In Richard Connell's short story, "The Most Dangerous
Game," Ship-Trap Island is situated in the Caribbean sea. The "old Swede," Captain
Nielsen, who steers the ship on which Whitney and Rainsford journey in the jungle to
hunt jaguars, is uneasy about navigating around this island. Whitney recalls what the
old captain has told him,
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"'This place has an evil name among seafaring
men, sir.....Don't you feel anything?'--as if the air about us was actually poisonous.
Now, you musn't laught when I tell you this--I did feel something like a sudden
chill.
"There was no breeze. The sea was as flat as a
plate-glass window. We were drawing near the island then. What I felt was a --a mental
chill; a sort of sudden
dread."
Of course, Rainsford
scoffs at the words of Whitney. But Whitney tells his friend that he thinks at times
that evil is tangible and has wavelengths, just as sound and light have; then, he
retires for the evening. After Whitney leaves, it is not long before Rainsford falls
overboard into the "blod-warm waters of the Caribbean Sea." He swims for a long time
until he hears a pistol shot and a shriek. Finally, he hears the sea breaking against
"a rocky shore."
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He was almost on the rocks before he saw them; on
a night less calm he would have been shattered against them. With his remaining
strength, he dragged himself from the swirling waters. Jagged crags appeared to jut up
into the opaqueness...Dense jungle came down to the very edge of the cliffs. What
perils that tangle of trees and underbrush might hold...did not concern Rainsford just
then....an unbroken front of snarled and ragged jungle fringed the shore. [There was] a
closely knit web of weeds and
trees....
On the island is
a
palatial
chateau; it was set on a high bluff, and on three sides of it cliffs dived down to where
the sea licked greedy lips in the shadows....[There is] a tall siked iron gate....the
massive door with a leering gargoyle for a knocker was real
enough.
Once inside Sanger
Rainsford meets Ivan and General Zaroff, equally as formidable as the weeds, underbrush,
cliffs, jagged crags, and jungle. When he is later "hunted" by Zaroff, Rainsford finds
himself making his way by "a swamp" and "on a ridge," he climbs a tree. "Down a
watercourse" he can see the bush moving as Ivan and the dogs track
him.
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