Irony In The Most Dangerous Game By Richard Connell

In Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game”, the protagonist character, Sander Rainsford is an adventurous and fearless big game hunter. Rainsford has no remorse for his prey. Over the course of the story Rainsford experiences a sudden change of heart when he finds himself where “The world is made up of two classes—the hunters and the huntees.”

The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell has been a classic among bookworms looking for a short fix since the 1920s. The story is centered around two main characters, Rainsford and General Zaroff who are both worthy hunters. When Rainsford stumbles upon Zaroff, he finds himself participating in a new game, the hunt for his life. With eyes glued to the writing, someone may not even notice the discretely placed allusions. The allusions in this story are used to make connections between the text and the reader.

Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous explains multiple theories, such as nature versus nurture, and survival of the fittest. This short story also seems to have an underlying theme of Social Darwinism (Of Two Classes). Throughout the entirety of the short story, Connell shows a character change of a main character, Rainsford, who is at a constant battle with General Zaroff, the antagonist. This character change shows the importance of the mindset of characters, and how it can be applied to everyday life.

This depicts that Zaroff is the predator hunting his prey, Rainsford. His goal is to hunt down his target and kill it (Rainsford). Personification was also represented in the quote when it describes that the trap had caught something. The Burmese tiger pit had caught its prey, a hound, showing to Rainford that his trap was quite successful. These quotes show that because General Zaroff underestimate Rainsford the other day by letting him live, he made a huge mistake. That caused him, one of his best hounds to die and that was his fault for not killing Rainsford when he had the perfect chance. This is what he deserved for hunting the most dangerous game for quite a long time and not taking the game seriously at the beginning. From what both symbolism and personification can depict, repetition can show that as well.

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

After the General allows small glimpses into his psyche, the fact that he is a disturbed person is temporarily forgotten about as the battle between him and Rainsford begins. In “Hunters in the Snow”, the situation with the shooting occurs early on, but the main focus of the story then transfers to the characters' and their issues for the remainder of the story. Rainsford is the typical hero: He is clever and moral, as opposed to Zaroff who is immoral. Though he claims to be "a beast at bay," Rainsford has now fully reverted to hunter mode, swimming across a small bay to Zaroff's chateau to arrive there before the general can make it back through the jungle.… out the shadowy outlines of a palatial chateau; it was set on a high bluff, and on three sides of it cliffs dived down to where the sea licked greedy lips in the shadows”. Rainsford claims that no animal can reason and when he realizes what Zaroff is doing, he calls it cold-blooded murder. Zaroff retreats to the chateau, assuming he has won the game. The General explains, "hunting was beginning to bore him," and reveals that he had to invent a new animal to hunt, one that must have "courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason. Rainsford survives, winning the game. A story, which relies on action, coincidence and surprise, is precisely the motivation that Connell needs to create a memorable commercial fiction. Rainsford is given the impression that General Zaroff is a wealthy and prominent hunter. "

In Richard Connell's short story, "The Most Dangerous Game';, the use of literary devices, found blended with other literary devices, gives the story an inner meaning. The blending of literary devices effectively expresses the intentions of Connell to present contrast between the antagonist and protagonist points of view. As a result, the reader can gain insight on the good and evil sides of the story to enhance the purpose of his interpretation. "The Most Dangerous Game'; by Richard Connell presents literary devices such as foreshadowing, setting, and irony which reveal the underlying meaning of the story.

Richard Connell’s short story, The Most Dangerous Game, tells the story of a famous hunter named Rainsford, who falls off of a yacht and swims to an island called Ship-Trap Island. While on Ship Trap Island, Rainsford encounters a man named General Zaroff, who began hunting humans on the island after becoming bored of hunting animals. One night, Zaroff announces to Rainsford that he will be the next victim in his hunting game. Zaroff informs Rainsford that if he manages to survive for three days without being killed, then he can leave the island. Throughout the plot of this short story, there is a consistent theme of the world being composed of two classes of people: the hunters and the hunted. General Zaroff and Rainsford both find themselves to be divided into this class system, at various times during the hunting game. In this short story, Connell uses foreshadowing to portray the idea that there are two classes of people in the world: the hunters and the hunted, in relation to Rainsford and Zaroff.

