Saturday, July 20, 2019
The Value of Life in The Most Dangerous Game Essay -- Most Dangerous G
The Value of Life in The Most Dangerous Game  He is hunched down in the bushes, a .22-caliber pistol in his hand. His blood-red lips split open in a smile as he watches his prey writhing, blood spouting from the wound, dry green leaves becoming wet crimson. Then, with a terrible pleasure, he places the gun against the skull of his prey and fires one last round. The hunter, brimming with sadism, drags his kill behind him, leaving a trail of blood behind on the ground. Human blood. This premise of man hunting man is one set up by Richard Connell’s short story The Most Dangerous Game.            The dominant theme to this story is that all life is to be respected and preserved. A proof for this is that the protagonist, Rainsford, is at first disrespectful of animals when he hunts. He is then placed into the animal’s role in a twisted hunt, andâ€â€due to the horrors he experiencesâ€â€becomes more respectful. More support to back this claim is that General Zaroff, the epitome of disregard for life, is defeated by Rainsford at the end. However, this is not the most accurate theme of the story, and these examples also support another theme: animals, and life in general, are not respected and never truly will be, and we should all come to terms with this fact.            Let us primarily take into consideration the aspect that Rainsford at first cares not for animals, but his view is altered by his experiences with Zaroff. First, we must prove that Rainsford really did not care for animals. Let us look at the conversation on the boat between Rainsford and Whitney. Here is a quote:   â€Å"[...] Great sport, hunting.†  â€Å"The best sport in the world,†agreed Rainsford.   â€Å"For the hunter,†amended Whitney. ... ...en thatâ€â€and then takes Zaroff’s things, including his style of hunting, it is apparent that Rainsford has become worse, even as bad as General Zaroff.            Conclusively, as the main character of The Most Dangerous Game fails to learn from such a horrible experience the value of life, a society that has not been subjected to such an experience will also not know the value of life. Our disrespect has gotten even to the point where our children are killing their fellow children. The value of life in all its forms has not been discovered by all of society, and it never will. We must learn to cope with that fact, or we will all be, in the words of Sanger Rainsford, huntees of our own nature. Works Cited: Connell, Richard. "The Most Dangerous Game." Structure, Sound and Sense . Eds. Laurence Perrine and Thomas R. Arp. 4th ed. New York: Harcourt, 1983.
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