The Conventions of a Dramatic Monologue

Before even going into aspects of what makes a good dramatic monologue (or persona monologue), we must first understand what really is a monologue.
  A monologue  is simply a speech made by one person, which can be sometimes be spoken from a piece of text that has been written by someone else previously. The word monologue comes from mono, meaning one and log, meaning spoken or keeping a record of something spoken.
  When answering the actual question of what a dramatic monologue is, however, the difference is small but significant. This is because dramatic monologue  can consist of conferences, books, speeches and poems that are in a first person view and are shorter then monologues that can be an entire part of a play/performance. All of these types of dramatic monologue consist of different techniques to a produce a certain quality, which could influence the depth of the subtext within the,.
  Subtext is the under meaning of what something could mean and why it has been picked. An example of this is someone wearing red. By wearing this colour it could suggest thoughts of sexuality, love or even danger due to how stereotypes of this colour has been created.
   By looking at subtext, then, not only does it reveal emotions but when used in a deeper understanding, it can help you consider other aspects of the monologue, such as what gender wrote it, how old they were, what type of bringing up or education they had/have and even culture and religion.
  When examining dramatic monologues, it can be said that they are forms of what some may call 'silent dialogue', meaning that when reading them, they can be precieved as more 'conversational' then a usual monologue allows.
  Techniques used in a dramatic monologue  can be obvious, such as a lack of punctuation used to represent a child speaking or a lack of vocabulary. This isn't always the case, however. The reason being because the obvious isn't always what is the reality. A lack of punctuation could emphasis a grown adults lack of education due to their upbringing, being deprived of education due to family difficulty. A lack of vocabulary could even be someone who is foreign from the language, still trying to adjust to the language.
This is only a fraction of the many different techniques that can be used in a dramatic monologue.
  By thinking outside of the box or even going deeper into the abyss of what you think, you find that famous dramatic monologues from William Shakespeare or Robert Browning are famous for a reason that you haven't realised yet, it's just waiting to be discovered..


 Terrence Telfer