Most Dangerous Game By Richard Connell

Most Dangerous Game takes place on a small remote island on the Caribbean. This is a deplorable island where a homicide that hunts sailors lives. In the short story Most Dangerous Game, Richard Connell addresses conflict by developing a narrative between two characters named General Zaroff, a cosmopolite from Russia, and Sanger Rainsford. There are two major conflicts that Connell uses in his story in order to build suspense; these include man vs.nature and man vs. man. Rainsford deals with the internal conflict of man vs. nature in the beginning and middle of the story. For instance, when Rainsford falls off the yacht, he struggles with the internal conflict of not giving up and letting himself drown in the water. “He struggled up to the

man in the beginning and end of the story. As an illustration, Rainsford and Whitney are having a conversation on the yacht in the middle of the Caribbean, and it later turns into a disagreement. The disagreement was whether quarry has feelings or not. “Don’t talk rot, Whitney,” said Rainsford. “You’re a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels? Perhaps a jaguar does,” observed Whitney”(1). This conversation proves that Rainsford denies the statement that quarry have feelings, especially when hunting is his favorite sport. This contributes to the conflict of man vs. man because Rainsford is against Whitney and his point. Another example of Connell using the conflict man vs. man to build suspense is when General Zaroff makes Rainsford his prey and he has to find refuge from Zaroff out in the jungle. “Rainsford held his breath. The general’s eyes had left the ground and were traveling inch by inch up the tree. Rainsford froze there, every muscle tensed for a spring...Rainsford lay; a smile spread over his brown face...he turned his back on the tree and walked carelessly away, back along the trail he had come”(15). This mainly increases the level of suspense in the story because this is the climax and the reader wants to know whether Zaroff will decide to kill Rainsford or not. This relates to the conflict of man vs. man because Sanger Rainsford is against General Zaroff. Rainsford’s man vs. man