When bored at home and all alone one might invite over friends to play a simple game of hide and seek hoping to gain excitement and thrill. Children play for hours, crouching under cabinets, beneath beds, or behind the television. As soon as all the hiding places have been used up, the game becomes too easy. There are no more secret nooks, none that aren't off limits anyways. Children "perfect" the game and can longer reach the natural high they once had therefore leading to breaking the rules by hiding in the forbidden places their parents told them never to step foot in, the attic, the neighbors yard, or inside the dryer. Through characterization, foreshadow, symbols, and irony, Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game," opens the readers' eyes to themes about how reaching perfection can lead to grisly acts and how the effects of war are dehumanizing.
             Characterizations within the story help the reader to see that perfection of hunting can lead to aggression. Richard Connell starts out with a simple character that represents so much about the story. Whitney, the characters name, is who Connell has given the opening line to, says to Rainsford " 'Off there to the right- somewhere- is a large island. It's rather a mystery.'" This means much more than just foreshadowing that something mysterious is about to happen on the island, but that Whitney knows what will happen on the island. The name Whitney is a name used for what writers call a mirror character, someone who gives insight to whatever is about to happen. Being a mirror character, Whitney is so important to the story and what it means deep down, he is a wise man, a practical individual in the passage. He speaks of hunting and says, " 'Great sport, hunting.'" This shows that he knows it is only a sport and shouldn't be taken as anything less, it isn't a simple game but a r...