Instruction 3-4

Characters Traits | Literary Devices | Ambiguities, Subtleties, Ironies | Describe the Functions of Soliloquies, Asides | Summary

If you were to tape your last sparkling conversation, you'd hear all sorts of detours, stops and starts, repetitions, and incomplete thoughts -- not to mention the "ers," "umms," and "hmms." Somewhere in there lies the sparkle and wit you recall, but it was most likely smothered under real life speech. Real life speech serves many functions, includes body language to help get the message across, and most importantly, is not a crafted work of art.

Dialogue is the verbal exchange between people. In literature, dialogue is the verbal exchange between any characters, human or not.

Writers don't want to reproduce life when they write dialogue. They want to give the impression of having done so, and they  do that partly by leaving out the boring parts.

Just as above in real life, fictional dialogue provides information. Dialogue might, for example, let you know that a mother wants her son to get out the door on time so he can catch the bus. But as in real life, the choice of words and the way in which they're delivered reveals the character of the speaker. (We'd recognize a different relationship and different personalities both in real life and on the page between "Honey, if you hurry you’ll still have time for some of this nice breakfast I made for you," and "Get your butt in gear! How many times do I have to tell you?")

But unlike real life talk, dialogue in fiction must also move things along. It has to advance your story line. The rush to catch the bus, or the consequences of missing it, must be on the page because it moves your story along. It can't be there the way it is in real life, simply to get out the door on time to get on with the day.

To recap: dialogue in fiction has to do three things: provide information, reveal character, and move the story along. Good dialogue is action. A good writer uses words coming out of the characters' mouths as arrows, each shot with a purpose. Language can hurt, inform, spite, confuse, delight, seduce, amaze, or terrify. When you read, think about the purpose of the dialogue.

Now let’s talk a little bit about conversation in dramatic literature. Dramatic literature includes plays, screenplays (for movies or television), or any type of literature that is acted out.

Most conversation in dramatic literature is in dialogue form (between two or more people). However, sometimes the writer (playwright) will use other types of conversation. A soliloquy is a dramatic convention—or accepted technique—by means of which a character, alone onstage, speaks his or her thoughts aloud. Playwrights use soliloquies as a convenient way to inform the audience about a character’s motivations and state of mind. Shakespeare’s Hamlet delivers perhaps the best known of all soliloquies, which begins: "To be or not to be."

Have you ever seen a movie, play, or TV show when a character turns and speaks straight into the camera or straight to the audience? An aside is a speech directed to the audience that supposedly is not audible to the other characters onstage at the time. Writers use asides, just like soliloquies, to give the audience the inside scoop on the character’s feelings or motivations.

You might recall from earlier instruction that the main character in a story is called the protagonist. Sometimes a writer will create a character whose behavior and values are almost the opposite of the protagonist or some other important character.

A character that contrasts with a main character in this way is called a foil. A writer may add a foil to the story in order to highlight the distinctive nature of protagonist. Think of how much brighter a spotlight appears when the rest of the room is completely dark. A foil is like the darkness, emphasizing the bright spotlight of the main character.

When a playwright builds his story, he uses tools like soliloquies, asides, and foils to reveal the feelings and motivations of his main character. Since a playwright doesn’t have the luxury of describing the scene, he works very hard to design the scenes in which the action will take place. Is it summer or winter? Present day, past, or future? Night or day?  An exotic location or a common one? Fantasy or reality? Even factors like the mood of the scene are very important—scene  design can give the audience all kinds of feelings, from  foreboding to carefree.

Whether it’s comedy, drama, thriller, or action-packed, the  scene design underlines and emphasizes the entire flavor of the story.

Playwrights also use scene design to add elements to the story itself. A claustrophobic setting might echo the claustrophobic lives of the characters and the main character’s domination over them. Scene design can even add a central image or metaphor to strengthen the story. Jo Mielsiner’s design for Death of A Salesman combined realism with fragility and past with the present by setting realistic set pieces in a home with broken and transparent walls. This design element allowed the main character, Willy, to move through them into scenes from his memory.

Links for Students, Parents and Teachers

Now let's do Practice Exercise 3-4 (top).

Summary

You have now completed Lesson 3 on Text Analysis and are ready to do the Problem and Test sections. You may wish to review any or all of the topics before answering the questions that follow. You may also wish to obtain additional material from the links below before answering the questions.

Good luck!

Next Page:  Problems (top)

Lesson 4