Lottery/Dangerous Game a Reader of Essay

When Tessie is chosen, she is quickly stoned to death by the other town people and her family. The village deems murder to be an acceptable tradition… until it is you who is chosen.

The reader of "The Most Dangerous Game" is also faced with the question of the acceptability of murder. In this story, the definition of murder is expanded to include the murder of hunted animals and murder as a means of self-defense. During the voyage on the way to hunt jaguar, Rainsford and, his hunting companion, Whitney discuss their sport of hunting:

"The best sport in the world," agreed Rainsford.

"For the hunter," amended Whitney. "Not for the jaguar."

"Don't talk rot, Whitney," said Rainsford. "You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?"

"Perhaps the jaguar does," observed Whitney.

"Bah! They've no understanding."

"Even so, I rather think they understand one thing -- fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death."

Later in the story, Rainsford becomes the hunted. He falls from the ship and swims to an island inhibited by General Zaroff, a game hunter. General Zaroff engages Rainsford in a hunt with Rainford as the unwilling prey. Rainsford is now living out the conversation he had with Whitney: he is the jaguar. General Zaroff hunts humans and Rainsford is his next prize.He claims the hunt for humans is much more satisfying because a human's fear of being killed is so great. Rainsford quickly learns that prey, at least of the human kind, do have feelings -- bewilderment, fear and revenge. Rainsford cleverly outsmarts General Zaroff and ultimately, Rainsford kills Zaroff in self-defense, the same rational that Zaroff used to explain the killing of a large Cape buffalo who had charged at him. Murder as self-defense was acceptable to both the main characters.

Both Shirley Jackson and Richard Connell questioned tradition as a rational for murder. For the town folks in "The Lottery," it was an unquestioned tradition to stone a resident to death. There is no explanation as to why this tradition existed, only that it was just something to be done on June 27th of every year. Similarly, the tradition of hunting was not to be questioned, man being the superior species had the right to kill. Each story shows that tradition cannot justify murder, however, Connell provides a means of self-defense for Rainsford, a knife, while Jackson provides an inadequate means of failed persuasion. While the authors both condemn tradition as a rational for murder, both allude to but never clearly say that murder can be justified as an act of self-defense......