Survival Theme in the Most Dangerous Game and the 1972 Andes Crash Essay Example

Would you break your morals to survive a life-threatening situation? There will be some situations in life where you’ll have to break your morals to survive, and both of the following stories deal with the main characters breaking their morals for the sake of their lives. The topic of survival is explored in the texts The Most Dangerous Game and the 1972 Andes Crash to teach us about how humans contradict their morals to survive. 

The Most Dangerous Game takes place on a yacht in the Caribbean Sea. Rainsford, a big game hunter, is on his way to Rio to hunt animals. Later on, he plummets off the ship and into the ocean, due to investigating multiple gunshot noises surfacing in the distance. Rainsford ends up on an island known as Ship-Trap Island, and he meets General Zaroff, who's also a big game hunter, but with a twist. Zaroff hints that he has found a new kind of animal to hunt, one with courage and reason. Rainsford’s confusion turns to horror as he slowly realizes that the general now hunts human beings. Rainsford demands to leave the island at once, but the general refuses and forces Rainsford to be his new prey in the next hunt, hoping that Rainsford will provide the challenge he seeks. At first, Rainsford plans to hide from the general, but once he realizes that the general is playing a game with him for his satisfaction, Rainsford thinks he must become the murderer to make it out alive. Rainsford sets traps to kill the general, however, the traps kill Ivan and some of their hunting hounds. Rainsford soon becomes cornered by the hunting hounds on the edge of a cliff. Rainsford chooses to make a bold decision, which is to jump off the cliff. The General returns to his palatial chateau, and standing in the general's room is Rainsford, behind the curtains. The two of them end up fighting, yet Zaroff's fed to the hunting hounds, and Rainsford's sleeping peacefully in a comfortable bed. 

The 1972 Andes Crash is a true survival story about an Uruguayan rugby team on their way to play a match in Santiago, Chile. Because of the dangerous weather conditions, the pilot and the team stayed in Mendoza, Argentina overnight until the pilot decided to take an alternate route to Chile over the Andes mountain range. October 13th, 1972, is when they resumed the flight. Unfortunately, the pilot made a mistake thinking he passed  Curicó, Chile, and thought he was cleared to descend. However, that error led to a fatal crash in the Andes Mountains in Argentina. There were 45 people on the plane in total, sadly 18 people died due to injuries on the plane leaving 27 survivors remaining. Search parties did try to look for the survivors, but the plane blended in with the surrounding snow, making it difficult for the searchers to find the source. The survivors had a meager supply of food and surviving in the cold, harsh weather did not help. Soon, the survivors had no other choice than to submit to cannibalism. Eventually, some survivors hiked up the mountain for any sign of human life, soon they saw three men riding horses. Thankfully, the men sent help for the survivors the following day, rescuing them from 72 days of survival. 

When General Zaroff hints at hunting a new animal that could reason. Rainsford assumes that he was talking about hunting and killing humans as a sport. Rainsford describes General Zaroff as a murderer and not a hunter, he thinks what General Zaroff is doing is wrong and he should stop. However, the roles switch when Rainsford starts understanding the full meaning of terror. Rainsford ends up setting traps and killing General Zaroff, which contradicts the whole “I’m a hunter and you’re a murderer”. I think Rainsford should be praised for killing the General. What could’ve happened to the people in the future if they stumbled across Ship Trap Island? General Zaroff would not spare them, he would choose to hunt and kill them just like any other animal. 

The survivors in this story were in a predicament, which deals with a meager supply of food. “We tried to eat strips of leather torn from pieces of luggage…we ripped open seat cushions hoping to find straw, but found only inedible upholstery foam,” this information shows how desperate the survivors were for food. Eventually, they all concluded to eat flesh from the bodies of their dead comrades. Even though what they did to survive was disgusting, I think people should understand that if they didn’t eat the flesh, they would’ve all died from starvation. Of course, not all of them wanted to commit cannibalism, but that’s what happens when you are put into a situation where morals don’t come first.  

The two stories, The Most Dangerous Game and The 1972 Andes Crash, both deal with hazardous situations where the characters have to put their morals aside to survive. When Rainsford figures out the General hunts humans, he finds it disturbing and calls the general a murderer instead of a hunter. Later in the story, Rainsford realizes that the only way to make it out alive in this situation is to become the murderer instead of a hunter. This relates to the other story, The 1972 Andes Crash, when the survivors started running out of food, they did everything they could to find something to eat. Soon, they realized the best thing to do was to eat the flesh from the dead bodies in the plane crash. Both of these situations should be taken lightly, if they decided to listen to their morals, then the characters most likely would’ve perished.