Examples Of How Did Rainsford Become Successful Against General Zaroff

In the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Connell, Richard, Sanger Rainsford outsmarts General Zaroff in many ways. Here are three ways he outsmarted General Zaroff. Sanger Rainsford makes traps that surprises General Zaroff. He climbed a tree to hide from Zaroff. Rainsford ended up defeating Zaroff. Here are the ways he did.

In the story, “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, Sanger Rainsford outsmarts General Zaroff in multiple ways. One of the ways he outsmarts him is by crawling high up in a tree and finding shelter there. Two other ways he outsmarts him is by using a Malay mancatcher to attempt and catch General Zaroff, the other tactic he uses is by creating a trap out of a knife and some grapevine to stop the hounds from attacking him. He also uses his top physical condition to jump off the cliff and into the sea to get even farther away from the hounds.

At the beginning of the hunt Zaroff followed Rainsford’s trail and found him in a tree, but Zaroff ignored him and kept the hunt on. Rainsford ran into the woods and found a dead tree on a smaller living one and set up his first trap. Zaroff is on Rainsford’s trail like a bloodhound and when he gets to Rainsford’s trap he steps on the trigger. Zaroff knows what he has done, but is too slow to react and the tree injures his shoulder. “Rainsford, if you are within the sound of my voice, as I suppose you are, let me congratulate you. Not many men know how to make a Malay Mancatcher. Luckily for me, I too have hunted in Malacca. You are proving interesting, Mr. Rainsford. I am going now to have my wounds dressed, it’s only a slight one.

#53) The reason this is so important is because General Zaroff is a very experienced hunter,who has never lost at his game,but even he could not trace Rainsford. This tells us that Rainsford is skilled at hiding and reacting quickly. An example of Rainsford being smart was when he thought of “A native trick he learned in Uganda. He slid

Rainsford is a celebrated big game hunter. (Connell pg. 17) He is a well known writer. He wrote a book about snow leopards in Tibet. (Connell pg 17) Rainsford uses his knowledge of hunting and animal behaviors to outsmart Zaroff. Rainsford said to himself, “I have played the fox; now I must play the cat of the fable.” (Connell pg 24) Throughout the story Rainsford has many opportunities to use what he knows to help himself to outsmart General Zaroff.

Zaroff thought he was going to get the best of Rainsford with everything he told him and everything he had saw. Zaroff was a pretty convincing guy, he wanted Rainsford to stay well he let him stay and start a conversation about him telling him about his self and how he ended up on his forbidden island. Rainsford had no clue of what was going on he just thought he was just a nice guy and everything.

I think that General Zaroff hurt himself when he follows the tracks without deviation and gives Rainsford the advantage of knowing where he is coming from. After Rainsford knew where Zaroff was going to be and could set up traps or hide in a certain spot. Which would help Rainsford greatly in evading capture for the three days to win the game.

Rainsford made three successful traps during the hunt which took out his right hand man and preeminent dog. The third trap just hurt Zaroff’s shoulder. In the end, Rainsford jumped off of a cliff into the sea deep below and later swam to the castle. There, Rainsford and his ruthless predator had one last fight with Rainsford ultimately coming out victorious.

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

(Connell 80). Rainsford shows that he is cunning during this scene because he has successfully snuck into Zaroff’s bedroom without being detected. He then says a witty phrase that justifies the fact that he essentially murdered Zaroff. Lastly, Rainsford is also determined in the story. He is determined when he is running from Zaroff; clinging desperately to life and his own sanity.

Even though Rainsford tries to stop him, Zaroff still tries to hunt Rainsford down. At the end, Rainsford learns that if you get stuck in a situation you can not get out of, you should not give up and keep trying. Rainsford did not give up and kept trying, and eventually outsmarted Zaroff and beat him at his own game. We are never told that he won the game, but when Zaroff says, “‘You have won the game... On guard, Rainsford,’” we know that Rainsford wins, but to truly win someone has to die.

Rainsford experienced how it was to be hunted. The general was going to kill Rainsford another day. “The general was saving him for another day’s sport”(Connell 34). He knows how it feels to be played with and tricked. Rainsford was being hunted as if he was an animal. Rainsford was trying to confuse Zarroff of following his trail. “He executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled on his trail again and again recalling all the lore of the fox hunt and all the dodges of the fox.”(Connell 34). He knows that he has to think to outsmart the general. Rainsford was being hunted so he was trying to confuse the general by acting like an animal. Zarroff was the cat and the mouse was rainsford. “The

He was able to use “a huge dead tree” that “leaned precariously on a smaller, living one” to build what is called a “Malay mancatcher” (12). While most people would probably just see two trees and walk past them, Rainsford was able to think creatively and put them to effective use. Even though Zaroff did not get caught by it entirely, the hunter was able to buy himself some time to move to a different area so that he could avoid the general. After he went back to treat his injury, Rainsford “took up his flight again” that “carried him on for some hours” (13). His resourceful thinking had allowed him to use even more time to put his plan for winning this life-risking game into action. Without this helpful asset, Rainsford might have been more prone to giving up and letting himself be killed.

When Rainsford was put in the jungle he made a trail tring to fool Zoraff thats the

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