Use of form in Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men is written in the form of a novella, which is fictional and shorter than a novel but longer than a short story. Steinbeck said that he decided to write the story in a similar way to a play, with a focus on using dialogue, and less description than is usual for proseThe ordinary form of language (spoken or written); different from poetry (which does not reflect everyday speech patterns). fiction.
The play style is also evident in the structure as the book has three sections, like acts - each a pair of chapters; like scenes. Each chapter starts with an overview of the setting of that ‘scene’, similar to stage directions in a play.
The book has a third-person narratorWhere the story is written from the point of view of someone not involved in the action., but there is less narration than in traditional prose fiction and the action often moves on through the characters’ dialogue. Although the narrator is omniscientKnowing everything. An omniscient narrator is one that knows all of the thoughts and feelings of the characters in the story and can move between the characters, revealing these to the reader., they do not give a lot of insight into the characters’ thoughts and feelings, as some omniscient third person narrators do. Instead, this is suggested to the reader through the characters’ actions and what they say. This makes the style of writing quite direct and unemotional, which reflects the way that the characters live and relate to each other.