In “The Most Dangerous Game,” Richard Connell correlates three common literary devices especially well: setting, suspense, and plot. Connell makes use of an appropriate setting, the literary element of suspense, and an interesting plot in order to strengthen the story’s recurring theme of reason versus instinct within humans, and to blur that line between reason and instinct.

A man gets hunted by another man on the deserted Ship-Trap Island in the middle of the Caribbean. Rainsford, the protagonist in “The Most Dangerous Game”, a short story written by Richard Connell, gets hunted by General Zaroff. Rainsford abounds with fear, making him crazy. General Zaroff’s arrogance causes him to feel that he possesses the right to hunt the people he captures. His arrogance causes him to commit gruesome things; in this case, murder. Prior to becoming another man’s prey, Rainsford feels that animals have no feelings, but he sympathizes for animals being hunted after he himself becomes prey. His feelings and opinions transform after this experience. “The Most Dangerous Game” consists of three central themes: fear makes an individual crazy, arrogance causes hurtful actions, and some experiences have the potential to alter an individual’s opinion.

Hunting big game animals for sport was a popular pastime with the wealthy classes following World War I. The morality of killing for sport was not questioned in reality, but in this short story the author does question it by taking it a step further and having the protagonist, Sangor Rainsford, hunted by the antagonist, General Zaroff.In a short story full of irony, one of the greatest ironies of Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” is that General Zaroff repeatedly tells Rainsford that he maintains a sense of civilization on his island.

In “The Most Dangerous Game”, author Richard Connell uses a variety of literary device to depict the theme. He uses the main character, Rainsford, to be the character which unfolds the theme as he goes through the experience of being treated like a wild animal and becoming the prey of another human for sport. Connell uses three literary devices frequently including foreshadowing, irony and symbolism in order to support the main theme, put yourself in the shoes of the animals you hunt.

Connell first demonstrates the General’s proud heart on page seventy. There is a conversation between Rainsford and General Zaroff and Rainsford starts with the question, “But the animal, General Zaroff? Oh, it supplies me with the most exciting hunting in the world… But no animal can reason, … there is one that can. But you can’t mean - And why not?” The General is referring that he resulted into hunting humans. Earlier, he expresses how this sport was becoming tedious and needed something that can reason, which no animal can do, except humans; without reluctance, he turns to them to fulfill his personal needs. General Zaroff is a part of World War I before he returns to hunting. Because of his experiences in the war, he believes that it is acceptable to murder human beings out of pleasure, while Rainsford disagrees. Overall, General Zaroff is betraying his egotistic side by being willing to kill humans for his

To begin, the main character Sanger Rainsford believes that animals don’t have emotions nor do they feel pain therefore hunters should not feel sympathy for the animals when there being hunted. “The world is made up of two classes-- the hunters and the huntees”(Connell 3). This scene foreshadows that Rainsford doesn’t feel sympathy for the animals when he’s hunting them because he believes that they don’t have emotions nor has pain. Connell uses foreshadowing to forecast how Rainsford states that animals don’t have emotions nor can they feel pain. When Rainsford being hunted by Zaroff he learns that the huntees have to use their surroundings

In life there is always a conflict between people when it comes to almost any issue, whether it comes down to liberty, freedom, rights, ability to do things, possess things or even be things. Due to there being a conflict between individuals, there is a competition to be had for who gets what, when, and where. General Zaroff is bored of regular hunts and strives to hunt an animal that, “…. have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason."(Connell). He wanted to fight against another being that could challenge him, then the author likes to bring up the Darwinist idea, that the stronger side wins indefinitely. In the story we see that General Zaroff is the predator in this scenario and that Sander Rainsford is the prey, “Your brain against mine. Your woodcraft against mine. Your strength and stamina against mine. Outdoor chess!” (Connell). and