Short Story the Most Dangerous Game
Sanger Rainsford is an American hunter (p. 68) and book-writer(p. 71) in the short story “The Most Dangerous Game”. Rainsford was stranded on the island “Ship-Trap Island” due to his yacht falling into pieces from hitting the unknown, unseen crags in the water(p. 69). Rainsford was the only survivor of the shipwreck.
When Rainsford was on foot on the island, he followed footsteps leading up to an irregular house. Little did he know that he was walking into the home of General Zaroff, a Russian aristocratic(p. 2) big game hunter, who soon became uninterested in hunting animals anymore, he would much rather hunt humans because of their intellect(p. 74-75). Ivan was a deaf; highly uneducated, deaf, Russian man who was an assistant to General Zaroff(p. 72). The story “The Most Dangerous Game” takes place on a small island named “Ship-Trap Island”(p.
67). The island is called “Ship-Trap Island” because it had no warnings of crags that ships often sink/crash their boats on.The Most Dangerous Game” was in the time era of about the early 1920s(p. 66). Rainsford was given three days to survive against Ivan and General Zaroff in a deadly hunt(p. 76). Zaroff was extraordinarily excited to hunt Rainsford because he knew that Rainsford had knowledge and tactics on the subject matter hunting, and General Zaroff loved a challange.
On the first night of the hunt, General Zaroff catches Sanger Rainsford by catching him in a tree, but Zaroff decided to spare his life, for he wanted a more challenging game(p. 9). Sparing Rainsford’s life was a deadly mistake for Zaroff, because in the end, Rainsford snuck up on Zaroff and killed him(p. 83). “The Most Dangerous Game” was told by the narrator in third person perspective. The narrator was limited omniscient, he described the character’s actions, but he did not describe their thoughts and ideas. The theme that I learned from this story was that the hunter became the hunted, meaning it’s not very easy to know how someone feels without taking a walk in their shoes.
At the beginning of the story before the yacht crashed into the crags, Rainsford stated that hunting is the best sport in the world, but Whitney replied that it is for the hunter, but not the jaguar (p. 68). The mood that I felt most in this story was suspense. One event happened after another, for instance, as soon as the yacht crashed (p. 69), Rainsford heard three gun shots from a what seemed like an island with complete vacancy (p. 69). This story always had you anticipating for the next thrilling event.
