Dialogue
Dialogue
• Dialogue is the presentation of what characters in a literary
work say.
• It is a crucial element of drama, and also of fiction and
narrative poetry.
• Uses:
– To reveal characters’ motives, feelings, values, and relationships
– To advance the plot
– To suggest tone
Dialogue
• Dialogue is a primary means of depicting character
• Other characters’ responses can suggest their relationship,
including the level of power relative to each other
• Great Gatsby example:
– In the following example, Nick Carraway has just been taken by
Tom Buchanan, his cousin’s husband, to meet his “girl.” Tom’s
mistress is married to the owner of a dilapidated garage, George
Wilson, who has no inkling of the adultery. This is Nick’s and the
reader’s introduction to Wilson:
Great Gatsby Example
…the proprietor…appeared in the door of an office, wiping his hands
on a piece of waste. He was a blond, spiritless man, anemic, and
faintly handsome. When he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into
his light blue eyes.
“Hello, Wilson, old man,” said Tom, slapping him jovially on the
shoulder. “How’s business?”
“I can’t complain,” answered Wilson unconvincingly. “When
are you going to sell me that car?”
“Next week; I’ve got my man working on it now.”
“Works pretty slow, don’t he?”
“No, he doesn’t,” said Tom coldly. “And if you feel that way
about it, maybe I’d better sell it somewhere else after all.”
“I don’t mean that,” explained Wilson quickly. “I just meant—”
His voice faded off and Tom glanced impatiently around the
garage.
Explanation
• Everything about the scene implies Wilson’s weakness and
subjugation to Tom’s will:
– His faded physical appearance
– His tentative gestures
– His pathetic hope that Tom will bring a bit of lucrative business to the
failing shop
• Nick first describes him as “spiritless” and “anemic,” and, fittingly,
he is “wiping his hands on a bit of waste.”
• Tom immediately takes control, speaking the first words, and
“slapping” Wilson with false joviality.
• The one time that Wilson attempts to assert himself, Tom cuts him
off “coldly,” and Wilson retracts his complaint and fades into
silence.
• The first-person witness leaves no doubt of the cuckolded
husband’s powerlessness or of his betrayer’s contempt.
More Uses of Dialogue
• Another technique for using dialogue is to depict character is
to recount differences between a character’s reported
thoughts and his or her spoken words
Example
• In Jane Austen’s Emma, the protagonist is often constrained
by the manners required in her upper-class society from
expressing her actual opinions or preferences.
• She is adept, however, at avoiding uncomfortable topics by
maintaining a polite silence or by changing the subject.
• The omniscient narrator reveals the contrast between Emma’s
thoughts and words in such comments as the following:
Emma
This is her reaction to an awkward dispute she is having with a
close family friend and mentor:
“It was most convenient to Emma not to make a direct
reply to this assertion; she chose rather to take up her own line
of the subject again.”
Another Example
• In “The Red Convertible” by Louise Erdich, the teenage
narrator/protagonist, Lyman Lamartine, speaks words that are
markedly at odds with his thoughts.
• Lyman is a Chippewa Indian who is struggling with how to deal
with his older brother Henry’s emotional illness.
• Henry, a former marine and captive in a prisoner of war camp
in Vietnam, is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
“The Red Convertible”
• The crisis is complicated by the brothers’ isolation and
poverty.
• They live on a remote reservation, which contains no Indian
therapists, and no one in the family trusts mainstream
hospitals.
• Even if they could afford such treatment, the mother charges
that “’[the doctors] just give them drugs,’” and in any case
both the mother and Lyman know that henry would refuse to
be committed.
“The Red Convertible”
• At this point in the story, Henry is virtually mute with
depression, and Lyman is desperate to help him.
• Suddenly, he thinks of the red convertible that the two of
them had bought and fixed up before Henry was drafted:
“The Red Convertible”
One night Henry was off somewhere. I took myself a
hammer. I went out to that car and I did a number on its
underside. Whacked it up. Bent the tail pipe double. Ripped the
muffler loose. By the time I was done with the car it looked
worse than any typical Indian car that has been driven all its life
on the reservation roads, which they always say are like
government promises—full of holes. It just about hurt me, I’ll tell
you that! I threw dirt in the carburetor and I ripped all the
electric tape off the seats. I made it look just as beat up as I
could. Then I sat back and waited.
