(1)Retelling: How many rounds of game does Rainsford go through with the general?Who wins in each round?

(2)Mapping: Draw a map of the island according to the text and mark out the escape route taken by Rainsford.

II. Background

Author: Richard Connell (1893-1949)

1. His life:

• Age 10: covered baseball games for the newspaper, Poughkeepsie News-Press at the payment of 10 cents for each game.

• Age 16: became city editor of the paper.

• Age 22: graduated from Harvard.

• Age 26: married and turned a professional writer.

2. His Works: “The Most Dangerous Game”

• (1924) Won the O’Henry Memorial Prize, the top short story prize in America.

• Included as a classic into American primary school and high school textbooks and the world’s best short fiction anthologies.

• Adapted into a dozen of films—the latest one: Lethal Woman (1998); the best-known one: The Most Dangerous Game (1932).

2. His Achievements

• One of the most prolific short story writers of the 20th century.

• Successful screenwriter and novelist.

• Many of his stories are made into movies and TV series.

History

1. Big game hunting in African and South American countries was popular with wealthy Europeans and Americans. In 1909, Theodore Roosevelt and his son killed 512 animals on an African safari.

2. Right after WWI, “a war to end all wars,” the Bolshevik revolution toppled the old hierarchy of classes.

3. America’s interest in Central America and the Caribbean, rivaling with Russia.

III. Text analysis

Setting

(1) Review: What is the setting of a story?

a) the social milieu in which the events of a novel occur

b) the main backdrop and mood for a story

(2) Where is the story set?

a) a Caribbean island

b) a Gothic chateau

c) a jungle and a swamp

(3) Is this setting symbolic? In which way?

1. Theme

Questions for thinking:

(1) What moral lesson does the writer intend to tell by the story? Is he successful in that?

(2) Why do men hunt? How do you understand “Human society is nothing but a hunting ground.”?

Themes Related

(1) Social Darwinism

a) the survival of the fittest

b) self-reliance in the struggle for survival

c) competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism social evolution

(2) Classism, Racism, Elitism

Character

1. General Zaroff

(1) Why is the general so obsessed with hunting?

(2) How do you understand his choice of men as prey?

(3) Do his profession and social class help to explain his belief and behavior?

2. Rainsford

(1) Do you think Rainsford is better than the general?

a) ambivalence: similarity to Zaroff

b) vehicle of irony: hunter turned “huntee”

(2) How is he different from traditional heroes?

Plot

(1) How many parts can we divide the story into?

(2) In which part is the climax reached?

(3) How is tension built up?

a) suspense (study para.19)

b) sentence length and type (compare paras. 18, 34-36, 38 )

(4) The conclusion/resolution consists of only one sentence. Why?

Structure

I. Introduction (paras. 1-14)

Rainsford is compelled to play a life-and-death game of hunting with Zaroff.

II. The body (paras. 15-38)

A. I he first day, Zaroff finds where Rainsford is hiding, but decides to save him for another day. (paras. 15-24)

B. The second day, Rainsford has Zaroff injured and one of his hounds killed.(paras. 25-32)

C. The third day, Rainsford has Zaroff’s servant killed, (paras. 33-38)

III. The conclusion (paras. 39-46)

Rainsford throws Zaroff out of the window to where the hounds are and wins the final battle

4. Detailed Analysis

Part I: Discussion

(1) In what way does the general speak? What is told by the discrepancy between what he says and what he does?

(2) How did Zaroff make Rainsford accept his idea of a game?

(3) What kind of man is Zaroff, judged from his speech and actions? (para. 13)

Part II: Discussion

(1) What animals are the two characters compared to separately? (paras. 18, 20, 24, 27)

(2) How does Rainsford’s awareness of his situation change step by step?

(3) Why does the general identify loudly Rainsford’s trick every time? What does this detail tell us of his character?

(4) Are there any details that hint at the general’s cold-bloodedness?

Part III: Discussion

(1) Who won the game in the end? Why doesn’t the writer tell us directly?

(2) What might have happened to the general?

(3) What moral lesson does the general’s end tell?

(4) What will happen if the story is continued?

IV. Reinforcement:

Discussion

(1) Why is the story titled “The Most Dangerous Game”?

(2) What do you think of hunting, or, war in general, after learning the story?

(3) Have you read any other stories of the same vein? Share them with your group members and discuss where their charm lies.

Further Readings

(1) Moby-Dick (1851), by Herman Melville. A classic adventure novel of a sea captain who hunts his nemesis, the great white whale, Moby Dick.

(2) Heart of Darkness (1902), by Joseph Conrad. A novel about a man, Marlow, who enters the Belgian Congo in order to find Mr. Kurtz, a Western man who has succumbed to the dark forces of the jungle, built a fortress, and generated fear among the natives for his violent, messianic ways.