Value Of Life In Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game

There are many articles, passages, and stories about placing a monetary value on human lives. They all ask “Can you put a value on human life?” or “Are some lives worth more than other?” In these writings they attempt to put a value on lives and estimate the monetary compensation for the death of the person(s). I will say, in the least, despite popular belief and opinion, you can’t put a monetary value on any life.

Although all lives are worth the same value, society leads us to believe otherwise. One factor that society uses to reason this is age. It believes that an older life is worth less than a younger one, or that a younger one is worth less than an older one. Each perspective depends on the independent person, but in total society believes

A good example of this is seen in Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game”. In this short story a man named General Zaroff commits the heinous act of hunting humans, as he is bored of hunting animals, “‘I hunt the scum of the earth-sailors from tramp ships-lascars, blacks, Chinese, whites,mongrels- a thoroughbred horse is worth more than a score of them…’”(Connell 14). He along with society believes that some people have little to no value. He uses the choices and the position that the workers are in to evaluate the worth of them. Although the “ scum of the earth” don’t appear to amount to much, their lives still have the same price. This does appear to be a confusing statement but what society believes to be the value of the life is actually the value of the choices, or in other words, what decisions the life has made. The men on the ships will still have the same value of life as every other human being, but the choices that they have made may not have been the most valuable. The decisions they made did not lead them to the best circumstances but that does not depreciate the value of their lives. Even Rainsford believes so, as he tells General Zaroff that even war, “‘ Did not make [him] condone coldblooded murder’”(Connell 13). Rainsford has seen the true terror of war, and yet is not turned towards killing humans who aren’t worth a, “ thoroughbred

One particularly interesting article by Kenneth Feinberg, “What Is The Value Of A Human Life?” discusses the monetary compensations for the horrific deaths of the 9/11 victims. Feinberg is at a major conflict with himself in which he has to decide whether to trust the legal system or rely on his own moralities. He strongly disagrees with how the government decides how to give money to the families of the 9/11 victims. He states that “ I was engaged in a personal struggle. I felt it would make more sense for Congress to provide the same amount of public compensation to each and every victim-to declare, in effect, that all lives are equal. But in this case, the law prevailed.” He felt as I do, in the sense that all lives are equal. We are in agreement that the justice system is