Peyton Bucksbee
Mrs.Magarian
English
“The Most Dangerous Game” Conflict Essay
Conflict is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as an active disagreement between people with opposing opinions or principles. There are four forms of conflict in stories including but not limited to, man versus man, man versus self, man versus nature, and man versus society. In the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell the three conflicts that show up most are man versus nature, man versus man, and man versus self. In “The Most Dangerous Game” Rainsford has to outwit General Zaroff after he gets trapped on his island nicknamed Ship Trap Island.
One conflict found in the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” is man versus nature. Man versus nature
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He was going into the jungle ‘blind’ and he didn’t know what to expect. “Then, as he stepped forward, …show more content…
Towards the end of the story Rainsford starts feeling hopeless, feeling like he can’t beat Zaroff at his game. “It was flight now, a desperate, hopeless flight, that carried him on for some hours.” (Conell 14) Rainsford feels that he can’t go on, and that everything is going on for a long time; hopeless. He’s experiencing the hopelessness that prey feel. Another example of man versus self is Rainsford fearing about the jungle and the things he didn’t know about it. “At daybreak Rainsford, lying near the swamp, was awakened by a sound that made him know that he had new things to learn about fear.” (Conell 14) Rainsford has very little prior knowledge about the jungle he is in. He doesn’t know what kind of animals are out there, or what food he can get. That fear could cause him to get up. The final example of man versus himself is when Rainsford knows he might die playing General Zarrofs game. He continuously tells himself “I will not lose my nerve.” (Conell 13) Rainsford knows in order to end his fear he must end the game. Man versus self is the final conflict in “The Most Dangerous