Most Dangerous Game
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Essential Questions: Analyze the importance of our personal values.
1. How do people learn values? From whom or what do people learn values?
2. How do values shape the life of an individual and the choices that individual makes?
3. How can an individual's values change based on life experiences?
Read Richard Connell's short story "The Most Dangerous Game." Reading Textbook pg. 19
Complete study guide questions as we read
Setting
The action takes place shortly after the First World War. The story opens in the Caribbean on a Brazil-bound yacht and continues on a mysterious Caribbean island.
Characters
Type of Work and Year of Publication
“The Most Dangerous Game” is short story of adventure and suspense that conveys a serious message. It was published in Collier's magazine on January 19, 1924. It won Richard Connell his second O. Henry Award for short fiction.
Theme Topic: Inhumanity/Civility
At the beginning of the story, Rainsford exhibits a hardhearted attitude toward the animals he hunts. His conversation with Whitney aboard the yacht reveals his feelings—or lack of them—about hunting big game:
Whitney: Great sport, hunting.
Rainsford: The best sport in the world.
Whitney: For the hunter, not the jaguar.
Rainsford: Don't talk rot,
Whitney. You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels.
Whitney: Perhaps the jaguar does.
Rainsford: Bah! They’ve no understanding.
Whitney: Even so--I rather think they understand one thing--fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death
Rainsford: Nonsense. This hot weather is making you soft, Whitney. Be a realist. The world is made up of two classes--the hunters and the huntees.
The Title
The word game in the title of the story has two meanings: (1) human beings as Zaroff's quarry and (2) the competition, or game, between the hunter (Zaroff) and the hunted (Rainsford and other human quarry).
Vocabulary not defined in the text...
borsch: Russian beet soup. Also called borscht.
château: Large dwelling resembling a castle.
Caucasus: Mountain range running southeast from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea.
Cossack: Russian or Pole skilled at horsemanship.
Crimea: Ukraine peninsula that was part of Russia until recent times.
Folies-Bergère: Paris music hall famous for presenting operettas, pantomimes, musical comedies, acrobatic acts, and vaudeville.
Ganges: River in northern India.
knouter: One skilled at flogging.
lassar: Corrupt spelling of lascar, a sailor from India or Southeast Asia serving aboard a European ship.
Madame Butterfly: Tragic opera by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924).
Malay: (1) Adjective referring to inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, which includes Malaysia and part of Thailand; (2) noun designating an inhabitant of the Malay Peninsula.
Marcus Aurelius: Roman emperor from AD 160-180.
Monte Carlo: Tourist resort and gambling Mecca in Monaco on the Mediterranean coast of Southern France.
Tartar: Violent person hard to control.
yacht: Small sailboat.
Who Wins the Game?
It appears that Rainsford wins the game. However, close examination of the ending leaves the question open. The key sentence to consider is this one spoken by Rainsford: “I am still a beast at bay.” Referring to himself as a beast may suggest that he has corrupted himself, like Zaroff. After he kills Zaroff—apparently in a knife duel—he sleeps in Zaroff's bed, as if he is Zaroff. In losing his life, Zaroff may have won Rainsford's soul.
Building Suspense
The success of "The Most Dangerous Game" depends in large part on building suspense. In executing this task, the author wastes no time. He uses DICTION. In the first fifty words, he establishes the existence of a mysterious island with an ominous name, Ship-Trap Island. Sailors dread it. He then shrouds the island in the "thick warm blackness" of a "moonless Caribbean night," imagery that suggests hidden evil. A few paragraphs later, the main character, Rainsford, hears a gunshot coming from the direction of the island, falls overboard while standing on the ship rail to look for the source of the shot, and swims to the island, where he finds thick jungle and, of all things, a splendid château on a bluff. At the château, the first person to greet Rainsford is a giant, the biggest man Rainsford had ever seen. What happens next? That is the question the author wants the reader to ask as he unfolds his tale.
Study Questions and Essay Topics
Terms to Know:
Conflict: the problem or struggle
Internal
Plot Elements:
1. How do people learn values? From whom or what do people learn values?
2. How do values shape the life of an individual and the choices that individual makes?
3. How can an individual's values change based on life experiences?
Read Richard Connell's short story "The Most Dangerous Game." Reading Textbook pg. 19
Complete study guide questions as we read
Setting
The action takes place shortly after the First World War. The story opens in the Caribbean on a Brazil-bound yacht and continues on a mysterious Caribbean island.
Characters
- Sanger Rainsford: American big-game hunter and author who saw action in France in the First World War. He exhibits no pity or sympathy for the animals he hunts. Then, ironically, he himself becomes a hunted animal after he arrives on a mysterious island. Rainsford is the story's protagonist, or main character. Whether his experience on the island changes his attitude toward hunted animals is open to question.
- General Zaroff: Russian big-game hunter from an aristocratic family in the Crimea, a Ukraine peninsula that was part of Russia until recent times. Zaroff is bored with killing typical game such as tigers, elephants, and water buffalo. Instead, he hunts the ultimate trophy animal: man. Zaroff, a Cossack, commanded a cavalry division in the Russian army until the Bolsheviks revolted in 1917 and installed a communist government that abolished aristocracy and the class system. Zaroff went off then and established a new world for himself on a remote Caribbean island. There he maintains his aristocratic lifestyle in his palatial home while pursuing his barbaric hobby. One might call him a civilized savage.
- Whitney: Hunting partner of Rainsford.
- Ivan: Zaroff's Russian servant and hunting partner. Like Zaroff, he is a Cossack. Ivan is a giant, the biggest man Rainsford has ever seen. Because he is a deaf mute, Ivan hears no evil and speaks no evil but simply does Zaroff's bidding.
