People have always sought to escape their mundane realities through fantastic stories. Richard Connell “The most dangerous game” provides this type of reprieve from reality. Through hyperbolic, stock protagonist and antagonist, a simplistic conflict, and a happy end “The most dangerous game” presents itself to be purely commercial fiction.
Commercial fiction is meant to excite the reader, to help them escape reality and "The Most Dangerous Game" has both mystery and suspense do to the nature of the continuous adventure throughout the story. This forces the reader to continuously read on to discover the next piece of the puzzle or the next twist that may occur. This could be shown through the two characters in their continuous ultimate battle against one another, this giving the example of man vs man. The two characters include, the Protagonist, Sangor Rainsford and the Antagonist, General Zaroff. Both characters present themselves to be stock characters, Rainsford being recognized world-wide for his writing and considered to be known as the western “good guy”, whereas Zaroff is made out to be the “bad guy” a recognizable Russian, with facial elements such as his thick eyebrows along with a pointed military mustache. Russians being strong enemies to the West, this begins to demonstrate elements of good vs evil. Commercial fiction is also expected to have a defined plot, majority of the time people refer to this specific plot as “page turner”.Rainsford built a Malay man-catcher and a Burmese tiger pit to try and escape Zaroff. After these traps have been set, the reader can’t help but wonder whether it is going to serve its purpose and work in his favor. After finding out the results of the traps, you can’t help but wonder what will happen next. Towards the end of the hunt, Rainsford “leaped far out into the sea.” As the reader reads this, they can’t help but wonder what Rainsford was thinking and what was going to happen to him.