Setting In The Most Dangerous Game, By Richard Connell

In “The Most Dangerous Game,” the author, Richard Connell, incorporates setting as character. Setting as character is where the setting is so important to the story that it acts as a character, controls other characters, or even defines characters. Richard Connell makes setting a character by developing suspense and conflict. The island’s qualities, such as its aura of evil and intention, help create suspense in the reader. Suspense is tension that readers feel as they wait to see how conflicts and complications arise and are resolved. His use of suspense to establish setting as a character is shown where Whitney quotes the captain saying, “This place has an evil name among seafaring men, sir.”(25) This quote helps give the island an identity,

Intention is a quality of people or characters, and when we see that Connell has made the island look like it has intention, we see him making setting a character. The second manner by which the author makes setting a character is by conflict between the island and Rainsford. We see evidence of conflict between Rainsford and the island on page 36, in the quote, “Night found him leg weary, with hands and face lashed by the branches, on a thickly wooded ridge.” The island is making it harder for Rainsford to avoid Zaroff, as it lashes his face and hands with branches. In the fact that the island is fighting against Rainsford, making his evasion of Zaroff harder, it shows us that the island is playing a role, being a character in the story. Further evidence of this can be found in conflict on page 38, the paragraph beginning with “When the general, nursing his bruised shoulder…” The island is making things as hard as it can on Rainsford. The ground is harder to run on because it has gotten softer and doesn’t support him as well; the vegetation became thicker and harder to pass through, and the insects were biting