Much attention is paid to "Ship-Trap Island", itself used
to foreshadow the way that General Zaroff has created an environment that literally
draws ships to the island to be shipwrecked so he can "use" the sailors for his own
nefarious purposes. Zaroff's description of how he has fashioned his environment for
this purpose is interesting. Talking about the lights that he can turn on and off, he
says:
"They
indicate a channel," he said, "where there's none; giant rocks with razor edges crouch
like a sea monster with wide-open jaws. They can crush a ship as easily as I crush this
nut." He dropped a walnut on the hardwood floor and brought his heel grinding down on
it. "Oh yes," he said casually, as if in answer to a question, "I have electricity. We
try to be civilised
here."
This to me is an
extremely fascinating passage because it captures the paradox of the setting: on the one
hand what Zaroff has done is create a man-trap deliberately designed to kill and destroy
ships, yet at the same time he insists that he is "civilised," ignoring the apparent
contradiction. This paradox runs throughout the story as we are presented with an
urbane, educated and cosmopolitan individual who lives in Western luxury, yet at the
same time shows his brute, barbaric nature by his favourite pass time and the
environment he has created for it.
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