Grade 9: Man v. Man

            The readings start off with the ultimate man versus man situation: kill or be killed. Most Dangerous Game may seem extremely barbaric and insane, but is it really much different than competitions man participates in today? Sure, football might not be as wild as hunting a man down with a rifle or triggering a spike pit for the other to fall in. But it is man to man (sometimes woman) combat over a pigskin ball and pride. Don’t get me wrong—I do love watching football—but when you compare the articles about football players developing CTE and bad concussions with the Most Dangerous Game, aside from the sole intent to kill, they really aren’t all that different in their goals and definition of success. It is a good thing for men in football to hit (tackle) another man as hard as he can. And even after the game he might brag at a party about how he put another guy in the hospital. He might. There is a chance he wouldn’t and that he feels bad about concussing one of the other team’s players, but how bad can he really feel if next week he plans to play the same game and possibly do the same thing? Probably not that bad. But then I also think there are a difference in players as well. There are likely the players who wish to seek fame and fortune for making it in the big leagues in hopes that one day everyone will be chanting his name. “Rudy”…”Rudy”…”Rudy”. Just kidding. Sort of.

But then there are those players who seek the thrill of the game. Those who feel a rush out of getting a really good tackle. And even those who may feel proud to have put another man in the hospital.

            Now I’m not saying every player is one or the other. Obviously some gray area exists and players can fall anywhere on the scale. But just the fact that there could be men out there in those uniforms who honestly bear much resemblance to General Zaroff, is quite frightening. This makes Bob Costas’ commentary on gun control seem a little more reasonable. But can we justify one bad egg in several dozen or more as a cause for concern? Perhaps.

            Let us look at the racial articles to get a better idea of it. The “When will it end?” article lists murders and even a lynching of black men and black adolescents in our history. Many of which were due to racial indifference, if not all. What do we think about this compared to Most Dangerous Game? At least in the story General Zaroff just wanted decent competition regardless of who they were. These racial stories show that the men doing the killing (likely most were Caucasian) sought only to kill the men because of how they looked. No competition necessary whatsoever. Man versus man? In their eyes it was man versus something less than man. And the “9 rules for the black birdwatcher” shares this idea as the author compares the black bird watcher to black birds. An anomaly. Like Tiger Woods is as a golfer to the black community. Don’t really fit in with anyone at all. The black man, the black bird watcher, the black bird, the black golfer—minority, but still what they are and treated for what they are not.