'Is the dramatic monologue a powerful or a limited mode of expression?'

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Research Essay: ‘Is the dramatic monologue a powerful or a limited mode of expression’

Different styles of expression whether through play or poetry, are only determined of being powerful or limited if the expression itself is able to convey its specific message. This message is usually the different aspects of the expression; regardless of whether it being the characters, plot, theme, and/or setting. With this in thought, should the dramatic monologue be a powerful or limited mode of expression really depends on its uniqueness of the way it portrays this particular message.

Dramatic monologues are dramatic narrative hybrids. This unique type of genre is concerned with the state of mind, an emphasis on emotion or thought rather than action.

Dramatic monologues can be considered as powerful modes of expression for its distinctive highlight on better character interpretation. Its main aim is the depiction of a main character and the latter’s personality. As dramatic monologues focuses on the emotions and/or thoughts of the character it beckons an analysis and interpretation. There is a use of rhetorical question in order to anticipate the audiences’ demands for information. The audience, then, completes the dramatic scene from within, by means of inference and imagination, finalizing the nature of this main character and the play.

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Monologues also create a sense of empathy as, for once, the state of mind is allowed to speak for itself without explicit authorial interference. This technique allows the audience to sympathize as well as to learn the character’s insights of their objectives.

Sympathy is produced as the audience plays an active role in the monologue, having to form the above-mentioned interpretation. Thus, the audience accesses the speaker’s qualities and arguments while simultaneously empathizing with the character’s predicament. This can be seen in Io’s monologue in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound. A victim of Zeus’s love, Io is exiled from ...

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