What is a monologue in the literature? This is a rather important writing technique, with the help of which you can clearly place accents, express your position, and demonstrate beliefs. Many writers use a monologue in their works to express their most cherished thoughts, putting them in the mouth of the hero.
The difference between a monologue and dialogue
If people communicate together - this is a dialogue. If a person speaks to himself, this is a monologue. So briefly describe the difference between dialogue and monologue.
But if you approach the issue academically, trying to figure out what a monologue is in literature, then this topic requires a more detailed study. A monologue is a certain way of building artistic speech. It is, as a rule, a form of reflection, an assessment of certain actions or a person, a call to one or another action. The reader may agree or internally argue with the main character, but there is no opposition in the text itself.
Dialogue in a literary work involves a dispute or discussion, the interlocutors can both complement each other with their remarks and express completely opposite views and ideas, trying to find the truth.
General laws of the monologue
This stylistic device has been used by the authors for a long time. If you carefully study what a monologue is in literature, and analyze a variety of works, you come to the conclusion that, with all the variety of approaches, there are general patterns.
No matter what fiction we take from a monologue, its text will always obey certain rules:
- This is the speech of a talking person who does not wait for an answer and does not involve objections, clarifications or additions. In fact, this is the main manifest of the protagonist.
- Always a monologue is aimed at the intended interlocutor. The hero mentally addresses either one person, or a group of persons, or the whole of humanity.
- This is not a way of communication, but rather, speech expression. The hero, uttering a monologue, does not set out to communicate. His main task is to express his pain and express himself.
- There are features from the point of view of style, what is a monologue. In the literature, it is a single speech fragment both in structure and in meaning. If the dialogue consists of replicas, then it is possible to compose a monologue so that it turns out beautiful and correct, only from a single coherent text.
Own experiences and general idea
To build a monologue, a variety of literary techniques are used. Their list is quite wide, but, as a rule, this is first-person speech, which has semantic completeness.
In Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit”, the main character, Chatsky, often resorts to monologues:
I don’t take it ... guilty
And I listen, I don’t understand
As if they still want to explain to me.
Confused by thoughts ... expect something.
This is the beginning of a monologue, which from the first lines characterizes the general mood of the hero - confusion, bewilderment, an attempt to find the truth. Further, the hero discusses human feelings, talks about deception and his own errors, and in the end approaches to understanding that you need to escape from this society:
Get out of Moscow! I’m no longer going here.
I’m running, I won’t look back, I’ll go looking around the world,
Where the offended person has a feeling! -
The carriage to me, the carriage!
This monologue contains not only personal experiences. The author was so able to compose a monologue that he put the main idea of the work into the mouth of the protagonist.
Stylistic tricks
The author always tries to ensure that the monologue, the test of which is very important for understanding the essence of the work, is written organically and justifiably. Well, he will not simply for no reason declare any values or ideas. Therefore, the approach to building a monologue is very serious. There are certain literary techniques, a list of which is known even to novice writers:
- The presence of pronouns, references and verbs of the 2nd person. Heroes often mentally turn to their imaginary interlocutor, sometimes simply to “you”, sometimes even by name.
- Depending on the purpose of the monologue, its speech types are distinguished. It can be a story about an event, confession, reasoning, self-characterization and so on.
- Authors often use a conversational style, use expressively colored vocabulary, sometimes even engage in an internal dialogue with the intended interlocutor.
Internal monologue
A monologue, the definition of which can be expressed briefly as a detailed statement of one person, can also be internal. This technique was first actively used by such writers as Marcel Proust and James Joyce.
The internal monologue in literature is also called the stream of consciousness. It was first applied by Proust in 1913 in the novel Towards Svan. And more thoroughly, internal monologues began to be used by J. Joyce in the novel Ulysses, which was published in 23 issues of the American magazine from 1918 to 1920. The stream of consciousness of the protagonist is built in the same way as the internal monologue with himself. A man dives into reality and mixes it with his inner experiences. The internal monologue, as a rule, describes the processes of thinking, conveys the subtlest movements of thoughts, and demonstrates feelings. Sometimes it is difficult to separate reality from fiction, experiences from fantasies.
The most famous monologues in world literature
He perfectly mastered the art of a monologue in his works by Anton Chekhov. In the play "The Seagull," the heroine Masha utters a touching monologue, the text of which is dedicated to her future husband. The conflict is that he loves her, and she does not.
Another hero of this play, Konstantin, discusses aloud how his relationship with his mother developed. This monologue is sad and gentle.
Often used in his plays monologues and William Shakespeare. In The Storm, the hero Trinkulo, who has an excellent sense of humor, pronounces a passionate appeal. He tries to hide from the storm, while alternating his speech with such piquant details and funny twists that the reader acutely understands his disgust from reality.
Monologues organically entered into their works Lermontov, Ostrovsky, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov. Very often the monologues of the main characters reflect the personal position of the author, so they are so valuable in the works.