Both stories focus largely on the folly of a character whose defining trait seems to be his predatory behavior toward his fellow man. For Zaroff, this is an obvious trait. He literally takes pleasure from hunting and killing men, because every other game has left him bored. Kenny does this more metaphorically. A bully showing some tendencies of a sociopath, he routinely torments his friends and picks at their insecurities over the course of the hunt.
Both characters meet their fate by simply underestimating their quarry. Zaroff does not think that Rainsford survived the fall from the cliff and is caught unaware when the latter is waiting in his room. Kenny, who pulls a cruel prank and tricks Tub into thinking he's about to be shot, doesn't think that Tub would ever fire in self-defense. The overwhelming narcissism of both characters seals their fate.
The two stories are similar in two major ways: both are about hunting, and in both one man shoots another man. There are far more differences.
“The Most Dangerous Game” establishes a highly contrived situation in which one man living on an isolated island deliberately hunts other men, and even lures them to the island in order to do so. Zaroff, a supposedly cultivated but actually deranged individual lives purely for his own satisfaction, achieved by winning intellectual games. He informs his prey, Rainsford, that he will pursue him and, because the prey is so good at eluding the predator, the tables are turned. The would-be killer is himself killed. Although the set-up is intriguing and the reader may be engaged by the fast pace and mystery of whether Rainsford will outwit and elude Zaroff, there is also a humorous tone that the author achieves through exaggeration that makes the characters more like caricatures.
In “Hunters in the Snow,” there are several hunters and their quarry is deer. Set in a rural area where hunting animals is common, the story tells of a situation that goes awry because of the pre-existing relationships among the men, including Kenny’s cruelty, which leads to Kenny’s death. Although Tub deliberately shoots the other man, there is no suggestion that he intended to do so before the hunting party set out; instead, he misinterpreted Kenny’s ostensible joke. While the ensuing callousness of the men is noteworthy and rather offensive, neither of them is characterized as a demented manipulator.
What the two stories have in common is that the essential conflict is man's inhumanity to man. Another aspect is that in some people's minds, guns and masculinity are closely linked. Neither Sanger Rainsford and General Zaroff nor Tub, Kenny, and Frank need to hunt animals to feed themselves. Hunting is a form of entertainment and perhaps an assertion of masculinity for all of them.
From the moment Rainsford and Zaroff meet, there is a dynamic of one-upmanship between the two men as they discuss their hunting exploits. And from the moment Kenny and Frank pick up Tub, their banter has an edge that raises questions of manhood and dominance among the three.
In both stories, a shooting resolves the conflict. On Ship Trap Island, Rainsford has no choice; to survive, he must be willing to take out Zaroff first. "The Most Dangerous Game" is a bit of a morality story that hints that Zaroff is not only insanely murderous but also a bigot, and so readers accept his death at Rainsford's hands as justified. However, in "Hunters in the Snow" Kenny's death is troubling. Tub's motivation for shooting him is more obscure, and why Frank is untroubled by Kenny's predicament to the point that he becomes complicit in his death is unsettling to the reader.
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