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What Is The Conflict In The Most Dangerous Game

939 Words4 Pages

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 …show more content…

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

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In the short story The Most Dangerous Game, the author Richard Connell shows that Rainsford needs control of his emotions, patience , and expert hunting and decision making skills in order to defeat Zaroff. Rainsford needs to gain control of his emotions to outthink Zaroff, who symbolizes Rainsfords "steep hill". When he finds that he is going to be hunted his natural instinct is to run and panic, but then he stops to look around and get a grip on the task at hand. Then at a critical moment when Zaroff finds him in a tree, Rainsford panics again because he realizes Zaroff is on his trail and is toying with him. Once again, he gains control of his emotions and formulates a plan.

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“The Most Dangerous Game,” is a short story written by Richard Connell. Rainsford falls overboard on his boat and lands on on an island with General Zaroff. Rainsford’s abilities are soon challenged by General Zaroff in the ultimate hunt. Due to Connell’s characterization of Rainsford, he seems the least effective of the protagonists. The author characterizes Rainsford as one who is in denial, who does not lose his nerve.

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Consequently, when they stumble upon a life or death situation they are being forced into fight-or-flight mode. This reaction is the body's natural instinct based on the ingrained need to survive and save themselves from fatalities. Simultaneously, as shown in the short story “The Most Dangerous Game,” by Richard Connell, the main character, Rainsfords, becomes washed up on an island and stumbles upon a general, General Zaroff, who hunts humans for fun. Even though Rainsford has been in fatal situations before, never behind these circumstances where he is being forced to protect himself from being hunted for 3 days by a human, during which time he endures pure life-or-death situations. The character recognizes his situation fully; “The general was playing with him!

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The Most Dangerous Game Conflicts All stories have to have a conflict, the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell has three important conflicts. Man against man, man against nature, man against himself are the three main conflicts that take place. For man against man Rainsford and General Zaroff are fighting each other in the hunting ‘game’. For man against nature Rainsford is fighting the sea once he hears the gunshots and is trying to get out of the water.

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In another instance, when Rainsford was hiding from General Zaroff, he had to convince himself not to regress to those animal-like instincts that he had developed. The text says “Rainsford’s impulse was to hurl himself down like a panther, but he saw the general’s right hand held something metallic—a small automatic pistol.” (231). As you can tell from the text, Rainsford really wanted to jump down from his hiding spot and attack the general, but he couldn’t. If he had done so, he would end up losing the game. Then, near the end of the story, Rainsford is running from the General and his pack and he sees the ocean shore and it’s deep waters below.

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Richard Connell’s work titled, The Most Dangerous Game, uses elements, symbols, foreshadowing, and man versus self-conflict to support the theme of violence. In the story, The Most Dangerous Game, you never want to underestimate your opponent. In the beginning of the story, a yacht is coming upon an island but says the island is quite a mystery. "What island is it?" Rainsford said, "The old charts call it 'Ship-Trap Island," ' Whitney replied.

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In Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game,” there is man versus man, nature, and himself for conflict in the story. Man versus man it the most obvious conflict in the short story, it is also the most important. Man versus nature is seen right away on page two as the stories first conflict. Man versus himself is not in the story too much but it dictates what happens throughout the game

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“The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell is a very intriguing story that will always have you on the edge of your seat. The story is about a man named Rainsford who falls off of his boat and washes up on an island. Once he is on the island he finds a house in the middle of the forest and he is found having to decide whether he wants to join Zaroff in his hunt or be the one to be hunted. Rainsford chooses to not join Zaroff and has been given a little bit of time to get away before Zaroff starts the hunt. The three types of conflicts found in “The Most Dangerous Game” are man versus man, man versus self, and man versus nature.

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Conflicts occur frequently in literature and life, but are they necessary? In my opinion, we do need to have conflicts so we could learn from them. We will analyze the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell and how the author uses external conflict or man vs. nature, external by man vs. animal and external conflicts or man vs. man to reveal character motivation or development. This short story is about a guy (Rainsford) who falls off a ship and swims to an island and finds out that Zaroff hunts people for entertainment. As Richard Connell states on page 7 .

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“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” (Connell 14). He realized that he could no longer rely on his skills as a hunter and instead had to use strategy to win the game. “I have played the fox, now I must play the cat of the fable” (Connell 12). As Rainsford's isolation changed his self-confidence had a

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After forcefully being thrown into the deadly contest, Rainsford knows he must stay calm and prepare himself for what is to come. Rainsford tells himself, “I must keep my nerve, I must keep my nerve” (Connell). He understands that once he panics, he will only put himself in a more dire situation. Quickly, Rainsford took control of his situation and began creating a plan. He knew a straight line would prove vain in his efforts to throw off his “predator”, so he began making a trail filled with intricate loops to confuse the psychotic killer.

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Hunters believe animals are not capable of reasoning and they see them as something lesser than humans. Throughout time, these positions can change. The short story, “The Most Dangerous Game” written by Richard Connell, consists of General Zaroff being the hunter and Rainsford being the hunted. During the story, their positions change to the complete opposite.

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External conflict is something that some characters from the second unit struggle with. Rainsford, Mathilde, and Georg and Ulrich all experience external conflicts that create an unexpected turn of events. The title “The Most Dangerous Game” is significant to the text because it helps readers to understand that the game will not be easy. It also reflects the truth in this text because Rainsford underestimated his opponent, and this could cause the game to be dangerous.

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Reasons are Bullshit Bernard Roth is the author of the book called The Achievement Habit, and is a professor of engineering, the co-founder and academic director of Stanford design school, and has been teaching for over 50 years. The reason Roth published The Achievement Habit is to help people achieve their goals and not make excuses, his audience could be anyone, but focusing more on college students making goals and students just graduating either high school or college. In chapter two Roth states, “reasons are bullshit,” and the problem with most is they are excuses prettied up. Roth makes a great point when he says reasons are excuses prettied up because he also says many reasons are simply excuses to hide the fact that we are not

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He had to fight himself to stay on track. He was so scared in the jungle while the General was trying to hunt him. On page 186, it says “He could not say where he was. That was suicide.” This shows the reader that Rainsford may be thinking of what could go wrong, and is not thinking on the positive side of things.

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