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Examples Of Foreshadowing In The Most Dangerous Game

Good Essays

Authors of all genres try to incorporate suspense and tension in their works to make the reader desperate for more information and answers. This is especially important for action-packed genres. Glancing at Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game,” the title itself brings a level of suspense and interest from the reader. How is Connell able to create the most important tributes of powerful books? Delving into more specifics, Connell utilizes foreshadowing and reader uncertainty in order to generate tension between the story and the helpless reader. The use of foreshadowing in the short story urges the reader on, to figure out the long-awaited answers. When Rainsford, the protagonist of the story, hears the gunshots in the exposition of the story, the reader might pick up the foreshadowing hint that Connell drops. As Rainsford reclines on the boat, he hears a gun going off. He has wonderful hearing skills; he knows he “could not be mistaken” (15). A little while later, he hears them again, a “crisp, staccato” (16) sound, which he dubs a “pistol shot” (16). This gun must be important, the reader thinks, because of the detail the author put into this seemingly innocent item. Subtly, Connell also inserts a mention of the gun in a couple scenes throughout the beginning scenes. It is a necessary object. This anyone can tell by the author’s effort on it and Rainsford’s keen knowledge of the gun. Those gunshots came from the island that Rainsford’s shipmate Whitney, another

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