Did you know even though nature can be beautiful it can sometimes be deadly.In The Most Dangerous Game, Rainsford begins to see the awe-instilling power of nature and how it can hurt us. The Most Dangerous Game Written by Richard Connell is a story about the dangers of nature and the ethical question of if we should kill animals. Connell uses irony to instill a question in the mind of the reader”Is killing animals moral?” In “The Most Dangerous Game,”Richard Connell uses a flip between man and animal to convey irony in the story while also using the dangerous environment of the Island to show suspense. One way Richard Connell uses suspense to convey the power of nature and to prove the struggle between man and nature is by …show more content…
When Rainsford is playing The Most Dangerous Game with the general he realizes something major. Connell writes,”I have played the fox, now I must play the cat of the fable”(Connell 32). Connell illustrates the irony of this phrase because he has always “played the fox” (the hunter), but now that he is playing the most dangerous game with the general the tides have turned. Redford now must “play the cat of the fable”(the hunted). This Redford an insight into the animal 's perspective and it helps him to realize the hardships animals have to face when they are being hunted by a human. Through Connells use of irony the reader can learn that we to are animals we to can be hunted the only thing that separates us from animals is our intelligence ,but that does not give us the right to kill them unnecessarily ,but if it comes to the matter of life and death it is ok to kill. We need to kill for food ,but not when we are hunting for game. Irony is displayed in the story by the topic of what to hunt. Rainsford is talking with the general about the best game to hunt and is astonished by what he is hunting …show more content…
We can see that Rainsford was intrigued with the general until the point when he realized that the general was hunting humans.”But no animal can reason” here Rainsford still does know but then when he says this “but you can 't mean” he then starts to piece it together and begins to realize that he was wrong. He was killing animals recklessly but when it came to humans he stopped
“You’re a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?”. The story “The Most dangerous Game,” by Richard Connell introduces an adventurous type of thriller with two main characters named Sanger Rainsford and General Zaroff. Both of which are hunters who in the story play a “game” invented by General Zaroff out of pure fear of becoming bored of the hunt. General Zaroff is a big fan of the hunt and everything he says about the hunt is to be taken serious. Rainsford and General Zaroff are described to be excellent hunters through the traps Rainsford makes, all the big game Zaroff has hunted, but Zaroff is better at hunting through the fact that the hunt has began to bore and he needs more of a challenge hunting humans.
Where does the line of sport and murder intersect in hunting? Is it when the species being hunted is able to reason? Or is it when the species being hunted looks just like the hunter? In both movie and film, we see a man fight for his life and another going against all codes of ethics. While Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s film adaptation both have several similarities, the difference are also apparent in each respective media.
In short, he learns how it feels to be utterly insignificant against a clearly superior foe. One way Rainsford is impacted by the theme “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” is that he is harshly taught the way of life that a hunted animal has to follow. He builds elaborate traps to defend himself, he runs desperately in an attempt to escape. He feels that his actions are entirely futile when his enemy finds him, yet he is still forced to keep his sanity and not just simply give up. This is a prime example of the toll the story’s theme takes on its protagonist. A second generalized way the theme affects Rainsford is that it teaches him the true meaning of fear. When the general sees Rainsford for the first time, Rainsford is petrified with fear, and reflects on this when Zaroff leaves, realizing exactly what Zaroff was actually doing; toying with him. A third and final way that Rainsford is impacted by the theme is that he realizes in the end how it is wrong to kill without remorse. From his first meeting with Zaroff, Rainsford sees the error in the general’s ways, namely his lack of morality or reason. He therefore strives not to sink to the general’s level and instead comes to the realization that killing is not always
In Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game”, he uses several literary devices to keep the reader interested. During Rainsfords journey to and through the island of General Zaroff he partakes in an adventurous journey filled with mystery, suspense, and dilemma. These devices are used to keep the reader interested throughout the story.
The author of “The Most Dangerous Game” is Richard Connell. Richard Connell is an American author and journalist, who wrote a lot of short stories and few novels. His short stories appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's Weekly. While he was still in high school, Richard Connell was hired as the city editor for sixteen dollars a week. He studied college at Georgetown University, while working as a secretary for his father, who had been elected to Congress. After his father’s death, he moved to Harvard, and started writing for two college newspapers. After graduating, he transferred to New York, but he also left a brief stint in the army during World War |. After that, he moved to Los Angeles and began to write screenplays for major Hollywood movie studios. Richard Connell’s most famous story is “The Most Dangerous Game”, which is still widely read, even nowadays. It has inspired many movies and it’s probably the most frequently anthologized American story.
Man versus nature makes multiple appearances in “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell. In the passage the nature plays a major role which helps the plot become more adventurous and exciting. “Rainsford struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the wash from the speeding yacht slapped him in the face and the salt water in his open mouth made him gag and strangle” (2). Rainsford fell overboard and into the water, the rocks put him in the water. If the rocks were never there, then Rainsford would have never had to swim towards the island. This passage proves that Man versus nature does exist in this short story.
