The Most Dangerous Game By Richard Connell: Literary Analysis

The Most Dangerous Game
In the short story titled The Most Dangerous Game written by Richard Connell brings a dark and evil twisted story of murder and chaotic change. The psychological environment and metaphorical surroundings will leave one man dead and the other breathing a sea of relief. This seventy-two hour hunt will forever shape the life and direction of the animal who frees himself of the dark, cold, impenetrable fortress of rocky shores, tangled forest, and unforgiving terrain called Ship Trap Island or the mind. The author immediately illuminates the darkness and uninviting presence of the island by describing it as a god-forsaken place even a cannibal wouldn’t live in (Rpt. in Greg Johnson and Thomas R. Arp, Perrines Literature:
In this scene it is the good natured Rainsford who is taken in by the General and treated with dinners, new clothes, and what he hopes is a good conversation with a fellow hunter. However, the contrasting mindset of Zarroff is quickly provided to Rainsford and the true nature of this man is beginning to set in for Rainsford when he realizes that he soon will be the prey. Rainsford is then appalled by the thought that he would be so easily converted into prey and could be hunted. His mindset says he is human and therefore can’t be hunted. He is above an animal. He repeatedly says that is its murder and this idea of hunting humans must be a grisly joke (page70). This implies to the reader that Rainsford is a man that values human life and does not consider himself on the same level as the animal species. His actions and words give the impression that he doesn’t feel he could reach the moral degeneration it would take for him to carry out the pure and murderous actions of another that the General is so easily
He had reached the metaphorical cliff. He had to make a choice of his own mental and moral values and decide on whether to kill or be killed. There could be no other choice. Connell uses the ocean as a turning point for Rainsford. When Rainsford emerges from the ocean it is perceived by the reader that he is a new man whose troubles and doubt have been washed away. He is free from moral obligation and is now hell bent on ending the vicious cycle of General Zaroff’s ruthless and calculated man hunts. The irony is that Rainsford laid in wait for the opportunity to kill the General in the darkness of his home just as the General had done with the darkness surrounding the island. The cycle was made clear by Connell because all though Rainsford had used human thought and rational ideas to get this far it was clear to the reader that he had gained insight and was now considering himself both animal and human by the comment he made to the General of I am still a beast at bay (page 78) in the final moments of the