Carter Ennis
Mrs. Parent
English 9B
06 Feb 2022
Mood Essay - Tense
Everyone has watched a show or movie where you are holding your breath because something terrible is always about to happen. I just described what reading The Most Dangerous Game is like. Throughout Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game,” he uses character actions, setting, and foreshadowing to enhance the tense mood of the story. The Most Dangerous Game is full of character actions that reinforce the short story's tense mood. More specifically, he shows a tense mood when Zaroff blows the smoke ring, and when Zaroff finally tells Rainsford that he hunts people. After Rainsford has left tracks around the island to throw Zaroff off the sent, he decides to rest in a tree.
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Especially when they foreshadow that Rainsford will be hunted, and when they foreshadow the dangerous nature of Ship Trap Island. Zaroff wants to hunt with the famous Rainsford, but Rainsford refuses to hunt men as it is against his morals. While Zaroff is explaining the game that he plays. “We’ll visit my training school” smiled the general It’s in the cellar. I have about a dozen pupils down there now. They’re from the Spanish bark. A very inferior lot. I created a game, you see,” pursued the general, blandly. “I suggest to one of them that we go hunting. I give him a supply of food and an excellent hunting knife. I give him three hours start. I am to follow, armed only with a pistol of the smallest caliber and range. If my quarry eludes me for three whole days, he wins the game. If I find him”—the general smiled—“he loses.”(385) This adds to the tense mood because Zaroff wants to show Rainsford his huntees and get him to understand why and how he plays this game where he hunts humans. It foreshadows that Rainsford will be hunted as he disagrees with hunting humans, but Zaroff is still teaching him the rules. That is tense because you are looking in on this man that is going to be hunted and if he is caught he will be murdered. So you are anxious about what is going to happen. Another way The Most Dangerous Game conveys the tense theme through foreshadowing is at the beginning Rainsford was having a conversation with the captain on the deck of his ship. Once the captain leaves Rainsford hears gunshots and goes to check it out when all heck breaks loose. “An abrupt sound startled him. Off to the right he heard it, and his ears, expert in such matters, could not be mistaken. Again he heard the sound, and again. Somewhere, off in the blackness, someone had fired a gun three times. Rainsford sprang up and moved quickly to the rail, mystified. He strained his eyes in the direction