"The Most Dangerous Game" By Richard Connell "A Portrait Of A Most Dangerous Man"

Essay by cherikittyA+, June 2005

download word file, 3 pages 5.0

"The Most Dangerous Game"

By Richard Connell

"A Portrait Of A Most Dangerous Man"

General Zaroff is one of the main characters in Richard Connell's short story "The Most Dangerous Game". General Zaroff has military training as he mentions that he is a commander of a division of the Cossack Calvary during the Russian Revolution. After the Russian Revolution, General Zaroff, an avid hunter and aristocrat moves to his island (referred to as Ship-Trap Island) to create a new hunting game involving humans. General Zaroff, the antagonist in the story, is manipulative, sadistic, and arrogant. General Zaroff explains to Rainsford, the protagonist, why he hunts men on his island. "Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and if need be, taken by the strong. The weak of the world were put here to give the strong pleasure"(Connell 484). Rainsford answers hotly that they are men and should not to be murdered, and the General replies, "That is why I use them.

It gives me pleasure. They can reason. So they are dangerous"(Connell 484). General Zaroff is a portrait of a most dangerous man.

General Zaroff is extremely manipulative. He can get people to do whatever he wants them to do without the person realizing that he is being manipulated. He can convince anyone who comes onto his island into thinking he is civil, generous, and a cosmopolite. He treats them well and keeps them well fed, but as soon as they feel comfortable around him, he gives them the choice of playing his game or being beaten by Ivan, the giant Cossack who is Zaroff's bodyguard and servant. He has to be manipulative or else the captives wouldn't play the game, and he wouldn't be able to relieve his...