Monologue

In theatre, a monologue is presented by a single character, most often to express their mental thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media (plays, films,^[1] etc.) as well as in non-dramatic media such as poetry.^[2] Monologues share much in common with several other literary devices including soliloquies, apostrophes, and aside. There are, however, distinctions between each of these devices.

Similar Literary Devices

Monologues are similar to soliloquies, apostrophes, and asides. Nevertheless, meaningful differences exist among them. For example, a monologue is distinct from a soliloquy because the latter involves a character relating his or her thoughts and feelings to him/herself and to the audience without addressing any of the other characters. A monologue is the thoughts of a person spoken out loud.^[3] Monologues are also distinct from apostrophes, wherein the speaker or writer addresses an imaginary person, inanimate object, or idea.^[4] Asides differ from each of these not only in terms of length (asides being shorter) but also in that asides aren't heard by other characters even in situations where they logically should be (i.e. two characters engaging in a dialogue interrupted by one of them delivering an aside).^[5]

A soliloquy (from Latin: "talking by oneself") is a device often used in drama when a character speaks to himself or herself, relating thoughts and feelings, thereby also sharing them with the audience. Other characters, however, are not aware of what is being said.^[1][2] A soliloquy is distinct from a monologue or an aside: a monologue is a speech where one character addresses other characters; an aside is a (usually short) comment by one character towards the audience.
Soliloquies were frequently used in dramas but went out of fashion when drama shifted towards realism in the late 18th century. Today, Korean screenwriters often insert brief soliloquies in Korean drama. Queen In-Hyun's Man is a good example.
 

Apostrophe (figure of speech)

Apostrophe (Greek ἀποστροφή, apostrophé, "turning away"; the final e being sounded)^[1] is an exclamatory rhetorical figure of speech, when a speaker or writer breaks off and directs speech to an imaginary person or abstract quality or idea. In dramatic works and poetry written in or translated into English, such a figure of speech is often introduced by the exclamation "O".

Examples

• "God deliver me from fools." English proverb^[2]
• "Where, my death, is thy sting? where, O death, thy victory?" 1 Corinthians 15:55, Saint Paul of Tarsus
• "O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! / Thou art the ruins of the noblest man / That ever lived in the tide of times." Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1
• "Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee! I have thee not, and yet I see thee still." Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1
• "To what green altar, O mysterious priest, / Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, / And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?" John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
• "O eloquent, just, and mighty Death!" Sir Walter Raleigh, A Historie of the World
• "Roll on, thou dark and deep blue Ocean -- roll!" Lord Byron, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
• "Thou glorious sun!" Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "This Lime Tree Bower"^[3]
• "Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so", John Donne, "Holy Sonnet X"
• "And you, Eumaeus..." the Odyssey
• "O My friends, there is no friend." Montaigne, originally attributed to Aristotle^[4]
• "Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!", from Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville
• "O black night, nurse of the golden eyes!" Electra in Euripides' Electra (c. 410 BCE, line 54), in the translation by David Kovacs (1998).
• "Then come, sweet death, and rid me of this grief." [(Queen Isabel in Edward II by Christopher Malowe)]
• "O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die." Romeo and Juliet (V, iii, 169-170). 

An aside is a dramatic device in which a character speaks to the audience. By convention the audience is to realize that the character's speech is unheard by the other characters on stage. It may be addressed to the audience expressly (in character or out) or represent an unspoken thought. An aside is usually a brief comment, rather than a speech, such as a monologue or soliloquy. Unlike a public announcement, it occurs within the context

“

A little more than kin, and less than kind.

”

This technique has frequently been used in film comedy, for example in the Bob Hope "Road" comedies, Woody Allen comedies and in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.