Realism In The Most Dangerous Game By Richard Connell

974 Words2 Pages

Realism is a literary movement stressing the depiction of contemporary life and society as it exists or existed. In this time period, many authors based their stories off of the materialism, Darwinism, and Marxism. Materialism is the belief of separating people based on their social classes. Darwinism is the belief of survival of the fittest meaning one species will always outlast another. Marxism is the belief of how money and class structure controls a nation. In this time period, authors began changing their style of writing into a more naturalistic way. In this style of writing, they make the universe unpredictable and make fate determined by chance. In addition, characters’ lives are transformed by their surrounding instead of their internal conflicts. In The Most Dangerous Game, Richard Connell uses modernistic and realistic ways of writing such as dominant mood, setting, and naturalism to criticize the realistic ideas of Darwinism, big game hunting, and Russian Civil War and its effect on people.
In “The Most Dangerous Game,” Richard Connell based his stories off of the ideas of Darwinism, big game hunting, and Russian Civil War. In the 19th century, the ideas of Charles Darwin played an effect on how people thought and lived. His idea of natural selection and survival of the fittest made people believe that they were indestructible and that they were better than anyone else. With the idea of Darwinism, big game hunting began to spread in South America. In South America, jaguars were a big prize if killed because jaguars were “the most powerful and more feared carnivore in South America,” (232). The Russian Civil War was between the Bolsheviks (Reds) and their opponents (Whites). The whites were composed of a mix of Coss...

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...l sights fill the background of this story, and the details become more frightening and typical of both horror and action-adventure genres as the story progresses,” (158). Using horrible sounds, action, and adventure, Connell was able to transform this story into a suspenseful story.
Realism is a style of literature in which familiar aspects of life are represented in a straightforward or plain manner. In “The Most Dangerous Game,” Richard Connell uses realistic ways of writing to criticize realistic ideas of people at the time. Connell uses dominant mood, setting and naturalism to help create suspense and expand the story. Connell uses historic events such as Darwinism, big game hunting, and Russian Civil War to criticize the ideas of people in that time period. This time period helped Connell write a story where he could criticize a lot of what people thought.

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