The Most Dangerous Game versus The Child by Tiger

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The conflict of good and evil presents itself in “The Most Dangerous Game” and “The Child by Tiger” in two completely different ways. One story being commercial fiction and the other being literary fiction, there are many ways of viewing variables such as good versus evil, realistic versus unrealistic stories and moral significance. The stories have different voices and are meant for different audiences, but in viewing the overall moral importance of both fictional works, the story with a greater moral significance is “The Child by Tiger”.

The plot in “The Most Dangerous Game” is simple, obvious and unrealistic. There is a “good guy” trying to escape from the “bad guy” who lives on Ship-Trap Island. Rainsford clumsily tumbles off of his yacht into the “blood-warm waters” (59), starting the game. His belief that animals are unable to feel and understand fear makes him the perfect, unsuspecting prey in the irony of the story. The miraculous return of Rainsford to slaughter Zaroff is the most straightforward example to the unrealistic manner of this piece. In “The Child by Tiger” there is greater artistic unity in the series of events. Dick, a handyman to the Sheppertons, is a role model to the boys in the story and they look up to him because he is fun to be around and he teaches them good morals. The resignment of the cook and Dick’s pent-up feelings he keeps inside spark something in him to kill people. During Dick’s rampage, he kills not only white men but black men, too. He is not racist like the white people are—any person standing in his way gets shot. His act of murder is artistic and swift, he kills people with one, clean blow and moves on expressionless.

This artistic massacre expresses some excellent charac...

... middle of paper ...

...st person. The narrator is looking back on this story and remembering things from a child’s point of view. The reader only sees the narrator’s opinion in the story, but that allows the reader to have his own opinions as well, questioning the literary work constantly. This makes the story more complex and permits the reader to wonder what is going on inside each of the characters’ heads.

In considering each piece of literary work, “The Child by Tiger” is the more intricate story of the two, and thus the most morally important. “The Child by Tiger” makes the reader look deeper into the story, questioning it constantly, enquiring what each symbol means and the importance of it in the story. Interrogations like that lead the reader to get a better insight to life by questioning it rather than accepting it page-by-page as one does in “The Most Dangerous Game”.

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