). That is how Rainsford shows his cleverness. He shows General Zaroff that he can make anything work just to try to hurt one of General Zaroff’s dogs. Rainsford shows that he can do anything he can put his mind to it. Rainsford wants to make sure General Zaroff gets his message of Rainford wants to kill him.

Rainsford is a intelligent and curious man, but he can also behave very foolishly. He has a strong sense of personal morality. He is also physically strong, cunning, and a talented hunter. 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.