Narrator and point of view

John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men has a third-person narrator, who tells the story through a mixture of narration and dialogue. The narrator is omniscient, with access to all the events and characters.

The narrator rarely gives direct insight into the thoughts and feelings of the characters, but instead implies a character’s state of mind through their body language and actions. For example, when the other men want to shoot Candy’s dog, Candy is clearly devastated. We are not told this directly, but it is implied through his tone of voice and his actions: “At last Candy said softly and hopelessly: ‘Awright – take ‘im.’ He did not look down at the dog at all. He lay back on his bunk and crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the ceilin...