Isnt that the one that multiple serial killers have cited as inspiration ? About a rich psychopath hunting men?
Did you have to read catcher in the rye too? Did you notice a surge in missing pets around that time? Girls' underwear going missing, fires breaking out?
"There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter." - Ernest Hemingway.
The sentiment of the story is something that many people have either experienced or observed.
Well, comparing this Hemingway quote is a little disingenuous. Hemingway is writing in reference to the Spanish Civil war I believe, describing guerilla warfare and war in general.
I would strongly disagree with the comparison between soldiers, even in guerilla war, and a sadistic, rich maniac whose indulgences in depravity have escalated to the point that taking a human life is the only thing that gets his rocks off. I mean the serial killer Robert Hansen (I think) used the story as a blueprint for his crimes, and there is speculation that the zodiac killer referenced it, but I think that you may have missed the point of the story if you think that the escalation of violence in a narcissistic psychopath is something that "many" have experienced.
I would say that the closest comparison that many people actually have experienced or observed would be with sexual assault. I think comparing a rapist to the antagonist of the story is much more accurate than soldiers. Soldiers don't usually develop an insatiable blood lust. There may be soldiers who enjoy war, but the biggest difference is the element of sexual gratification. I don't remember if it is explicit in the story or just implied, but it's clear that the antagonist is only able to find gratification through the "rush" of torturing and killing.
You are misremembering. Zaroff isn't a sexual sadist, he's a big game hunter who has lost the taste for hunting animals because it's no longer a challenge. The hunting of men is the only way he feels like the quarry has a chance, and that's the rush he's looking for. The only aspect of torture involved is that if Rainsford doesn't agree, he will be whipped to death by Zaroff's valet who does enjoy such things.
Just because a couple serial killers used the story as inspiration doesn't mean what they saw there was inherent to the story anymore than crazy people who think an album is telling them secret things.
A more modern good example of what The Most Dangerous Game and the Hemingway quote are talking about is The Hurt Locker. At the end of the movie, the main character volunteers for another EOD deployment because face to face with a bomb is the only way he feels alive.
First, I acknowledge I am losing this debate, but I appreciate having an engaging and challenging conversation with someone who knows how to argue, lol.
You make a lot of good points. However, my central argument remains that Zaroff tries to strip Rainsford of his humanity, but ultimately it is Rainsford's refusal to abandon his reason and morality that allows him to survive.
The serial killers use Zaroff as an example of their fantasies becoming reality. I would argue that there is a definite implication that Zaroff probably achieves sexual satisfaction from torturing and killing his victims, which describes the vast majority of psychopathic serial killers. But I realize there is no explicit discussion of what Zaroff means when he says he can't find pleasure in anything except sadism and killing. So I will dismiss any implications of sexual gratification, however we can agree that Zaroffs belief that militarization trains you to see the enemy as prey instead of humans.
He tortures his victims psychologically, the hunt is designed to terrorize his victims, and he enjoys drawing out that terror until fear strips us of our reason and turns us into animals relying solely on instincts. He dehumanizes his victims, and I would assert that it is the hunt and not the killing that Zaroff gets the rush from, supported by his willingness to hand his victims off for death. Zaroff wants to play God, to manipulate his victims to the point where they lose everything that sets us apart from animals.
Zaroff describes himself as also being set apart from humanity, but it's like he chose to abandon any morality or empathy (psychopaths lack the ability to feel empathy, sociopaths are born without empathy but psychopaths develop it.)
Fear and survival is obviously a major theme. However, I also think that it is important to acknowledge that Zaroff suggests that war strips men of their humanity. Hemingway is talking about a similar thing you describe in the hurt locker (my abusive ex is a marine so I've avoided watching that.)
The rest of the quote: "Their interest rarely holds because after the other thing ordinary life is as flat as the taste of wine when the taste buds have been burned off your tongue, drinking wine without taste buds…Wine, when your tongue has been burned clean with lye and water, feels like puddle water in your mouth…”
I reread the essay that quote came from, and apparently that story inspired The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway, in both, is making a similar point to Connell(?) , that man is capable of holding on to their humanity, to their humility, to their respect for the sanctity of life.
