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How does "Hunters in the Snow" compare to "The Most Dangerous Game"?
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"Hunters in the Snow" and "The Most Dangerous Game" both explore themes of hunting and human predation, though they differ in context. Zaroff in "The Most Dangerous Game" hunts humans for sport on an isolated island, while Kenny in "Hunters in the Snow" metaphorically preys on his friends through bullying. Both characters meet their downfall due to underestimating their prey, driven by their narcissism. While Zaroff's story is exaggerated for humor, "Hunters in the Snow" focuses on realistic human relationships.
Both stories focus largely on the folly of a character whose defining trait seems to be his predatory behavior toward his fellow man. For Zaroff, this is an obvious trait. He literally takes pleasure from hunting and killing men, because every other game has left him bored. Kenny does this more metaphorically. A bully showing some tendencies of a sociopath, he routinely torments his friends and picks at their insecurities over the course of the hunt.
Both characters meet their fate by simply underestimating their quarry. Zaroff does not think that Rainsford survived the fall from the cliff and is caught unaware when the latter is waiting in his room. Kenny, who pulls a cruel prank and tricks Tub into thinking he's about to be shot, doesn't think that Tub would ever fire in self-defense. The overwhelming narcissism of both characters seals their fate.
The two stories are similar in...
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two major ways: both are about hunting, and in both one man shoots another man. There are far more differences.
“The Most Dangerous Game” establishes a highly contrived situation in which one man living on an isolated island deliberately hunts other men, and even lures them to the island in order to do so. Zaroff, a supposedly cultivated but actually deranged individual lives purely for his own satisfaction, achieved by winning intellectual games. He informs his prey, Rainsford, that he will pursue him and, because the prey is so good at eluding the predator, the tables are turned. The would-be killer is himself killed. Although the set-up is intriguing and the reader may be engaged by the fast pace and mystery of whether Rainsford will outwit and elude Zaroff, there is also a humorous tone that the author achieves through exaggeration that makes the characters more like caricatures.
In “Hunters in the Snow,” there are several hunters and their quarry is deer. Set in a rural area where hunting animals is common, the story tells of a situation that goes awry because of the pre-existing relationships among the men, including Kenny’s cruelty, which leads to Kenny’s death. Although Tub deliberately shoots the other man, there is no suggestion that he intended to do so before the hunting party set out; instead, he misinterpreted Kenny’s ostensible joke. While the ensuing callousness of the men is noteworthy and rather offensive, neither of them is characterized as a demented manipulator.