To what extent is Steinbeck’s style Dramatic, and what techniques does he use to create atmosphere in the novel?
When Steinbeck was writing this novel ‘Of Mice And Men’, he had intended it to become easily adapted in to a play. We can see from the novel that it had four main styles to it. It had a sense of atmosphere, it created suspense throughout, it was highly dramatic and tragic.
Steinbeck used atmosphere with great influence throughout the play. We first get to witness it at the very beginning where George and Lennie are walking to the ranch. They are alone walking along a dusty road; this atmosphere reflects the settings in which the characters are. The fact that George and Lennie have only each other and are on there way to meet people who are very much the same as them is shown in the baron settings in which they find them selves. It is not like they are in the middle of a city looking for work in office buildings, they are looking for work in a very rural area and there are only those two characters present. Another example of atmosphere in this book is the one felt at the time of Curley’s wives death. The audience and the readers feel the sense of destruction concerning all Candy, Georges and Lennie’s best-laid plans. It was as if the small farm they were going to live on was all they had to look forward to and it down to Lennies behaviour and the way he is, they are destroyed. This in turn leads to the upsetting atmosphere in which we are found when George is faced with having to kill Lennie to stop him being killed by the ranch workers and more specifically Curley. Although it is seen as a horrible stage in, the novel I think the audience and reader should think what would have been the case if the ranch hands had found Lennie.
