The Sound Of Thunder And The Most Dangerous Game, By Richard Connell

It takes courage to stand and take control of a situation. Controlling one’s own life is necessary to get the life you want. If you allow others to dictate your life, you give away your power thus allowing them to determine the life you lead. The following short stories, “The Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury and “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, demonstrates what happens when control is in the wrong hands. While “The Sound of Thunder” proves control using fear and the demeaning of men by Travis, and “The Most Dangerous Game” shows its control by the degradation of men at the hand of Zaroff. Through their actions, both Zaroff and Travis demonstrate how control can be taken too far.

Travis in the short story “The Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury, takes control to the extreme. Travis leads a safari into the

In doing so, he strongly controls every aspect of the expedition allowing the others to feel minimized and degraded. After the Tyrannosaurus was killed by the hunters, Eckles, one of the men hunting with Travis, stepped off the path by mistake. Travis forced him to do an incredibly disgusting job as punishment in order to return with the group. “Travis glared at Eckels' checkbook and spat. ‘Go out there. The Monster's next to the Path. Stick your arms up to your elbows in his mouth. Then you can come back with us.’” (Bradbury, 44). The act of forcing Eckle to do this horrendous task demonstrates Travis’ control and his ability to demean others for his personal gain. (Transition) Along the same lines, General Zaroff in “The Most Dangerous Game” was a hunter that trapped people on his island and hunted them for sport, like animals. This is the epitome of supremacy. Being the apex predator of the island, General Zaroff controlled the life and death of everything and everyone on the island. He also had jurisdiction over what was allowed onto the island, including humans. When a ship was coming close to Zaroff’s island, he