“Character is what you are in the dark” is a quote from Dwight Lyman Moody, and it has various definitions. For instance, it can mean you are most yourself when no one is watching, dark and troubled times bring out a person's true nature, and your true nature is on the inside. This quote can be applied to Richard Connell’s short story, “The Most Dangerous Game.” In this essay, I will explain why.
“The Most Dangerous Game” is about a man named Rainsford. When Rainsford falls off a yacht and has to swim to the nearest island, he meets a general named, General Zaroff, who became disinterested with hunting animals, so he switched to hunting humans as a game. He tricks ships into thinking that there is a channel they can sail through, but then
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giant rocks crush the ship and the crew is stranded on the island.
In the game, General Zaroff arms everyone on that crew with a knife and a pack of food and each and gives them a three-hour head start. When three hours has passed, General Zaroff hunts them down with a pistol of the smallest bullet size and range, and if someone who is being hunted stays alive for three days, they win. If a person who is supposed to be hunted refuses to play, they are whipped. If they are close to winning, General Zaroff brings out his pack of vicious and ruthless dogs, and because of the general’s unfair method of this cruel game, he has not lost one game after playing this for countless years. When General Zaroff explains to Rainsford that he will hunt again the next day and he wants Rainsford to hunt alongside him, Rainsford cannot bring himself to participate. Since Rainsford is not hunting, he ends up being hunted, and he wins. This short story applies to the first interpretation of “Character is what you are in the …show more content…
dark,” which is “you are most yourself when no one is watching,” because when General Zaroff is not watching Rainsford, Rainsford shows that he is clever and an experienced hunter, as he uses several tactics to stay alive for the three days he is in the jungle. Also, this applies to General Zaroff as well, because when Rainsford wasn’t looking, General Zaroff was scheming about ways to kill Rainsford. The second elucidation of “Character is what you are in the dark” is “dark and troubled times bring out a person’s true nature.” As Rainsford hides and runs away from General Zaroff, he is faced with ordeals he has never faced before, and it has made him stronger, smarter, and a better person.
For example, in the beginning of the story, he believed animals were just unintelligent creatures who didn’t understand anything. At the end, his feelings change. “Dark and troubled times bring out a person’s true nature” also applies to General Zaroff. In the beginning of the story, he appeared to be trustworthy and welcoming, proving Rainsford with delicious meals and luxurious bed sheets and pajamas. As the story continues and the tension rises, the reader sees that General Zaroff is malicious and he does not care about the people around
him. The last interpretation of the quote by Dwight Lyman Moody is “Your true nature is on the inside.” I believe this explanation applies to General Zaroff more than it applies to Rainsford. In regards to Rainsford, his true nature is that he is clever, resourceful, and contains physical and mental strength. This is shown when he uses different tactics to keep the general away from him. One of the tactics he used is a Malay mancatcher, which is a trap where someone or something triggers a heavy dead tree to fall on the spot where it was triggered. General Zaroff, always being alert, jumped back, and the tree hit his shoulder, and Rainsford acquired additional time as the general nursed his wound. “Your true nature is on the inside” applies to General Zaroff because, as I stated before, General Zaroff was projected as friendly and kindhearted. As the story progressed, however, his true nature was expressed—he was selfish and covetous. To summarize, “Character is what you are in the dark” can mean three separate notions-- you are most yourself when no one is watching, dark and troubled times bring out a person's true nature, and your true nature is on the inside. These three interpretations apply to Richard Connell’s short story, “The Most Dangerous Game” in numerous ways. By and large, “Character is what you are in the dark” has multiple explanations that all apply to Richard Connell’s short story, “The Most Dangerous Game.”
The most dangerous game began as a sport for one man. His name is Sanger Rainsford. In Richard Connell’s story “The Most Dangerous Game,” Sanger Rainsford, an avid hunter, is lost at sea, stranded on “Ship-Trap” Island-every sailor’s worst nightmare. Rainsford goes through a series of events that prove to be life-altering. Even though Sanger Rainsford went through many trials and tribulations, he never lost his intelligence, composure, or his bravery.
The two story High Noon and "The Most Dangerous Game" are alike in some ways, but very different in many other ways also. High Noon is a story about an honest man named will khan; Who is a Marshall that has sent a prisoner to jail named frank Miller. Who has now come out of jail to get revenge on will. When will needs the towns people of hadleyville for help to defeat frank when he comes after will no one helps. In the other hand "The Most Dangerous Game" is about two very skilled hunter between Rainsford who get trapped on Ship-Trap island by Zaroff who owns the island. When Rainsford realizes what Zaroff hunts in his island he must leave as soon as possible. Zaroff tells Rainsford he could either hunt with him or against him.
Robert Rainsford from “The Most Dangerous Game” is a very open character. He always shows what he’s thinking verbally or just with facial expressions. When he landed on Ship-Trap island and was lost in the woods, he found a pathway. “They pointed along the cliff in the direction he had been going.” Rainsford’s attitude toward the pathway is what brought him and General Zaroff together. Rainsford had the opportunity to just not follow the hunting boot tracks and walk down a different trail but then the story would never have ended the same. “‘Thank you, I’m a hunter, not a murderer.’ ‘Dear me,’ said the general, quite unruffled, ‘again that unpleasant word. But I think I can show you that your scruples are quite ill founded.’”This quote signifies the start of conflict for the two characters.
