Most Dangerous Game

A man hunting humans because he is bored with hunting animals! On Ship-Trap Island humans are being hunted by another human. General Zaroff is one of the main characters in “The Most Dangerous Game” written by Richard Connell. Zaroff encounters a surprise when he notices that Rainsford has appeared on his island. General Zaroff is a self-centered, psychotic and cruel man which ends up leading to his death.

Zaroff is purely unconscious, and has no compassion or remorse for his actions. His demented mind forces him to believe that it is moral to hunt all living creatures, when in reality he is actually murdering a human soul. The general is sadistic as well as arrogant. He is mentally unstable, insane, and he denies the fact that he is committing something as bad as what he is doing. According to General Zaroff, hunting for him has been consumed by boredom and he no longer sees hunting as a challenge. Consequently, he chooses to hunt a certain “creature” with a higher mental stability of the creatures he has hunted before.(Connell 21) As Zaroff became comfortable with Rainsford, he

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

Throughout this journal, Zaroff can be characterized as mysterious and evil. First off, Zaroff is mysterious. One way he is mysterious is that he knows Rainsford’s name and he read Rainsford’s hunting book. In the book it says, “I’ve read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet…” (Connell 3). This quote shows that Zaroff is interested in hunting dangerous animals and knows that Rainsford is good at hunting

Imagine turning up on an island with a psychotic man, a man who hunts humans. This is what General Zaroff does, on Ship-Trap-Island. General Zaroff is a rich hunter who hunts most animals, even the most dangerous. This is the story written by Richard Connell, called The Most Dangerous Game, It is about a psychotic man with a hunting obsession. Once Zaroff gets bored with the hunting animals he turns to something new, humans. The author thinks that hunting is normal, that people have a killer instinct. That it is our human nature to hunt, and kill. The author also thinks that it is human nature to look for new challenges and to live strong. Much like Zaroff, the author believes life, is for the willing.

While Rainsford tries to get comfortable with the place of Zaroff . He expresses about his feelings and hunting experiences. The General explains that “hunting was beginning to bore him,” and

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.

Zaroff is overconfident during his hunt with Rainsford; although he finds him during the hunt, he preserves his life for his game. Three times during the hunt, he declares a boastful comment towards the protagonist and could have captured him, but neglects to due to his arrogance. He enjoys the entertainment he creates and does not want it to end, especially since Rainsford is a well-known and skillful huntsman. However, because he chooses to preserve Rainsford, he suffers a tragic ending.

General Zaroff’s cool headedness adds to the various textual evidence that he is not, in fact, insane. When he is introduced to the story, he praises Rainsford's hunting ability with a seemed preparedness. Rainsford observes that the General seems to read his mind at times. He is prepared for every question that Rainsford has, and even answers some that were never asked. His actions seem calculated to make Rainsford more comfortable with him, however, as a fellow hunter, Rainsford observes, “whenever he looked up from his plate he found the general studying him, appraising him narrowly.” This makes Rainsford uncomfortable, sets him on edge for the information that Zaroff is about to reveal. During the hunt, Zaroff

Rainsford came along a gigantic building and meets Zaroff. At this moment Zaroff come to see that Rainsford is a talented hunter. Rainsford and Zaroff come to find that they have many different and similar thoughts on hunting. Zaroff come to find out hunting had began to become boring so he created a new animal to hunt. Zaroff believes

He not only hunts humans and kills them for sport, but enjoys doing so. After all, the general only sees humans as beasts to be hunted. Zaroff does not even see his right-hand man, Ivan, as a human being, for he professes here, "Like all his [Ivan's] race, a bit of a savage. He is a Cossack . . . So am I."(Connell 24) This not only displays General Zaroff's opinion of his servant, but his own point of view regarding most human beings. However, General Zaroff does not only exercise every meaning of cruelty in a physical sense, but utilizes it in a psychological sense as well. Because of this psychological warfare that Zaroff wages against Rainsford, he fails to kill Rainsford the first, second, and third night. As an additional note, Zaroff also pushed Rainsford to the point where Rainsford would not give up on taking Zaroff's life, even if it meant that Rainsford would have to stoop to the level of morality known as murder. For an example of this internal game Zaroff plays with Rainsford, Connell wrote, "The general's eyes had left the ground and were traveling inch by inch up the tree. . . the sharp eyes of the hunter stopped before they reached the limb where Rainsford lay; a smile spread over his brown face."(Connell 32) This means that Zaroff knew that Rainsford was there, yet did not kill him for an unspecified reason. Those few actions could be overconfidence, or it could be General

Ivan tried to shot Rainsford but General Zaroff denied Ivan to shoot him. Zaroff seemed to be more civilized in both manner and behavior than Ivan. He invited him on dinner and gave neat clothes and apologized him for the ill manner of Ivan. On the meal, Zaroff told Rainsford about his passion for hunting. Hunting of big animals that were imported. Rainsford understood that Zaroff hunt humans instead of animals. That night was troublesome for

Rainsford and General Zaroff are alike in many ways. In the text it said that General zaroff was talking to Rainsford about how god made him a hunter, and how his hands were made for the trigger. Whitney told rainsford that they were big game hunters. They also have unique skills when it come to hunting. For

However, Rainsford objects his reasons to hunt humans, “Hunting? Great guns, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder,” (8). That is when Zaroff starts thinking Rainsford is starting to become weak, and hunting is the only thing on his mind so he rejects, “I hunt the scum of the earth; sailors from tramp ships, lassars, blacks, chinese, whites, mongrels, a thoroughbred horse or hounds worth more than a score of them,” (9). Zaroff disrespects and doesn’t care about other races, but at least Rainsford objects to the fact he traps them to hunt them for his own enjoyment. Rainsford refuses to join Zaroff in his hunt, in which he becomes disappointed and offers Rainsford a choice, “As you wish, my friend. The choice rests entirely with you. But may I not venture to suggest that you will find my idea of sport more diverting than Ivan’s,” (11). Zaroff left him with a choice, to either play a dangerous game with Zaroff or be tortured by Ivan. Zaroff, thinking that Rainsford will take a chance with him, said, “You will find this game worth playing. Your brain against mine. Your woodcraft against mine. Your strength and stamina against mine,” (11). Rainsford took the 3 day chance to elude Zaroff for three days in a life and death situation, and

The Most Dangerous Game Comparison Recently we have read a short story called The Most Dangerous Game. It’s about a man, Rainsford, who falls off his yacht and swims to a remote island. On that island he discovers a medieval house of a rich hunter, General Zaroff. He visits with Zaroff and finds out that he hunts a “new species” of animal on that very island.