MDG+Theme

In order to survive Rainsford must play Zaroff's twisted game and try to escape from being hunted. He is forced to go against his values and kill Zaroff and Ivan. This presents him with self conflict.

The theme can be represented within the story's title. The title of the story has two meanings. One would be that life is a dangerous game that, when played, we must do all we can to win or die in the process. Another meaning would be that the human species is the most dangerous game. Game is used here as something you hunt. Humans unlike other animals have the ability to reason, think, and solve problems which makes them dangerous.

Some movies or T.V. shows like Saw or Supernatural show very similar themes of survival.

In the //Saw// series Jigsaw (John Kramer) takes people off the street who have either not played the game of life or made terrible mistakes. He puts them into tests that torture and kill the victims. In order to escape they must complete the test. If they escape they are allowed to walk out freely and try to fix their lives. If they do not change their lives they are put back into another test. Usually the tests have to do with their backgrounds or mistakes.

In the T.V. show Supernatural the episode "the Benders" the protagonists Sam and Dean Winchester-brothers who hunt anything supernatural-investigate the dissapearance of people. The believe it is a supernatural creature, the likes of which they hunt, but are mistaken. Sam gets captured and Dean goes looking for him. Dean finds Sam at a old abandoned farm house in a cage. They discover that the thing taking these people were actually a family of hunters named the Benders. The hunters would capture people from the town and then hold them captive for a few days. Then they would release the people and give them a weapon. The hunters would then hunt the captive down and kill him. Sam and Dean end up family to escape. This episode presents the same theme as "The Most Dangerous Game" because The brothers who are hunters themselves have to kill or be killed by the Benders. (The father of the Bender family actually says "I've hunted rabbit, bear, deer and even moutain lion, but I've never had a more exciting hunt than hunting human." This is very similar to Zaroff's opinion on hunting humans.)

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