When world renowned hunter, Sanger Rainsford ends up marooned on an island, he finds himself in an unimaginable word. A world full of murder. He must find a way to save himself and the ones around him. Rainsford is the lesser of two evils he may have a passion for hunting but unlike General Zaroff he has limits, Rainsford kills Zaroff to save himself and many future victims.
“Temperament lies behind mood; behind will, lies the fate of you character.” Writers use stylistic techniques to help the story really be visualized by the read. In “The Treasure Of Lemon Brown” by Walter Dean Myers the author uses descriptive adjectives and purposeful word choice to develop characters and mood.
Being hunted on an island is an experience like no other, whether it is a film or a short story. “The Most Dangerous Game” started off as a short-story, but was later turned into a film. Like many other films, the director has done some adjustments that differ from the short-story. The plot, setting, and characters were revised from the original form in the short-story. However, the difference in the characters was the most influential part that changed throughout the film.
Foreshadowing is a beneficial literary device that may be most salutary once the reader has completed the passage. In the short story,“The Most Dangerous Game”, author Richard Connell uses foreshadowing to expose General Zaroff as a bloodthirsty cannibal to his readers.
The author of “The Most Dangerous Game” is Richard Connell. Richard Connell is an American author and journalist, who wrote a lot of short stories and few novels. His short stories appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's Weekly. While he was still in high school, Richard Connell was hired as the city editor for sixteen dollars a week. He studied college at Georgetown University, while working as a secretary for his father, who had been elected to Congress. After his father’s death, he moved to Harvard, and started writing for two college newspapers. After graduating, he transferred to New York, but he also left a brief stint in the army during World War |. After that, he moved to Los Angeles and began to write screenplays for major Hollywood movie studios. Richard Connell’s most famous story is “The Most Dangerous Game”, which is still widely read, even nowadays. It has inspired many movies and it’s probably the most frequently anthologized American story.
The harsh reality is one which hit everyone in America in the 1930. People found work hard to find and crime was on the uprise. This meant, unfortunately, that innocent people were the easy prey and, as we see in the Of Mice and Men, there were plenty of characters that were easy prey. Of Mice and Men characters have and do thing that make them vulnerable in way which do cause trouble. In this essay, that harsh reality and easy prey will be shown through to see which characters are the most vulnerable.
To begin with, the setting for “The Most Dangerous Game” is very fitting. The author, Richard Connell, picked the best place to set the story. Reason being, the mansion is on a large island that is feared by everyone. Also the mansion, on the outside at least, looks scary. Since it was dark out and there were cliffs surrounding the house, there was a scary shadow that was cast down. While on the yacht, Sanger Rainsford, the main character or protagonist, came across this island and asked for the name. His friend Whitney replied, “The old charts call it ‘Ship Trap Island’,” (Connell). Ship Trap Island is the name of the island. It doesn’t sound like a happy place to be but it is the dark and violent thoughts and feelings that come with the title, which perfectly fits the theme of the story. Another form of proof, to tell where the story took place is in this quote, “…the blood-warm waters of the Caribbean Sea dosed over his head” (Connell). Rainsford went to get a closer look to see the island more clearly by stepping on the rail. He lost his balance and fell...
We are introduced to the protagonist and main character, Sanger Rainsford who is a big game hunter and a WW1 veteran. The story starts off with a conversation between Whitney and Rainsford discussing the island, so we can understand the reputation it holds.
“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions” (Carl Jung). The archetype of the shadow self is the darker, animalistic self that a person represses and is forced into the unconscious by the ego. In Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the protagonist, Piscine Molitor is stranded in the middle of the Pacific with a Bengal tiger. It is on this journey that Pi encounters his shadow self. Unfortunately, in an effort to survive, Pi goes against most of his beliefs; and resorts a level of savagery by giving in to his shadow self, Richard Parker. Thence, Pi’s plight is quite challenging for his fruitarian, gentle, kind hearted persona; therefore, Pi would not have survived if he repudiated his shadow self, projected as Richard Parker.
Sanger Rainsford has to overcome many obstacles he faces to not become what he fears, the hunted. When he is sprinting away from General Zaroff he has to fight the urge to quit, and he has to fight the battle of “The Most Dangerous Game.” He is running from the hounds, Ivan, and General Zaroff, when he arrives at a safe place he thinks about how close he was to becoming what he fears. Nevertheless, Sanger Rainsford out wits everything he has experienced and wins “The Most Dangerous Game.”
The narrator's life is filled with constant eruptions of mental traumas. The biggest psychological burden he has is his identity, or rather his misidentity. He feels "wearing on the nerves" (Ellison 3) for people to see him as what they like to believe he is and not see him as what he really is. Throughout his life, he takes on several different identities and none, he thinks, adequately represents his true self, until his final one, as an invisible man.
Man may look and act a certain way on the outside but could be completely the opposite in actuality. The nature of man consists of sin, which is concealed by a mask of goodness and virtue. Society teaches humans to mask the evil tendencies we have and to only convey their angelic sides to the world. The doppelgangers that these characters carry with them do not stay tucked away forever; rather they slowly show themselves through their actions and the decisions that they make. The suppressed half is the gateway to understanding the entire person. Without the good part in people, there is no bad; without the evil, one can never fully know the person as a whole.