Vices and Virtues

Rene Descartes once said, “The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.” This idea rings true in Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game”. First published in 1924, this short story follows Sanger Rainsford, a hunter from New York City, on a ship from America to Rio de Janeiro. In the middle of the Caribbean Sea, Rainsford falls overboard and hastily swims to a nearby island. He comes upon another hunter’s mansion on the island, and soon discovers that this hunter is more dangerous than he had ever imagined. Rainsford finds his life in great danger, and must outwit the hunter, General Zaroff, to survive. Using techniques he had learned hunting, Rainsford evades Zaroff, and his persecutor is fed to the dogs. Rainsford returns to the mansion, rid of Zaroff. This essay will argue that Rainsford does not remain on Ship Trap Island, and that the events that occurred there persuade him to give up the hunt.

Throughout the story, it is made painfully obvious that Rainsford has no respect for the animals he hunts. In the opening of “The Most Dangerous Game,” Sanger Rainsford is standing on the deck of a ship, philosophizing with a fellow hunter named Whitney. Whitney says, “I rather think [jaguars] understand one thing—fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death” (1). Rainsford replies, “The world is made up of two classes—the hunters and the huntees. Luckily, you and I are hunters” (1). In this way, Sanger Rainsford proves he does not understand the fear of being hunted. This belief leads him to believe that hunting is a fine sport, and that he need not consider the feelings of the game he hunts. Later on in the story, however, Rainsford’s feelings contradict this idea.

While Sanger Rainsford is being chased by General Zaroff, he begins to feel the terror of being hunted. Connell writes:

The general was playing with him! The general was saving him for another day’s sport! The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse. Then it was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of terror. (14)

Now that he sees that his life is in certain danger, he begins to use traps to outwit General Zaroff. Beginning to feel like game himself, Rainsford believes his mind is his only way out. He must realize, then, that the animals he hunts do not have this defense, making hunting as a sport much more inhumane than he ever thought possible.