The Cage Man Literary Analysis

“The world is made up of two classes - the hunters and the huntees.”-Richard Connell. This man is extraordinary; he went through world war 1 as a writer, solider, and editor. He is the author of the short stories " The Most Dangerous Game" and "The Cage Man". His stories are based on his experiences encountered at war and how he sees the world. His moral thoughts on war and the taking of another living creature's life is inflicted in his famous story " The Most Dangerous Game". On the contrary, Connell’s other short story "The Cage Man” is about a man that is viewed as something/someone else than who he actually is. Therefore, in Richard Connell’s short stories “The Most Dangerous Game” and “The Cage Man” partake in alike ideas by using complex …show more content…
As the matter of fact, “The Cage Man” its self is an example of social irony. This is because the man that works in his cage for the company Amalgamated Soap as a cashier. His job as a cashier is to manage the company’s money, very similar job to that of an accountant. His mind instead of being very contained and narrow minded. Horace is actually filled with countless ideas and ways to improve the company. Also, he has a mind of a mathematical genius , “He ate the lotus leaves of mathematics”. In addition, a second layer of irony is smeared on because it's extremely ironic that Horace actually enjoys being in the cage and felt that it was holy ground for him. This is proven when it states “ So he worked on in his little cage and enjoyed a fair measure of contentment there, because to him it was a temple of figures, a shrine of subtraction, an altar of addition.” Therefore, the cage is a haven for Horace's mind to thrive and prosper in mathematics and statistics. Irony was also evident in “The Most Dangerous Game” through the moral concepts of the short story. Early on in the short story Rainsford states “Luckily you and I are hunters.” Because he believes that in the world there are the two classes “the hunters and the huntees”. The irony that comes into play later on is suddenly Rainsford is no longer the hunter, but the prey. General Zaroff the antagonist of the …show more content…
For instance, in “ The Most Dangerous game” Rainsford has an internal conflict on the moral of hunting/killing. During, the stay with General Zaroff, Rainsford began to discover that something was wrong with General Zaroff. In fact he soon discovered because General Zaroff found hunting animals was no harder than taking a bite into an apple. And because of that General Zarrof went to hunt a n entirely new level of species(humans). This is proven in “ The Most Dangerous Game” when it states “Hunting? Great Guns, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder.” This also relates back to how Rainsford stated “Who cares how a jaguar feels?” and how Rainsford's friend Whitney stated “Even so, I rather think they understand one thing - - fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death.” These quotes show that before encountering the island Rainsford didn’t care about the animals when hunting them. He brushed away their thoughts and was driven by his selfish desire to hunt. He never really understood that animals also had feelings. However, this changed dramatically when suddenly he found himself in the position as an animal being hunted. Rainsford than started to question if hunting is ethically right to do and if it was fair towards the other living creatures. That was how conflict grew steadily as he started to realize being hunted id not a good thing to experience. Internal conflict was in “The Cage Man” as