"The Most Dangerous Game", also published as "The Hounds of Zaroff"[citation needed], is a short story by Richard Connell, first published in Collier's on January 19, 1924. The story features a big-game hunter from New York City who falls off a yacht and swims to what seems to be an abandoned and isolated island in the Caribbean, where he is hunted by a Russian aristocrat. The story is inspired by the big-game hunting safaris in Africa and South America that were particularly fashionable among wealthy Americans in the 1920s.
The story has been adapted numerous times, most notably as the 1932 RKO Pictures film The Most Dangerous Game, starring Joel McCrea and Leslie Banks, and for a 1943 episode of the CBS Radio series Suspense, starring Orson Welles.
Rainsford, a big game hunter, is traveling to the Amazon by boat. He falls overboard and finds himself stranded on Ship Trap Island. Rainsford finds a large home where Ivan, a servant, and General Zaroff, a Russian aristocrat, live. They take Rainsford in. However, he soon learns that to leave, he must win a game where he is the hunted. Rainsford must survive for three days. He sets three traps to outwit the general, Ivan, and his bloodthirsty hounds. Cornered, Rainsford jumps off a cliff, into the sea. He survives the fall and awaits for Zaroff in his house. The two men duel when Rainsford ambushes Zaroff. Zaroff was killed and fed to the hounds. In the end, Rainsford exclaimed how he has never slept more soundly in his life.
"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Mine was an imitation! It was worth five hundred francs at most! ..."
Explanation:
The main irony in the story is that the Loisels take on tremendous debt in order to replace an apparently expensive necklace that was actually a cheap imitation.