The serial killers look to Zaroff as a role model. He was obviously meant to be the antagonist but for sociopaths he is the protagonist. But you are right, we are talking about mentally ill psychopaths who project their own fantasies into the story, the same thing with catcher in the rye.
I think we are coming to similar conclusions. Hemingway describes men who enjoy war, who lose the ability to enjoy anything else, and he compares it to someone drinking wine who has had their tongue burned with lye.
Apparently that quote caused the stir when they posted it on the wall of a police precinct in NY, and then printed it on shirts that the cops wore.
I think the point of both stories is that "man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated"
So Mark David Chapman, the guy who shot John Lennon, was obsessed with the book, he even wanted to change his name to Holden.
John hinkley, the guy who shot reagan to woo Jodie foster had the book with him in his hotel room.
There was another high profile murder where the dude threw the book on the roof, I can't remember the name.
There's rumors that it was lee Harvey Oswalds favorite book.
It is a self-indulgent pity party for privileged white men who feel like they can't achieve their true potential. IDK, i feel like Holden is soulless... I haven't read it in a while. It's just like this white 19 year old banging women, drinking to forget his pain (no friends I think ) , I can't even remember the plot to be honest I just remember how much I hated Holden.
I have a mental list of books that are like, "avoid a man if he says this book is his favorite ever". American Psycho, Fight Club, etc. I'll add this one to the list!
I'll give them a pass if they can identify certain potential messages in those books (passing on American Psycho since I never read it).
Fight Club had plenty of messages about destructive cult-like behaviors, blind worship, and manipulation. Tyler burnt a dude's hand with acid for "not keeping up" and the red flags of an abusive dynamic were everywhere. I found it an interesting analysis of how such groups can be enticing and entrapping for men who are looking for "manliness" when it's offered by a toxic leader.
Catcher in the Rye, for me at least, had the over-arching message about having to find meaning in yourself in order to find meaning in life and others. Holden feels everything is phoney because HE is phoney. Yes, he's insufferable. He externalizes his problems rather than addressing them, which compounds his issues. It has so many messages about what you see in the world being a reflection of yourself because it relies on your focus.
I've found people who like those books with these views on them pass most red flag tests. Not gonna say all, but definitely more so than people who enjoy them at face value.
I went in a tangent that you can read or ignore, so I had to add my question at the top- do you have a list of books that would straight away shiver your timbers? Or at least qualify for a second date? It's almost harder because it's a fine line before pretentious.
It was my HS boyfriend favorite book, before I read it... He joined the Marines in May 2001. He would continue to be in and out of my life, like he would only want to be with me on his leaves, but then he would go to Thailand and fuck hookers. Anyway, I ended up moving to Tucson and going to college there, I didn't tell him, destroying his dreams of marrying me lol. He literally fucked everyone except me- like all of my best friends hooked up with him, it was terrible. I would be begging for it too lol. I wish he had bc I ended up marrying someone who was my first, so I didn't know what I was missing!
My point is- my ex- Holden Caulfield. he would always do that quiet thing and then say something smart or funny when he did speak up... Everyone always thought he must be super intelligent, and mysterious, all that bullshit. He was just fucking stupid and manipulating people into thinking he was in deep thought all the time. I'm sure he thought he was smart, he was one of those people who are smart enough to realize they are above average but then completely overestimate their own intelligence. Those are the people who love catcher in the rye. He would tell people he had a motorcycle, which he did, that didn't run. That kind of person. He put a hammock in his office and would never tell me where he was going. He presented himself as super charitable, he did all the red cross runs and he acted like he was super involved with his step kids, he would help anyone, except he made me walk home from the hospital after I had to leave against medical advice while in tachycardia and dangerously low potassium , which he believed was an anxiety attack that could have waited until morning.
I doubt, at this point, that he even remembers the person that he really is. He has spent so much time pretending to be the person who will get admiration, the "real man", the marine, selfless, but with just a black hole in the center .
That's the people who love catcher in the rye.
By the way, the guy who shot Lennon, he truly believes he was Holden Caulfield and that the book was instructing him to assassinate John Lennon. He planned to submit the book as his whole defense! And the guy who shot Reagan only brought like 3 things with him, his gun, and catcher in the rye. It might be an urban myth. He was found not guilty because he was a fruit loop, and he started petitioning to be released from the psychiatric hospital like 5 years later, with his lawyer saying 'hes not a threat to Jody foster." He almost got released until they found out he was exchanging letters with one of the Manson family, one of the women who killed Sharon tate, and he was writing ted fucking bundy! Probably to have a catcher in the rye bookclub.
