Rainsford Reactions To Rainford's The Most Dangerous Game

Hunting is a game where you can have fun killing a certain type of animal, but could be very dangerous at the same time. In “The Most Dangerous Game” Rainsford is a character that is a very good hunter. So one day him and his buddy's went out on a yacht and went out on the sea to go to the caribbean to look for this island to hunt Jaguars. But while on a yacht he feel of the boat and fell into the sea. Moving on he was on this Island and met this General.

How does he change though? Rainsford says hunting is “The best sport in the world”. He is a hunter at this point. He also says “Who cares how the jaguar feels?” and this comes back to haunt him.

In the short story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” Rainsford fits the category of Zaroff’s ideal animal to hunt, because Rainsford displays the attribute to reason by being able to make many life saving decisions throughout the story. Rainsford has the ability to reason from the very beginning of the story, because he was able to remain calm to make a life saving decision in an unnerving situation, which proves that he fits the quarry for Zaroff to hunt. As he was in the water, he recalls the gunshots he heard while he was still on the yacht, “they had come from the right, and doggedly he swam in that direction, swimming with slow, deliberate strokes, conserving his strength” (Connell 14). Whereas most people would have panicked in the situation

When an unfortunate accident throws Rainsford overboard, he stays calm (Connell 28). In this sudden event, he needs to stay calm, and he does that very well. From this point, he immediately looks around and surveys to find a place to go that isn’t stranded in the ocean. “General, I wish to leave this island at once” (Connell 36). Hearing all about the island and General Zaroff makes Rainsford decide he needs to leave.

Rainsford knew that he was unable to retreat and forced to face danger. Rainsford realized that animals felt and how they had to face the danger just like how he did.

Once Rainsford was on the island he met a man named Zaroff, a general who loved hunting but had become bored hunting animals so started hunting humans instead. Since the island was secluded, Zaroff was able to hunt people that were shipwrecked without getting caught. Eventually Zaroff decided to hunt Rainsford, who put up a good fight against his captor. Rainsford then found out how the animals felt when he had been hunting them and began to feel sympathy for them. His being hunted like an animal being hunted led him to figure out the value of life.

He had to fight himself to stay on track. He was so scared in the jungle while the General was trying to hunt him. On page 186, it says “He could not say where he was. That was suicide.” This shows the reader that Rainsford may be thinking of what could go wrong, and is not thinking on the positive side of things.

I see a perspective of the quotation, "Character is what you are in the dark.", by Dwight Lyman Moody in the short story, "Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. This quotation gives the meaning that you see the real characteristic of a character when they are alone, and no one else is around to see what they are doing or how they are acting. You can see some examples of this perspective in the short story with characters General Zaroff and Rainsford. For instance, when speaking with Rainsford about hunting The General states, "It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason." (Connell P.12).

Rainford exposes his selfishness and lack of empathy by saying, “‘Be a realist. The world is made up of two classes-the hunters and the huntees. Luckily you and I are hunters’”(2). His actions throughout the story show his cruelty too. Rainsfords profession is killing animals, and while he does

Although it takes Rainsford some time and the dangerous situation he learns an important lesson in the end. He overcomes his pride and accepts that being hunted is more dangerous and terrifying than death

In this part of the story Rainsford is on his boat and was in the area of Ship Trap Island and they are talking about hunting games. They were wondering how it feels to be hunted. “You’re a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?” (Line 19).

”(The Most Dangerous Game) This shows that Rainsford has learned the theme of the story because when he says that he is saying that he is still a trapped animal that has to fight back. This shows that he now knows how it felt to be hunted, and to be trapped and having to fight back and take risks to survive. Before the events that occurred in the story Rainsford had no idea how the animals felt and didn’t care how they felt, but after those events he knew how they felt and thought while being hunted and definitely cared about how they felt because he knew how much it hurt

The general thinks that he will enjoy this but, Rainsford is a “hunter, not a murderer” (Connell 27). He loves to hunt, but doesn’t believe in hunting people. He does not want to be a murderer like Zaroff is. Rainsford, unlike the antagonist, is caring, he thinks about people's lives, and refers to hunting, not murder. This shows external conflict because the general wants him to hunt people but, he doesn’t want to commit murder.

We can infer that while on the yacht, feeding a human being to animals would never have occurred to him, and if it had, that he would have treated it like “grisly...cold-blooded murder.” Revenge also did not seem to be an important aspect to him before becoming the subject of Zaroff's dangerous game, but when he returns and encounters Zaroff in his bedroom, he soon resumes the hunt, this time with Zaroff as the prey. Rainsford compromises his own morals by continuing the game, and he even seems to enjoy killing his new human prey, resting comfortably in Zaroff's “very excellent” bed after killing the general and feeding him to the hounds. Thus, the reader realizes that perhaps Rainsford may have decided that hunting humans is not so “barbaric” after

It is now hard for him to trust anyone after being forced to be hunted. “The pit grew deeper; when it was above his shoulders, he climbed out and from some hard saplings cut stakes and sharpened them to a fine point. These stakes he planted in the bottom of the pit with the points sticking up” (Connell 34) because of this flashback Rainsford starts to get scared about himself hurting another human being. He won’t hunt again because he remembers his times of desperation and how he felt while trying to kill a living person. Another factor of Rainsford’s nervousness is when he told that the man being hunted the day before lost his head.