Rainsford never really cared how the hunted felt because he was always the hunter and knew that he could kill his game he was hunting and Zaroff changed that. Rainsford was forced to play Zaroff’s game so he could be entertained and to test Rainsfords survival and hunting skills. Rainsford had the difficult choice to either play Zaroff’s game or he gets kill on the spot and is not given a chance to survive. What Rainsford learned made it much better for him to survive Zaroff’s game while being hunted in a jungle. If Rainsford never changed during his experiences he might have not even survived and would have been killed by Zaroff if he never
Whitney introduces the secondary theme, being that hunters usually have no empathy for their prey. This is one of the first uses of irony in the story. Metaphors and Similes are often used in this story, so the reader has a better image of the setting, this is something, and I find Connell did incredibly well, for instance when he refers to the darkness of the night as moist black velvet, the sea was as flat as a plate-glass and it was like trying to see through a blanket. Rainsford begins his epic struggle for survival after falling overboard when he recklessly stood on the guard rail, this is our first example of how Rainsford manages to conquer his panic and think analytically and there by ensuring his survival.
Rainsford is an intelligent man. Early in the story, “Rainsford remembered the shots. They had come from the right, and he doggedly swam in that direction” (34). Rainsford had just fallen in the water, swam fifty feet further out, but he kept his senses in the right direction. In total darkness, Rainsford used his intelligence and intellect to reach the land. Also, I don’t think that Rainsford knew he was being sized up when Zaroff was staring at him, but when “Rainsford’s bewilderment showed in his face” (100), he quickly understood what Zaroff was leading too. Rainsford wasn’t a murderer. Sure he liked to hunt game, but he wasn’t bored as Zaroff was. Rainsford never bought into all the old tales. ‘“One superstitious sailor can taint the whole ship’s company with fear”’ (20). He never got worked up or stressed out.
Many great authors that study human nature stood out the most during the period of time between the Imperialism and World War II. Among these authors were George Orwell and Virginia Woolf. Their study of the human nature is especially visible in certain short stories that each author respectively did. Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” and Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth.” In either of these stories the respective author uses animals to depict their complex ideas about the nature of life, men, and the whole world.
Throughout the historic course of literature, one story known as “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Cornell has incorporated specific types of irony for multiple differing and fundamental reasons. Situational irony is the first use of ironic elements that will be discussed in regards to the story. Situational irony is defined as “an incongruity that appears between the expectations of something to happen, and what actually happens instead ” (literarydevices.net). The story’s climax offers a unique twist to the plot as it includes an unexpected discovery, ultimately incorporating situational irony into the sequence of events. The story starts out with the introduction of the legendary hunter Bob Rainsford as he is shipwrecked and trapped on a deserted island. While staying on the island, Rainsford is introduced to the eccentric General Zaroff, who is a self proclaimed expert hunter as well. In short, the General turns out to be a sadistic psychopath who forces Rainsford into a game of “cat and mouse”, which causes Rainsford to fight for his life. This state of affair is considered to be situational irony because Zaroff defies the expectations of being a hunter to the audience. This is specifically shown in the text when Rainsford confronts General Zaroff in regards to what he is hunting:
The Most Dangerous Game is a great story filled with action and suspense. The author does a top-notch job by building up to the events in the end. I loved all the imagery in that they used in the story, it made me feel as if I were in Rainsford shoes. I felt that the best element of the story was the suspense that the author used. They always kept the reader on edge and you almost never knew what to expect during the climax. The mystic surrounding the island made the reader all the more eager to see what was so bad about it. The story introduced the characters exceptionally well and it established their demeanors in ways that made you understand them. You saw in Rainsford that he was a bit edgy and awfully brave. You saw that in
In the story The Most Dangerous Game a character named General Zaroff has a passion for hunting. He has been hunting since he was born. He has hunted every animal known to man, but, then he gets tried of hunting the same animal over and over. So he discovers a new animal human flesh. General Zaroff is person of bad character because he is cruel, cowardly, and untrustworthy.
Connell, Richard Edward. The Most Dangerous Game. Mankato, MN: Creative Education, 1990. Web. 2 Feb. 2014.
... Nature, including human beings, is `red in tooth and claw'; we are all `killers' in one way or another. Also, the fear which inhabits both human and snake (allowing us, generally, to avoid each other), and which acts as the catalyst for this poem, also precipitates retaliation. Instinct, it seems, won't be gainsaid by morality; as in war, our confrontation with Nature has its origins in some irrational `logic' of the soul. The intangibility of fear, as expressed in the imagery of the poem, is seen by the poet to spring from the same source as the snake, namely the earth - or, rather, what the earth symbolizes, our primitive past embedded in our subconsciouness. By revealing the kinship of feelings that permeates all Nature, Judith Wright universalises the experience of this poem.