The Themes Of Emotions In Ernest Hemingway's The Most Dangerous Game

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“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.” -Ernest Hemingway. In the story, “The Most Dangerous Game”, General Zaroff has hunted everything in every situation that he can imagine. He found that animals are not fun to exploit anymore. He had in many situations outsmarted and out done his pray so, he creates a new game where he hunts humans. They are smarter and have the ability to reason. Humans still were not much of a hardship for his hunting craft until he met Rainsford. A hunter who has hunted all types of animals throughout the world and has lived to tell his stories. The author of, “The Most Dangerous Game” Richard Connell uses his …show more content…
This brings the story full circle. When Rainsford is in the tree and General Zaroff stops and begins to scan, then stops his scanning and smiles we get stiffness in the character, a physical stiffness he doesn’t breathe and tries to stay still all of this in fear. Fear of death and fear of being outdone. This fear, which is transferred from his physical stiffness to his emotions and then to his mind is one of the main motivations and theme of this story. When we see multiple plans of action from the General when he sends first himself, then his minion Ivan and finally his dogs we here see another layer of the character Zaroff which is his planning layer we can infer this about him earlier in the story when he talks about hunting both animal and human and by how thought out his process is. The author gives us this insight in hope that we will take it and better grasp the themes of both fear and perseverance. We get to see the perseverance on Rainsford’s side of the story from his point of view the General throws everything he has at him within the Generals own game design. He survives everything, he even “evades” Zaroff the first day, kills Ivan the second day, evades the dog the third day and even comes back to finish off the General on his little island which is summed up when Rainsford thinks, “ He had never slept …show more content…
The island in the story is described almost as a spooky place, a dreadful place. It is a place that affects the seaman so bad that they act differently when they would have otherwise. It is also described is one that is feared by the seaman, and along with that the author talks about how even the air felt as if it was poison at the time. Through these rash descriptions and the description of how the hunt affected Rainsford during when it took place we can infer that the overall tone that is created by the author to help convey part of his message which is fear would be spooky, dark and dreadful. This one aspect alone helps to point toward the theme, but combined with the other literary elements the author weaves throughout his work we see a true tone and characterization take place.
Through Richard Connell’s work, “The Most Dangerous Game”, his use of word choice, his sentence setup and the way he says his words to affect how we got to the theme and what we, as the reader, thought the theme was. He develops layered characters that help us on our trip through his short story; they help guide us to the theme. In his own overall style he took us on a journey which with Rainsford lands on top having lived through, and learned some valuable lessons. Lessons taught to him from General Zaroff and by the

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