Rainsford Vs Zaroff

In the short story, “The Most Dangerous Game” the characters of Rainsford and General Zaroff take pleasure from the sport of hunting, however both have completely different thoughts and morals on this topic. Because their views were so different, it ended up causing external man vs. man conflict. While Rainsford was being hunted by Zaroff, and even before that happened, Richard Connell, unveiled the different characteristics of the protagonist and the antagonist and portrayed how they were significant towards the conflict. When Rainsford refused General Zaroff’s offer to hunt humans with him, instead of becoming the predator, Rainsford found himself becoming the prey. After Rainsford discovered that General Zaroff’s special “imports” were …show more content…
Rainsford may have been a hunter, but he wasn’t inhumane, unlike Zaroff, he had boundaries and knew what his limits were. The authors wrote, “‘Hunting? Good god, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder.’” (pg.25) Rainsford’s set morals separated what he believed as murder and what he viewed as hunt. Zaroff, however, had no morals, limits, or limits to what, or even who should be killed. Connell wrote, “‘The weak of the world were put here to give the strong pleasure...I am strong.’” General Zaroff was so ferocious and headstrong that he didn’t care what he had to do as long as it pleased him. His mind was set up so that he could find pleasure in even the most inhumane acts because of how selfish he was. The different and, in some sense, similar, personalities highly impacted how the conflict played out. Richard Connell very skillfully manipulated the characteristics of Rainsford and Zaroff and assembled them to exaggerate the major conflict. Connell made the conflict in, “The Most Dangerous Game,” a very interesting and suspicious one after he started off a potential friendship and turned it into a kill-or-be-killed situation. By eliminating Zaroff, the author shows how morals are important, and if they are good, you will

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