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