This defense of Richard Connell's General Zaroff character in "The Most Dangerous Game" is my own work and is in no way endorsed by Mr. Connell or his estate.
“Be a realist. The world is made up of two classes- the hunter and the hunted. Luckily, you and I are the hunters”. Rainsford’s offhand rebuke to his friend Whitney is the first instance of irony in Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game”. Given this, Rainsford’s objections to General Zaroff’s game are hypocritical
Being a big game hunter, Rainsford should understand the need for bigger, better, smarter prey. He himself does not care how a jaguar feels, and if a jaguar can be killed for sport why not a man? (Was this Connell guy a vegetarian?)
I do not think that Zaroff’s position is flawed. He needed a game that gave him more of a challenge, and in which his prey had a sporting chance. The game itself is technically fair, and therefore there is no reason for complaint.
The definitions for “reason”, “instinct”, and “animal” are important to the story because the connotations are subjective. If it is thought that we should not hunt things with the capacity to reason (which is perverse: reasonable creatures stand a sporting chance) then Zaroff’s game is horrible. If it is thought that human beings are merely animals with the capacity to “reason”, and that reasoning abilities shouldn’t factor, the sport of hunting humans is no different from any other.
Rainsford is completely justified in turning on Zaroff at the end. If it’s a fair game, then Zaroff should be able to lose. The ending on “The Most Dangerous Game” is very satisfying. No one can bear a moral grudge against someone with a soft bed.
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