The Suspenseful Tone in “The Most Dangerous Game” In the story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, Sager Rainsford, is faced to fight against general Zaroff by being an animal. To understand the suspenseful tone Connell conveys in “The Most Dangerous Game”, you have to look at the three settings of the story, the yacht, the jungle, and the mansion through diction, details, and sensory imagery, that help the author reveal the danger of the game. The yacht Rainsford was on in “The most Dangerous Game” presents a suspenseful tone, which is shown by diction, details, and sensory imagery.

Rainsford is on a yacht, which shows his relaxing life. The words that Connell uses to describe Rainsford on the yacht make the story seem like nothing is going to happen but then he starts to describe the “moist black velvet [air]” (17), and you start to think that something is going to happen. Connell says that Rainsford was not able to see “four yard” (17) through the “thick warm blackness” (17). These details make you feel like you are actually there and you can feel what’s happening. The moonless Caribbean night” (Connell 17) really makes you feel like you can actually see what is going on and you can picture the scene in your mind. All of this detail adds to the suspenseful tone. Rainsford then falls off the yacht with no one to here him and he swims to the mysterious island where he then begins his journey exploring the jungle. The suspenseful tone is also shown when in the jungle, presenting diction, details, and sensory imagery. Connell describes the jungle as “blackness” (24).

This presents a suspenseful tone because you really don’t know what’s coming next and when that happens it presents a suspenseful tone. He uses details like “the silence of a dead word” (Connell 27) to show the quietness of the jungle. Connell then says that Rainsford was almost sucked in by the “death swamp” (29). You are almost able to picture this “death swamp” (Connell 29) and how it looks. That’s what the author was trying to have happen by using sensory imagery to show the suspenseful tone. Rainsford wandering through the jungle comes across this mansion which he the decided to look upon.

The mansion presents a suspenseful tone shown through diction, details, and sensory imagery. Connell describes the mansion as a “mirage” (20). If the mansion is a mirage, that must mean that something looks misplaced and something is wrong. This presents a suspenseful tone. There was then “Cape buffalo” (Connell 20) on the walls that Zaroff said had “fractured [Zaroff’s] skull” (Connell 22). Connell says that the Cape buffalo fractured Zaroff’s skull, this adds suspense because this means that something could then happen to Rainsford in the jungle.

Rainsford trip to the mansion left a suspenseful tone. Through diction, details, and sensory imagery, a suspenseful tone was established on the yacht, in the jungle, and in the mansion. Rainsford yacht showed his laid back lifestyle in with Connell described the “moonless Caribbean night” (17). While traveling through the jungle, Rainsford was almost sucked in by the “death swamp” (Connell 29). Finally at the mansion Rainsford gets an eerie feeling that the mansion is not good when the author describes it as a “mirage” (Connell 20) or misplaced.