It can be incredibly difficult for someone to keep both a straight face and clear mind, whether they’re speaking in public or under pressure to make an important decision. It’s shocking how Sanger Rainsford is able to do exactly that after falling face first into the Carribean Sea.
Unfortunately for him, Rainsford’s tumble is only the first of several trials that put his ability of maintaining a clear head to the test. In “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, Rainsford progresses from a renowned, American hunter to prey being hunted upon his arrival to a menacing island. He meets General Zaroff, a hunter who is every bit as mad and cunning as his name sounds. Bored from years of successfully hunting creatures around the four corners of the world, Zaroff casually explains to Rainsford about how he enjoys hunting more clever beasts that have the wits to challenge him: humans.
An island that sets the tone for Connell’s story.
At this point in the story, my reading halted to a full stop as I switched tabs to take a breather from the general’s terrifying reveal. My emotions were a discombobulated mixture of disgust and curiosity about how Zaroff could have possibly justified his hobby as anything but “murder”, the term Rainsford used to describe this activity. Zaroff’s Darwinistic claims about his own gifts and purpose as a hunter tasted bitter in my mouth and I searched for another reason, any other reason, of why he was so obsessed with hunting.
One great place to start is to learn about the sport’s characteristics that give a hunter the most happiness. When we think about “hunting”, we usually picture two individuals, father and son, both posing with their prey in a forest in the countryside. Their faces display stunning smiles, radiating their pride after a long day’s worth of hunting deer. Now let’s consider a different sort of hunter. How would an elephant poacher’s smile compare if he held up his prized ivory to the lens of a camera? Both groups are considered to be hunters, but there is a clear distinction in their intentions: a cruelty that matches Zaroff’s own demeanor.
A father and son smiling towards the camera.
In Psychology Today, you can read about how “online hunting photographs reveal achievement satisfaction with large and dangerous prey”. The study noted that the three most important factors that influenced the enthusiasm of a hunter’s smile were a) if the dead prey was in the picture as they posed, b) the prey’s size, and c) if the prey was a carnivore instead of an herbivore. Essentially, the more dangerous the creature was, the more clout and prestige a hunter received. The photographs from this study were shared on social media, making the trend understandable enough: a hunter is prouder when he is able to show off his catch to his hunter friends.
However, this correlation does not carry over to Zaroff’s island. In the early 20th century, the general did not have access to Facebook, Snapchat, or Instagram. He lived on an isolated island, with only Ivan (his loyal, deaf henchman) and his pack of hounds as nearby inhabitants. If Zaroff didn’t have anyone to impress but himself, why would he hunt humans?
A device for Zaroff to boost his ego… or maybe not since his hunting is a little illegal?
With this conundrum in mind, it is interesting to reconsider Rainsford’s and Zaroff’s motivations for hunting. Rainsford hunted for sport, to write books detailing his adventures. Zaroff hunted to satisfy his bloodlust, to prove his strength. Were they the same? At the end of the day, both hunted for pleasure. Was there any difference at all?
To get behind the eyes of a hunter, I recommend watching Mike Hairston’s interview where he articulates his love for hunting and progression as a hunter. As he recounts the way he bonds over hunting with his children, Hairston mentions several benefits, including “renewing ourselves” and “escaping from the life that we normally live”. Everything about Hairston reveals his inherently kind nature, from his passionate voice to his touching recollection of living out his father’s love for hunting. Interestingly enough, these same motivations apply to both Rainsford and Zaroff. As Zaroff pursues him through the jungle to “renew himself”, Rainsford’s mentality shifts subtly to “escape” from personification of the brutal side of hunting. He is still the calm, critical thinker he was before arriving on the island, but a craze for survival overtakes his mind.
In pursuit of his freedom from Zaroff, Rainsford’s morals bend as he begins to act in ways that he earlier condemned. The “murder” he criticized Zaroff of over dinner becomes a tactic for survival. Traps that he once used on wild jaguars become weapons for him to save his own life. These changes evoke even more questions about the delicate link between a hunter and their morals. Is it possible to be a sensible hunter, even if your actions don’t match your words? At what point does a savage hunter become an animal? When these two forces are thrown against each other in the name of survival, what happens? Connell’s gripping short story offers critical insight into the mind of a hunter and leaves you questioning about which stressors might break someone to the point where they no longer exhibit human values.
Works Cited
Allendorf, Fred W., and Jeffrey J. Hard. “Human-Induced Evolution Caused by Unnatural Selection through Harvest of Wild Animals.” PNAS, National Academy of Sciences, 16 June 2009, www.pnas.org/content/106/Supplement_1/9987.
Bekoff, Marc. “Trophy Hunters’ Smiles Show How Much They Like to Kill.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 26 November 2015, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/201511/trophy-hunters-smiles-show-how-much-they-kill.
KUIU Ultralight Hunting, director. KUIU – Why We Hunt: Mike Hairston. YouTube, 27 Feb. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y98Qystojw.
Read “The Most Dangerous Game” here: http://www.dukeofdefinition.com/dangerous_game.pdf
I read this story as well! I was definitely taken aback by the plot twist, but Connell does a really good job of showing the distinction between Rainsford’s and Zaroff’s motivations for hunting. This makes the reader think about how fine the line between “moral” and “immoral” can be and how morals can easily be twisted, like Zaroff did with his Darwinistic logic, which really makes me wonder to what extent we will hold on to our morals.
Hello Alayna,
Oh gosh, this story sounds rather frightening! I am thoroughly intrigued and will definitely give it a read sometime soon.
Perhaps your analysis brings one closer to the ethics of hunting. After all, hunting is just the murder of animals, right? A question I have been wondering about is as follows: why do you think a hunter’s prestige is correlated with the danger of the creature killed? After all, it’s not like the creature actually poses much of a threat to the hunter since the hunter can take advantage of the fact that animals are not adapted to defending themselves against their traps. As an example, is there a difference between killing a rabbit versus killing a deer, if both can be easily killed with a gun?
Holden
I love how you connected the hunting in the short story, to the hunting between a father and his son in real life. It brings up the question whether the intentions behind a hunter is significant because at the end of the day, the outcome is the same whether they had good intention or not. It’s also interesting to note how Zaroff hunts humans, and how we would consider that absurd and murder. But, that is the same thing we do to animals, which kind of puts us in an animal’s point of view. Definitely makes me want to read and know more about this short story!
Hi Alayna,
To me, hunting has always appeared to be a sport with debatable ethics, and I found your analysis of the morality of hunting through this story very compelling. Hunting has a unique debate around it as the ethics of it can often depend on the mindset of the person participating in the sport- as you mentioned, most people would agree with Rainsford’s ideals when it comes to hunting but are opposed to Zaroff. I think what really stood out to me in your analysis of this story, however, is the last paragraph. The morals of this story get even more complicated at the end, as it would seem reasonable for Rainsford to fight back against Zaroff, but he must implement some of the same strategies and violence that he despises Zaroff for. However, these actions seem reasonable in self-defense, despite readers being in opposition to the same choices when made by Zaroff. This story seems to present this interesting moral dilemma by increasing the stakes from the usual hunting of animals to the hunting of humans.
Hey Alayna,
This story really juxtaposes a hunter and his prey. For thousands of years, humans have been hunting for sport as it was seen as an endeavor reserved for the elite. Our cultural tie to hunting has been present for as long as we have been around. Beginning with a need as it was for survival and evolving to royalty and bureaucrats going on hunts as a way to showcase their power and wealth. It was also a form of entertainment. In the modern era, neither of those two things are applicable, so who makes up the strata of hunters today?