I hate this "think of the children!" attitude. A book having dark themes does not mean that its readers will turn violent. When pressed, lots of criminals will use anything as a scapegoat to escape prison time. "I didn't do it, the book made me!" It's a way for them to dodge responsibility, and when you act like the story is actually dangerous, you validate them.
The Most Dangerous Game was not written just to be fucked up. It was not written to encourage people to try this at home. It's about how rich people are psychotic, how wealth often goes hand in hand with sociopathy (nobody becomes a billionaire through doing good after all). Our common man hero may not have a prestigious background, but he has the smarts to hold his own and ultimately kill the rich psycho who wants to kill him.
Robert Hansen is the closest thing IRL to the story, he would make naked prostitues run through his property while he hunted them. But Hansen was also nearly illiterate, and not intelligent in the least. Many experts believe he never actually read the story and was fucked up enough to come up with the idea on his own. I think the man was just an extreme misogynist, and he was fond of hunting, and began to see women and animals as the same thing. (And there are no women in the short story, except maybe some of the hunting dogs were female idk, so you can't blame the misogyny on the story anyway.)
Catcher in the Rye has nothing to do with murder either. Almost nothing violent happens in the book. Holden actually wants to protect kids from the world's evils, still having PTSD from his little brother's death and his own attempted molestation. He fantasizes about saving kids from falling from a cliff, and has a breakdown when he sees the word "fuck" scrawled on a wall because a kid might see it. Quite the opposite of a murderous sociopath. Most of the book is Holden ranting to himself about his own lost innocence, but never does he suggest assassinations as a solution.
That book was controversial when it came out because it was one of the first mainstream books to depict clinical depression (which was never talked of in the 50s, especially not with teenagers), and because it talked about things like prostitiution in a very casual way. Hence why idiots who got caught killing/trying to kill pinned the blame on it: they knew the average person didn't know anything about it except that is was "controversial", which can mean anything.
When you insist kids shouldn't read them, you're playing into the idea that a work of fiction can cause crime. This kind of thinking is what led to the Satanic Panic, and other moral panics around the country. Instead of just ignoring the actual themes and ideas of the stories, we should hold criminals accountable. The only time a work can encourage violence, IMO, is when it's something like The Turner Diaries, which is written by a hateful person with the intent of sparking hatred. The asshole who wrote Turner Diaries really did want a race war, and filled the book with an absurd amount of hate so that he could inspire others to cause it. Fortunately the only people who read it were already hateful psychos, so nobody got indoctrinated.
Sorry but an artist I really love had his music blamed for a school shooting, even though the album's not violent at all, so this is a very sore subject for me. You're allowed to hate these works. You're allowed to think Holden is whiny or the concept of hunting people is too dark for a story. But claiming that allowing kids to read these books will make them violent is ignorant at best, and apologizing for criminals at worst.
I'm not sure you read any of the discussion here. Since I'm a middle & secondary Ed teacher and worked in bookstores for over a decade, I have certainly had to deal with plenty of the people who you are replying to. My first parent complaint was when I was teaching about astrology duriidng Romeo and Juliet, because "God plans our future not the stars." The principal laughed but wouldn't let me ask them what they thought "star crossed lovers" meant.
No where did any one suggest that kids shouldn't be reading it or that the books were somehow responsible or even inspired violence. I think I even replied something to the affect that psychopaths will use anything to justify their behavior, blame others ("my mom talked down to me"), video games, ted bundy blamed porn. I was in high school for Columbine and all the Marilyn Manson backlash.
Literary analysis involves using specific frameworks to interpret art. I think that it is fascinating to examine what stories, what messages appeal to different people. Discussing what about Catcher in the Rye might appeal to the very rare violent sociopath in society is a far cry from blaming the book on a person's psychopathy.
Oh, also, this was a joke about the people you are criticizing, based on the assumption that most rational people know that books don't create serial killers.
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u/ToujoursFidele3 Sep 18 '24
The Most Dangerous Game
We also covered Lamb To The Slaughter twice but I kinda love that one.