Most Dangerous Game: Zaroff Versus Thoreau (Comparative Analysis)

Thoreau believes we obtain better lives by simplifying life because we could focus on our main personal needs and not be side tracked by unnecessary obstacles. This easy time is often told to be free and full of comfort. To live a simple life, one doesn’t want such, only one roof over his or her head, food, water, and the work to make enough wealth to get by. This easy life has no deadlines, no concerns of constant property or material possessions. This fact is to enjoy time with no concerns of the system, class or reputations. Thoreau states: “All good things are wild and free.” “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify” (Thoreau 5). By simplifying and simulating your life the way Thoreau puts his perception of existence you can truly see the essential needs of a human nor an economy. Thoreau takes much more to his daily life by dozing off into the trees, the sky, the river, etc. “simplify, simplify. Instead of eating three meals a day eat one” Said Thoreau (Thoreau 119). He explains how we complicate our daily lives by having a set time to eat meals instead of just eating whenever you’re hungry. By Thoreau simplifying and simplifying he learned to appreciate and accept the extravagant points of life economy couldn’t have provided him with.

Zaroff is similar to Thoreau for they both stranded themselves from society and enjoyed the noneconomic view of life. Zaroff hunted ever since he was a boy stranded from society and grew up with only essential ways to survive. Zaroff is “smart” and knowledgeable as he is “not a murderer but a hunter” (Connell). Rainsford gets up with all sorts of other things to make Zaroff off of his path. Rainsford still puts up traps, but none of it kills Zaroff. Zaroff is also informed about hunting to be duped. All this excites Zaroff with no stress and depression this tends to be his way of life but no one has met Rainsfords skill, as he has lasted a fair amount of time not being killed by the great General Zaroff. Thoreau had a simplistic life as he hunted and gathered for his well-being. Zaroff did not add much to his daily life but for “looting shipwreckers” after their devastating crashes (Connell). Zaroff and Thoreau are related to each other because they are both offset from modern-day economies and know how to survive without the help of the economy “on their backs.”

Thoreau believes that working for his living is less complex but more work because he has to build his house and grow or hunt food instead of paying someone to do so. Thoreau did not hire a company to build his hut but built it in the course of several days. “This is the house that I built”; “This is the man that lives in the house that I built” (Thoreau 202). Thoreau would fish, grow crops, and replenish his thirst by drinking safe water he had gathered. Thoreau’s philosophy was that if you take time outside of economy it would help you relate back to life. Another way it will help is that it would make you learn how to take care of yourself mentally and physically.

The man in ‘To Build a Fire’ took on Thoreau’s attribute of doing things on his own by voyaging on by himself after the old man of Sulphur Creek advised him not to travel alone in weather under fifty degrees below zero. But the man thought that the trip would be simple. As long as he built his fire every now and then, and did not fall into the water in the negative 70 degrees wind he would be fine. But it wasn’t that easy. He later said as he was dying “you were right, old fellow. You were right” (london 79). Thoreau and “the Man” are similar because they both haven’t used the help of others to get through their time but Thoreau did not die at the end of it. The man did not care to take precautions when traveling by himself instead of with another as the old man of Sulphur Creek advised him to. Thoreau did not travel or have to face cold weather conditions as he stayed put in a singular area and had nowhere to be, the man on the other hand had a time table of when he had to meet up with “the boys”.

Thoreau believes that if you don’t create your own needs but get them handed to you, because it’s not yours unless you physically produce it so you don’t deserve them. Thoreau made a statement that if each day of “labor at” the worth of “one dollar” that you would be a fool to pay rent which would run him up a couple hundred dollars on average for the month (Thoreau 39). To clarify thoreau’s thought process is that if you can take advantage of you body and build your own place to stay; furthermore, instead of using ones property you can live freely without putting in unnecessary effort to stay off of the streets. Thoreau does not believe in the evolution of technology or the progressive way of society but the evolution of human thought processes.

T.J. is a young man who moved from the south to the north seeking hope for a job as there are way more factories in the north than the south. This story is about a man named T.J. From Marion County, Alabama who goes to the city in the region. He organizes the attempt by a bunch of children to produce the yard in the gang’s hideout, on top of the plant building. T.J. Is a southern man who has moved to the large city. He is lost until he finds a means to get himself back home, by constructing the yard. His mom had wanted more money to support for her kids. There has been no dad noted. After a deal of careful work, these children are eventually successful in cultivating grass, but are found on the rooftop by three strangers, including the business’s person. This person orders this garden to be shoveled off by one of the different strangers by the following time. Not wanting that to happen, T.J. Ruins the grounds himself, making the grease and grass off the ceiling. He didn’t need anyone to move the grounds, then to protect it, he ruined it.