Taking time to reason this out would have told him that he could fall and, since he was the only person on deck at that time of night, that no one would be around to see that he had fallen and rescue him. His instinct also took over when he dropped his pipe while standing on the rail (Connell, 1924). Reaching for the pipe was pure instinct. When a person drops something, more often than not he or she reaches for the dropped object in an effort to catch it (Carlson & Heth, 2009; Gray, 2011). While that makes complete sense from an instinctual standpoint, reason would say that Rainsford was putting himself far too much at risk because he was leaning out over an open ocean with no one around. He did fall, putting him in great peril.
Instinct saved him shortly afterward, however, because he remembered where the gunshots had come from and swam in that direction (Connell, 1924). At that point, he was using both reason and instinct. His reasoning told him that he could not catch the yacht, and so he instinctively swam toward the sound of the gunshots. Had he not done so, and swam after the yacht instead, he may have completely missed the island in the dark. He could have easily been completely lost at sea, and he would have drown or fallen victim to a predator such as a shark. While reason and instinct served him well there, he had more trouble with the issue when he arrived at the island. As soon as he found out that General Zaroff was hunting people as "big game" on his island, he was appalled and his instinctive reaction was to make that clear (Connell, 1924). If he had spent some time reasoning out the reaction that General Zaroff might have, Rainsford might have determined that it would be better to keep quiet and even participate in an effort to eventually get safely off the island. Instead, he became the hunted because of the courage of his convictions.
Once he was being hunted,...
Dangerous Game The basic story of "The Most Dangerous Game," both the short story and the 1932 film are about a big game hunter who finds himself at the mercy of an even more dedicated hunter than himself, the mad Cossack General Zaroff who chases and kills human beings for sport. In transferring the story from print to film, the screenwriters, producers, directors, and actors make certain changes to the story
Both stories revolve around characters with power. Trevor strives to gain control in his own little world just as Zaroff does. Trevor wants to control those around him and he is quite successful at it. Greene writes that he "was giving his orders with decision: it was as though this plan had been with him all his life, pondered through the seasons, now in his fifteenth year crystallized with
When Tessie is chosen, she is quickly stoned to death by the other town people and her family. The village deems murder to be an acceptable tradition… until it is you who is chosen. The reader of "The Most Dangerous Game" is also faced with the question of the acceptability of murder. In this story, the definition of murder is expanded to include the murder of hunted animals and murder
Lottery" and "The Most Dangerous Game" At first glance, the slow tension built up in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" seems to mark the story as wholly distinct from the over-the-top adventure in Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game," but closer examination reveals a number of points in which the two tales seem to engage in a shared discourse regarding the value of human life. "The Lottery" features an ostensibly civil
Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell Rainsford as the Hunter and Hunted: Reversal of roles and conflict in "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell In Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game," the theme of reversal of roles was apparent and illustrated through its main character, the skilled hunter Rainsford. In it, readers witnessed Rainsford's plight as the hunter who became the 'hunted' after a supposedly minor accident at the sea led
Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell and "The Destructors" by Graham Greene share a similar structure, where each story is organized around the completion of a "game" with artificial rules, which ultimately demonstrates darker truths about human motivation. Intro Paragraph: *Structural similarity between Connell story and Greene story Connell story *Connell story, title, pun on "Game" *"Game" as animal that is hunted, "Game" as activity with artificial rules *Zaroff's game is antisocial / destructive *Zaroff's world --
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