PRESENTATION OUTLINE
"The Most Dangerous Game" Analysis
The Contradictory Themes of Sophisticated Elegance and Animalistic Barbarism
General Zaroff lived in a “palatial chateau” and served drinks consisting of: cocktails, Port, Chablis, Veuve Cliquot, brandy, Pol Roger, and Chambertin. The food provided there was: borsch, crepes suzettes, etc. His house had the finest linen, crystal, silver, china, and he carried a gold cigarette case. He wore and provided clothing made by a London tailor. He was dressed like a "country squire." He said, “We do our best to preserve the amenities of civilization here.”
In the beginning of the story, Rainsford's thoughts on hunting were, "The best sport in the world..." and when his friend Whitney tried to get Rainsford to think about how the animals feel when they are being hunted, Rainsford replies, "Don't talk rot, Whitney...You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how the jaguar feels?" Rainsford doesn't care how the animals he is hunting feel, he only cares about hunting them for sport. However, later on in the story when he is the one being hunted, he uses the techniques he had seen the animals he had hunted use. In the text it says, "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." It also says, "You've done well, Rainsford... your Burmese tiger pit has claimed one of my best dogs..." By the end of the story, Rainsford realizes what it is like to be hunted and has more respect for the animals he has hunted. In the text it says, "The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse. Then it was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of terror."
In the story, there are a lot of similes and personification used to describe the setting and the characters in an animalistic way. In the text it says, "An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake..." This means that the night is creeping by extremely slowly. The story uses similes to describe the characters in the story. In the text it says, "The softness of the earth had given him an idea. He stepped back from the quicksand a dozen feet or so, and like some huge prehistoric beaver, he began to dig." The passage describes Rainsford digging up a lot in a short amount of time like a prehistoric beaver in order to create his trap. The text also states, "Even as he touched it, the general sensed his danger and leaped back with the agility of an ape." When the author compares the general to an ape, he means that the general was slow to react and move out of the way of the trap, but quick enough to not get too hurt.
General Zaroff was barbaric in many ways. For starters, Zaroff believed that murdering people was just a different form of hunting. In the text it says, "What are the attributes of an ideal quarry...It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason...there is one that can..." This shows Zaroff's barbarism because in this quote, he is telling Rainsford that he found the perfect prey for his hunting: humans. Adding to his savagery, he says, "If I wish to hunt, why should I not? I hunt the scum of the earth -- sailors...lascars, blacks, Chinese, whites, mongrels -- a...horse or hound is worth more than a score of them." He is basically saying that every human is worth nothing other than himself, and that he is doing the world a favor by luring them to his island and hunting them down.
In the end of the story, Rainsford becomes the hunter. He escapes Zaroff’s clutches and swims through the ocean until he reaches Zaroff’s mansion. He then sneaks into Zaroff’s room, hides behind the curtains and waits. When Rainsford was spotted, he could have killed Zaroff on the spot, but he didn’t. Instead, he waited until Zaroff had overcome his shock of Rainsford behind his curtains. Rainsford wanted to show Zaroff what it was like to be the hunted one, so he challenged him to a duel and killed him.