- Neilsen: Captain of the yacht taking Rainsford and Whitney to Brazil. He is referred to but plays no active role in the story.
- Crewmen of the San Lucar: Shipwrecked sailors held captive in Zaroff's cellar. The general plans to use them as quarry. They play no active role in the story.
Type of Work and Year of Publication
“The Most Dangerous Game” is short story of adventure and suspense that conveys a serious message. It was published in Collier's magazine on January 19, 1924. It won Richard Connell his second O. Henry Award for short fiction.
Theme Topic: Inhumanity/Civility
At the beginning of the story, Rainsford exhibits a hardhearted attitude toward the animals he hunts. His conversation with Whitney aboard the yacht reveals his feelings—or lack of them—about hunting big game:
Whitney: Great sport, hunting.
Rainsford: The best sport in the world.
Whitney: For the hunter, not the jaguar.
Rainsford: Don't talk rot,
Whitney. You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels.
Whitney: Perhaps the jaguar does.
Rainsford: Bah! They’ve no understanding.
Whitney: Even so--I rather think they understand one thing--fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death
Rainsford: Nonsense. This hot weather is making you soft, Whitney. Be a realist. The world is made up of two classes--the hunters and the huntees.
- After Rainsford falls overboard and swims to General Zaroff’s island, Zaroff exhibits the same kind of callousness toward his favorite prey. But in Zaroff's case the prey is human. Shipwrecks that Zaroff causes provide him a constant supply of "game." Shocked, Rainsford expresses moral indignation at the general’s murderous pastime. Zaroff counters that Rainsford will change his mind when he participates in a hunt. But what Rainsford does not immediately realize is that he will be the quarry.
- After Zaroff releases Rainsford into the jungle the next day, Rainsford becomes like the animals he hunts, mere game, and no doubt begins to appreciate what Whitney had told him aboard the ship about the inhumanity of hunting frightened animals.
- After Rainsford sets traps that kill one of Zaroff’s tracking dogs and Zaroff’s gigantic sidekick, Ivan, he escapes his pursuers by jumping into the ocean from a precipice. That evening when Zaroff goes to bed, Rainsford comes from behind a curtain and confronts the general, saying, “I am still a beast at bay.” And the beast then kills the hunter and sleeps soundly in his bed.
- Rainsford has graduated to killing a human. The question now is this: Has Rainsford become another Zaroff?
The Title
The word game in the title of the story has two meanings: (1) human beings as Zaroff's quarry and (2) the competition, or game, between the hunter (Zaroff) and the hunted (Rainsford and other human quarry).
Vocabulary not defined in the text...
borsch: Russian beet soup. Also called borscht.
château: Large dwelling resembling a castle.
Caucasus: Mountain range running southeast from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea.
Cossack: Russian or Pole skilled at horsemanship.
Crimea: Ukraine peninsula that was part of Russia until recent times.
Folies-Bergère: Paris music hall famous for presenting operettas, pantomimes, musical comedies, acrobatic acts, and vaudeville.
Ganges: River in northern India.
knouter: One skilled at flogging.
lassar: Corrupt spelling of lascar, a sailor from India or Southeast Asia serving aboard a European ship.
Madame Butterfly: Tragic opera by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924).
Malay: (1) Adjective referring to inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, which includes Malaysia and part of Thailand; (2) noun designating an inhabitant of the Malay Peninsula.
Marcus Aurelius: Roman emperor from AD 160-180.
Monte Carlo: Tourist resort and gambling Mecca in Monaco on the Mediterranean coast of Southern France.
Tartar: Violent person hard to control.
yacht: Small sailboat.
Who Wins the Game?
It appears that Rainsford wins the game. However, close examination of the ending leaves the question open. The key sentence to consider is this one spoken by Rainsford: “I am still a beast at bay.” Referring to himself as a beast may suggest that he has corrupted himself, like Zaroff. After he kills Zaroff—apparently in a knife duel—he sleeps in Zaroff's bed, as if he is Zaroff. In losing his life, Zaroff may have won Rainsford's soul.
Building Suspense
The success of "The Most Dangerous Game" depends in large part on building suspense. In executing this task, the author wastes no time. He uses DICTION. In the first fifty words, he establishes the existence of a mysterious island with an ominous name, Ship-Trap Island. Sailors dread it. He then shrouds the island in the "thick warm blackness" of a "moonless Caribbean night," imagery that suggests hidden evil. A few paragraphs later, the main character, Rainsford, hears a gunshot coming from the direction of the island, falls overboard while standing on the ship rail to look for the source of the shot, and swims to the island, where he finds thick jungle and, of all things, a splendid château on a bluff. At the château, the first person to greet Rainsford is a giant, the biggest man Rainsford had ever seen. What happens next? That is the question the author wants the reader to ask as he unfolds his tale.
Study Questions and Essay Topics
- Do you believe the author of "The Most Dangerous Game" intended the story partly as an indictment of hunting or cruelty to animals?
- Write an essay comparing and contrasting Rainsford and Zaroff.
- What purpose does Whitney serve in the story?
- Why did Zaroff leave Russia?
Terms to Know:
Conflict: the problem or struggle
Internal
- Man vs. Self
- Man vs. Man
- Man vs. Nature
- Man vs. Animal
- Man vs. Machine (technology)
Plot Elements:
- Exposition
- Rising Action
- Climax
- Falling Action
- Resolution
- Setting
- Major Characters (antagonist, protagonist, round, dynamic)
- Minor Characters (flat, static)
