The Most Dangerous Game

I have just read another creepy short story. I actually found that I was enjoying this, maybe because we just read two other unsettling stories, maybe because there's a guy who lives on an island in a giant mansion/castle-or should I say palatial chateau? As soon as he meets General Zaroff, you know he's evil, whether you read the summary at the beginning or not. Although it seems like you're supposed to like him, I wrote "He's creepy" and then I wrote it again after it pointed out he had sharp and pointy teeth. (All those questions on the side were distracting) Ivan just disappointed me. It seems he should have been nice or something, but he quite obviously wasn't. Then he just suddenly dies in a trap, which makes you feel worse, because it should have been Zaroff, but of course, it wasn't.

Rainsford was just strange, because at the beginning I thought he was just a real jerk who liked to kill animals. Then I slowly felt like he wasn't so bad, when he does reasonable things (tells the time from the sun, deals so well with a big scary guy with a gun, etc.) He also seems pretty observant, all of which probably come with a lot of hunting. Personally, I was pretty mad when he was talking on the ship with his fellow hunter, all he was saying about hunting, but he certainly drew the line when it came to hunting people, so he clearly thinks there's some huge difference or something.

He does come up with some good plans for killing Zaroff, but I'm a little curious about why Zaroff left him alive. I mean, he follows this almost invisible trail right to the tree where he's hiding, it seems like it wouldn't be hard to find him after that point. So he concludes it's cat and mouse, but he seemed awfully quick about killing the first guy (the one where you hear the gunshots before he knows where he is). But I almost feel like he doesn't really want to kill Rainsford at all. At the 'tiger pit' he pops out of hiding, obvious and unprotected because he thinks he has finally killed Zaroff. He really could have killed him right there, but no, he lets him go again. After all of the ways he seems so good at his 'game', he still seems pretty darn scared when he jumps out from behind the curtains. I feel a little like the creepy smiles and the yelling were fake, like he had no idea if he was there or not, but he figured Rainsford would feel more frightened if he happened to be there and listening. If he wasn't what was he going to lose? He obviously wasn't afraid of anyone else thinking he was stupid for randomly yelling and smiling to no one, because no one else was there to care. Of course, then the author does sort of make it clear he's playing a game with him, so maybe he really did know he was there.

Zaroff, the creepy pointy-toothed, hunter Cossack man, hunts people. I have to wonder how much you'd have to hunt to want to start getting more intelligent animals. He says his life is hunting (which we didn't really need him to say) but I think there's a point where you would think about the lives of all these animals. For example, today (and this is a very real example in case you were wondering) in social studies about five girls screamed as they spotted a spider which was probably only more than a quarter inch long and some people ran to get a piece of paper to put it out the window (which was probably how it got in) when a large tennis shoe squished it right into the carpet. I was impressed because it normally gets stomped right away, but there were people trying to save it! Anyway, our teacher said, "The poor little spider just wanted to get a history lesson, you could have just put him out the window!" and that got me thinking that the poor little spider probably was trying to get somewhere, or do something, which always makes you feel bad it dies and is now practically inside out all over the carpet. What I'm saying is that it seems like there would be a point where he accidentally killed something meaningful to him, like his dog, but that didn't seem to bother him. I just think that after so much hunting you'd eventually stop and think about the animal you killed. I can hardly get down to the 'mouse' level of killing things. I couldn't kill a bird, or and the worst I've done is put a spider in a jar and starve it (accidentally) The scary part was when he offered to show his 'newer' collection of heads, no doubt human. Personally, all the cut off buffalo heads and deer heads make me quite ill, and I'm always afraid they'll fall off the wall and squish me, and it's just not pleasant to look up at it. But to cut off a human head? Can you imagine mounting those on the wall? If you tried to put it on like and animals head, it would always be staring down at you, which would be WAY too much for me. So then what do you do? Put it in a glass case on a peg or something? I think it's slightly scary to be stared at by a person, especially if they're dead.

The ending was sort of disappointing. I got excited when he screamed, but then the hunted kills the hunter and you have to wonder if he ever learned his lesson (either of them) Did Rainsford stop hunting forever? Did he even get back home? Did he free all the trapped people? It's just seems weird that he could ever hunt again and not be disturbed by thoughts of this creepy guy with pointy teeth. (Plus the whole white hair but black eyebrows thing) I feel like he might have been punished some way else, but I can't think of a good way.

Where does this fall in overall creepiness? It depends on how much time you take to imagine the thought of making a game of hunting people. I think Zaroff himself would top off as the creepiest character so far. I even gave up calling him Zaroff after I said Zar-zoff too many times, so I remember him as Zarzoff, not Zaroff. He does however, back up murdering people pretty well for it otherwise seeming so absolutely terrible. When I listened to him reason, it was almost to a point where I could see what he saw in needing a more intelligent being to outsmart. But the whole time I remembered how strange and absolutely crazy he must be to want to do that, so it was never to a point where he made absolute sense. I honestly still think the castle was really amazing, and although it seemed slightly random, it made the story more interesting.

Another question, what 'game' is it when it says The Most Dangerous Game? Are we talking game as in the game the two men played, or game as in the man being the most dangerous game? The author puts it in both ways, but I think either way it is a very fitting title. It's kind of cool how it provokes so many thoughts, though. How many more creepy stories are we going to read? Does anyone have the patience to read all this? Do we have to fill out all the information in the back? And more importantly, how long will I remember what 'palatial chateau' means?