The Most Dangerous Game

The Most Dangerous Game is a story full of surprises and suspense. In this short story, two hunters, Rainsford and the dangerous General Zarroff, battled each other. Eventually, one had to kill the other. Who would survive? I wondered all the way through the story. Rainsford used a wide range of traps, like the Malacca mancatcher, Barselonian tiger pit, and simple snares to trap the General. The General eluded nearly all of them, but his servants did not. General Zarroff had a few servants to help him try to find and kill Rainsford. One of General Zarroff's servants, Ivan, was very strong because he was chief knouter to the White Czar who was a past ruler of Russia. The General's hounds were very good at tracking a scent. Ivan was instructed by the General to track down Rainsford with the help of the hounds. Although he found Rainsford, Ivan was killed by one of Rainsford's traps.
To create a picture of what this story looked like, the author, Richard Connell, used vivid terms. Some examples are, "velvety darkness" and "flying fingers". I really liked that. However, the ending is unclear. After reading this story, I finished with the question, " What happened to the General?" After all, the story only says what happened to Rainsford-he slept in the General's bed at the end of the story. This left some room for the readers to imagine what happened to the General. Did the General die or did he manage to escape so that the author might want to write a sequel. Overall this story was excellent. The suspense and vivid descriptions make it a story that you can't put down until you've finished it.