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Monological Speech

A monologue from the Greek monos ("single") and legein ("to speak") is a speech
given by a single person to an audience.
aini
1. Monologue and Dialogue
Monologue and dialogue are often conceived as two opposite phenomenon and every
dramatic utterance is assigned to one of these categories. In Sweeney Todd we shall see
that this need not necessarily be the case. There are off course situational and structural
differences between these.
The situational criterion for monologue is that there is no addressee, at least not on
stage. This kind of monologue is non-existent in Sweeney Todd excluding the Ballad.
The structural criterion refers to the length and autonomy of a particular speech. When
we use this criterion to label monologues, we can find several good examples of this
in Sweeney Todd: My Friends, Epiphany, The Contest etc.
Then there is of course the distinction between soliloquy and monologue. I believe the
main difference between them is the fact that a soliloquy is not meant to affect others,
and a monologue is. The soliloquy will be discussed in more depth later on.
As we can see, the distinction between monologue and dialogue is not always clear.
Many verbal utterances can be perceived as a mixture of the two.
The Epiphany provides us with such an example.
aprilia
2. Soliloquy Vs Monological; Dialog Vs Dialogical
 Soliloquy Vs Monological
Soliloquies and monologues have one thing in common: they each involve a
solitary speaker. The difference between the two doesn't have to do with who's
talking but with who's listening.
Marc Antony delivers a well-known monologue to the people of Rome in
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. You probably know how it starts:
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones:
 So let it be with Caesar. (etc.)
bahnur
A monologue might be delivered to an audience within a play, as it is with
Antony's speech, or it might be delivered directly to the audience sitting in the
theater and watching the play.
Soliloquy from the Latin solus ("alone") and loqui ("to speak") is a speech that
one gives to oneself. In a play, a character delivering a soliloquy talks to herself
thinking out loud, as it were so that the audience better understands what is
happening to the character internally.
The most well-known soliloquy in the English language appears in Act III, Scene
1 of Hamlet:
To be, or not to be, that is the question: & dash;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? (etc.)
nela
 Dialog Vs Dialogical
Dialogue itself is a form of semiotic mediation that undergirds the learning and
thinking of individuals, groups, and cultures at large. signs, interactions, and
socialization (all forms of semiotic mediation) can be more or less ‘dialogic.
There are two types of dialogue in literature:
 Inner Dialogue – In inner dialogue, the characters speak to themselves
and reveal their personalities. To use inner dialogue, writers employ
literary techniques like stream of consciousness or
dramatic monologue. We often find such dialogues in the works of
James Joyce, Virginia Wolf, and William Faulkner.
 Outer Dialogue – Outer dialogue is a simple conversation between two
characters, used in almost all types of fictional works.

The use of dialogue is prevalent in fiction, but this technique can also be found in
poetry, non-fiction, films, and drama. The dialogue has several purposes, such as
advancing the plot of a narrative, and revealing the characters that cannot be
understood otherwise.
 radiah
Examples of dialogue in literary work:
 Pride and Prejudice (By Jane Austen)
“Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune;
four or five thousand a years. What a fine thing for our girls!”
“How so? How can it affect them?”
“My dear Mr. Bennet, “replied his wife, “how can you be so tiresome! You
must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them…
My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of beauty, but I do not
pretend to be anything extraordinary now…she ought to give over thinking of
her own beauty.”
Austen explores the characters in her novels through dialogue. Likewise, in
this conversation, the author unfolds Mrs. Bennet’s character as being stupid
and worthless. Mr. Bennet makes fun of her wife, and this dialogue sums up
their relationship and gives hints about their personalities.
 A Dialogue Between Caliban and Ariel (By John Fuller)
Cal. “Have you no visions that you cannot name?”
Ar. “A picture should extend beyond its frame,
There being no limitation
To bright reality:
For all their declaration
And complexity,
Words cannot see.”
Fuller has written this poem in the dialogue form. Two characters, Caliban and
Ariel, are conversing, revealing the conflict, as Caliban asks questions, and
Ariel gives answers that make the poem alive and interesting.
martin
3. Monological tendencies in dialogue
From Mukarovský's definition it is possible to define an ideal form of 'dialogical
dialogue':
A dialogical dialogue is an undisrupted form of two-way communication between
two or more figures who represent polar opposites and whose relations are marked by
a high level of tension.
 It could be argued that the dialogue between Tobias and Todd in Pirreli's Miracle
Elixir is a form of such a dialogue, since it contains all criteria.
firsty
The fact that many so-called dialogues possess monological tendencies can be
explained by the following facts:

 disrupted communication because: the channel between the two partners is

disrupted; they are physically or psychologically unwilling to communicate;
and they employ diverging codes, thus causing incomprehension or grave
misunderstandings. there is a difference in referential contexts.
 When complete consensus occurs there can be no semantic change of
direction. A Little Priest, an example of this, has already been cited.
 When the two partners of the dialogue take no notice of each other, a
combination of monologues may occur. By The Sea is a good example of this.
Todd doesn't really listen to Mrs. Lovett, he only answers her in short phrases,
probably just to stop her nagging him.
 The predominance of one figure also encourages the development of
monological tendencies.

eca

4. Dialogical tendencies in soliloquies

The presence of dialogical tendencies in soliloquies is always based on the fact that the
identity of the speaker and listener which defines the soliloquy is dissolved into a
contrast between different semantic contexts. This contrast can take on different forms:

1. Prayer: this form isn't used in Sweeney Todd. The only evidence of this is the
Judge's song. I discussed this song in a previous section, and I stated that it
starts as a prayer (cf. p.).
2. Interior dialogue: there are two examples of this in Sweeney Todd:
the Epiphany and the Judge's Song. In both cases the speaker is divided into
two different conflicting subjects.
3. Speech ad spectatores: this only works in the external communication. It is
directed at a fictitious audience. In the Epiphany, there is good example of
this:
 TODD: You, sir?

Who, sir?

How about a shave?

ella

5. The monological aside: convention versus motivation

An aside resembles a soliloquy in that it does not have an addressee on stage. It differs
from the soliloquy in that the speaker is not alone on stage(nor does he imagine he is
alone). As a result, an aside bears even less mimetic relationship to real life than a
conventionalized soliloquy. This kind of aside is called a conventionalized monological
aside. It enables the author to:

1. present a figure's thoughts directly;

2. give a frank commentary on a particular situation free of any strategic
consideration(often expressed by scheming figures); and,
3. Convey information on the background of a figure.

If we look at Sweeney Todd we see an example of this in a section of There's No Place

Like London:

There's a whole in the world like a great black pit,

And the vermin of the world inhabit it.

When Todd sings this, he's not addressing anyone on stage. It is more like an interior
mumbling, reflected in the music, by repeated notes, with little melodic change.
Judging by Anthony's reaction, Anthony, who at that moment is the only one on stage
with Todd, hasn't even heard this mumbling.