The Most Dangerous Fears[ADM1]
All around it was quiet. [ADM2]The birds were chirping and the leaves were blowing. Suddenly, a man fled from the brush, holding only a knife in his right hand. After the fleeing man had ran some distance, another man came out of the brush holding a revolver. This man walked calmly after the fleeing man not worried that the he would escape. The old, erect man stopped, and loaded his revolver. He then took aim, shot a round and hit the fleeing man just as he turned around. The man dropped as he died instantly. The old man then walked over to the game he had just killed, grabbed the body by the shirt, and dragged the body into the brush. Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game is a story based on a man who thrives for hunting humans[ADM3]. The way Connell wrote this short story reveals some characteristics about him. The Most Dangerous Game is a psychological story about the author facing and overcoming fear.[ADM4]
The general’s eyes had left the ground and were traveling inch by inch up the tree. Rainsford froze there, every muscle tensed for a spring. But the sharp eyes of the hunter stopped before they reached the limb where Rainsford lay; a smile spread over his brown face. This story is filled with the same type of fear Connell experienced in his life. Perhaps he felt ‘hunted’ at one point in his life and decided he had to run away from all the pain and anger. For instance, his father may have been abusive to him, so he decided to run away from the fear of being emotionally as well as physically hurt[ADM5]. Rainsford slid down the tree and struck off again into the woods… Following the trail with the sureness of a bloodhound came General Zaroff. Connell ran and ran and ran, but no matter how far he ran, his fears were always behind him. Connell would soon figure out what to do.[ADM6]
Connell also showed the ability to overcome his fears. At the end of the story, Rainsford confronts Zaroff in Zaroff’s own bedroom. Zaroff offers a truce, but Rainsford does not accept and they fight until the death. Rainsford had successfully faced Zaroff, his fear.[ADM7] Connell is showing that he overcame the fears he had in his life by facing them with confidence. If he had run away, he would have run forever, and would have eventually gotten tired of running and would have been caught by his fears[ADM8]. He knew he could not run any longer and had to face his hardships in life. The ending result [ADM9]would end up in victory.
Connell expressed how he overcame and conquered his fears in The Most Dangerous Game. He started to run and hide, but knowing he would never escape;[ADM10] he decided to stare at them directly in the face. The hunted man fled from the brush, hiding behind a tree as he watched the hunter fall directly into his trap. Although the hunter was wounded, he was not killed. The hunter escaped to his castle to where the hunted followed. He waited for the hunter to come out once again so he could face him and defeat him once and for all. The hunter came out and the two of them dueled.[ADM11]
Other comments: A
good paper with some strong Freudian elements.
It does need additional development in a couple of ways. First, try to explore all your points with
the same specificity as you did in paragraph 2 where you examined the
possibility that the fear in the story was symbolic of Connell’s relationship
with his father. That was cool. Also, your paper is coming up at least a paragraph
short in development. Surely you could
have explored the building of tension and fear as we learn of Zaroff and his
peculiar habits. Also, you could even
build an argument that Zaroff represents Connell’s fear of his father in many
different ways. The parallels are there:
Zaroff as hunter…the evil vision/father of Rainsford as hunter. Maybe Connell writes it that way to show his
own fear that he, too, could be abusive like his own father. In fact, the ending would really be
psychologically meaningful then: the
son becomes the evil that his father was.
Now THAT would be Connell’s biggest fear of all, don’t you think? Finally, you have some great voice but lack
style. Work on more complex sentence
types and variety. If you’d like some
direction on that, let me know.
Grade: B 83/100
[ADM1] Good title!
[ADM2]I still love your introductions – this one is good too. But, try some other types as well. Let me know if you need suggestions.
[ADM3]Pretty good transitional phrase. Good instincts.
[ADM4]Strong thesis for a Freudian approach.
[ADM5]Excellent! Not only are you exploring the concept of fear in his life, you are even making specific guesses as to what it could literally have been. Even better, you are being psychological in relating it to his parental figure. Freud would approve!
[ADM6]It’s good that you are creating a transitional passage to the next paragraph. However, you really don’t need this quotation to do it. Just go with your sentence and save the quotations for building your analysis.
[ADM7]Nice!
[ADM8]Because you said at the end of the last paragraph that “Connell ran and ran and ran…,” it seems contradictory to say here “If he had run away,” See what I mean? Instead, let’s rewrite this sentence to: If he had kept running, he would have eventually gotten tired and would have been overwhelmed by his fears.
[ADM9]Redundant: a result is usually ending….
[ADM10] This needs to be a comma, not a semicolon.
[ADM11]Nice. What you’ve done with your conclusion is to make your paper come full circle, essentially ending the paper where you began. That is a wonderful technique and gives your paper a “full” feeling.