"The Most Dangerous Game" is certainly a title that has multiple levels of meaning. Ultimately, the word "game" here can be interpreted according to two separate definitions. It be used both in reference to a contest (in the way we might say baseball is a game), as well as to wild animals pursued in a hunt.
Thus, if we apply the first definition, "The Most Dangerous Game" refers to the hunt itself, by which Rainsford is being hunted by Zaroff. Meanwhile, the second definition can be applied to human beings. This is a point expressed by Zaroff himself, who has grown disillusioned with hunting big game animals, viewing them as insufficient challenges to his skills; thus, he hunts people instead.
Furthermore, however, there is actually a third layer of meaning: rather than it being the human species in aggregate, the term might also be in reference to Rainsford himself. After all, what could be a more dangerous opponent for an experienced big game hunter than another experienced big game hunter?
Thus, from these two definitions of the word "game," there arise three distinct layers of meaning. Each represents an entirely valid interpretation, in resonance with the story's themes and plot. But each, on its own, is also incomplete. It is only when all these various layers are brought together that the title's full significance and thematic meaning can be ascertained.
The double meaning of the word game in Richard Connell's short story entitled "The Most Dangerous Game" pertains to both animals that are hunted and to a type of activity that involves challenges and winners and losers—"a sporting proposition," as General Zaroff describes it.
In the exposition of this story, Sanger Rainsford and his friend Whitney are aboard a steamer because they are going hunting "up the Amazon." As they anticipate their arrival in a few days, Whitney wonders how the jaguar will feel as it is hunted, but Rainsford has no sympathy for this animal: "Who cares how a jaguar feels?" For Rainsford, the jaguar is merely a game animal that is hunted. The irony of this insensitive remark is that he later becomes the game that is tracked by General Zaroff, so he experiences for himself the terror of a prey animal.
When Rainsford falls from the rail of the ship upon which he stood in the night after trying to determine the direction of the gunshots that he heard, he swims to the shore of what he later learns is Ship-Trap Island. The next day Rainsford follows the "print of hunting boots" to a huge chateau on a high bluff. There he is welcomed by General Zaroff and served an exquisite dinner. The general, who is a big game hunter and has hunted all over the world, tells Rainsford that he lives to hunt and, to keep his interest, he now hunts "more dangerous game." Later, Rainsford learns that this "game" hunted by Zaroff is men. The general tells Rainsford,
"Hunting had ceased to be what you call 'a sporting proposition.' It had become too easy."
Zaroff goes on to tell his dinner guest about his new "sporting proposition," or game: He now hunts men. Further, Zaroff informs Rainsford that the next day Rainsford himself will become this "game"/prey in a "most dangerous game"/Zaroff's sporting proposition.
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