What is novella? Is Seize the Day a novella?

The novella is generally not as formally experimental as the long story and the novel can be, and it usually lacks the subplots, the multiple points of view, and the generic’ adaptability that are common in the novel. It is most often concerned with personal and emotional development rather than with the larger social sphere. The novella generally retains something of the unity of impression that is a hallmark of the short story, but it also contains more highly developed characterization and more luxuriant description. 

We find all the elements of a novella. The major conflict in the plot is the burdens of a modern man. Tommy Wilhelm finds himself jobless, a failure in the eyes of his father, separated from his wife, in love with a woman he cannot marry because his wife will not grant him a divorce, under financial duress, and amidst a failed investment venture. The development of the plot occurs with Tommy's confrontations with his father and his wife, his failed joint venture in the stock market and his relationship with Tamkin, the final rejections of his father and wife and, finally his encounter at the funeral of a dead stranger. We find climax when he finds himself at the funeral of a dead stranger and is moved to tears. 

We find anti-climax with the surging tears of redemption, “happy oblivion,” and understanding that Tommy experiences at the funeral of a stranger at the very end of the novel. There is foreshadowing in the fact that the elevator at the beginning is “descending” and “sinking” foreshadows danger ahead-a kind of symbolic foreshadowing for the purgatorial, even hellish, environment of the rest of the novel and Tommy’s state of mind.