Character Analysis: The Dangerous Game

Ship-Trap Island is like the nightmare you will never wake up from. In the book “The Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, a hunter named Rainsford was sailing in the sea to go hunt in the Amazon when suddenly he falls off of his yacht due to strong waves late at night. He ends up at this mysterious island the next morning where a general named Zaroff finds him. At first, Zaroff seems friendly but later on he puts Rainsford through a challenge where Zaroff is hunting Rainsford down for three days and if Rainsford wins, he survives. If the general wins, Rainsford will be killed. General Zaroff used to hunt animals as a sport, but now he hunts people. Rainsford will never hunt again after having to go through the dangerous game and being frightened

One obstacle that was frustrating for Rainsford was that at the very beginning of the story, Rainsford wanted to leave the island so he would not have to face the dangerous game. Unfortunately, he could not escape the island, which led him to have to face extremely difficult obstacles that were in the dangerous game Zaroff made. Rainsford states that he “wish[es] to leave [the island]” (Connell 30). When the general hears this news, he tells Rainsford “you’ve only just come, you’ve had no hunting” and Rainsford is not allowed to exit the island unless he suffers through the game and survives (Connell 30). The fact that he has no choice to leave or not, he has to be forced to participate in the game and be chased down; which creates an external conflict for Rainsford throughout the whole story. Additionally, a hardship Rainsford had to face was determining whether or not he should rest for a night or keep trying to move around so he would not get caught by General Zaroff. By the time the sky turned to dark, “night found him leg-weary, with hands and face [cut] by the branches” of the trees in the jungle (Connell 32). After running in the jungle for a long period of time, Rainsford is unsure if he should sleep or try to keep on hiding. Furthermore, Rainsford went through a struggle when he got himself stuck in the quicksand Zaroff cautioned him about. As he was running for his life in the forest, suddenly Rainsford’s foot started to sink down into the ground (Connell 34). “With a violent effort, he tore loose [his foot and] he knew where he was; Death Swamp and its quicksand” (Connell 34). Since he gets stuck in the trap, he needs to find a way out swiftly out of there before General Zaroff catches him, which causes a big conflict for Rainsford. A final obstacle that was life threatening for Rainsford that he only had a few moments to decide what he should do to save himself. An external