“The Red Convertible”
Still, it took him over a month. That was all right, because it was just
getting warm enough, not melting, but warm enough to work outside.
“Lyman,” he says, walking in one day,” that red car looks like shit.”
“Well, it’s old,” I say. “You got to expect that.”
“No way!” says Henry. “That car’s a classic! But you went and ran
the piss right out of it, Lyman, and you know it don’t deserve that. I kept that
car in A-one shape. You don’t remember. You’re too young. But when I left,
that car was running like a watch. Now I don’t even know if I can get it to
start again, let alone get it anywhere near its old condition.”
“Well you try,” I said, like I was getting mad, “but I say it’s a piece of
junk.”
Then I walked out before he could realize I knew he’d strung
together more than six words at once.
Explanation
• Lyman’s actions make clear the strength of his love for his
brother.
• He is willing to sacrifice the car, despite how much he
treasures it, in the hope of helping Henry.
• After pounding and ripping the convertible on which he has
lavished so much care, he admits of the wrecking,
– “It just about hurt me, I’ll tell you that!”
Explanation
• Lyman’s easy colloquialism and his candor make his voice fresh
and appealing.
• He is confiding in the reader what he must be careful to keep
secret from everyone else.
• The plan is also a tribute to Lyman’s cleverness.
• He creates a way to draw Henry out of his depression, inspire
his self-esteem, and give him a meaningful project.
Explanation
• He also knows enough to lie low and let Henry discover the
car on his own.
• Then he denies that the convertible has been damaged,
replying off-handedly to Henry’s accusation, “Well, it’s old.”
• That dismissal triggers a heated protest from Henry that the
car is “a classic” that he had “kept running in A-one shape.”
• With typical older brother condescension, Henry claims that
Lyman is “too young” to remember the car’s former glory.
Prose Fiction
• In prose fiction the proportion of dialogue to narration varies
enormously.
• Some short stories are comprised almost entirely of dialogue:
• Ernest Hemingway’s, “Hills Like White Elephants”
• Some novels also have moments of increased dialogue:
• Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
• During the heroine’s reunion with her beloved Mr. Rochester,
he is jealous of the relationship that she has had with another
man, her cousin St. John Rivers, during her absence.
• Mr. Rochester, who has been blinded and maimed, has been
severely depressed, and Jane is delighted at this chance to
revive his fighting spirit and direct his energies at someone
who, as she knows, is no rival to him:
Jane Eyre
“How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the
cousinship was discovered?”
“Five months.”
“Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?”
“Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near
the window, and we by the table.
“Did he study much?”
“A good deal.”
“What?”
“Hindostanee.”
“And what did you do meantime?”
“I studied German at first.”
“Did he teach you?”
“He did not understand German.”
Jane Eyre
“Did he teach you nothing?”
“A little Hindostanee.”
“Rivers taught you Hindostanee?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And his sisters also?”
“No.”
“Only you?”
“Only me.”
“Did you ask to learn?”
“No.”
“He wished to teach you?”
“Yes.”
Explanation
• Mr. Rochester’s jealousy is implied by the precise crossexamination to which he subjects Jane.
• Knowing that her intelligence and love of learning, he focuses
on the role that she has played of star pupil, seeing it, rightly,
for the show of favor that it is.
• His jealousy is further suggested through his concentration on
the nature of their study, an esoteric subject that suggests
both River’s erudition and his respect for Jane’s abilities.
Explanation
• It is also suggested by his pointed inquiry into whether or not
Rivers singled her out from his sisters.
• Jane’s curt answers of course pique Rochester’s curiosity and
tease him with the implication that she has something to hide.
• For the reader, the dramatic irony achieved by knowing Jane’s
actual feelings and motives—she is the narrator as well as the
protagonist of the novel and has confided her intentions
beforehand—makes the scene a comic interlude.
Hmmm.
• Such passages of straight dialogue may give readers the
impression that they are eavesdropping on a real-life
conversation, which the author has just happened to record.
• In actuality, the shaping hand of the writer is very much at
work in such scenes, choosing words and phrases that are
characteristic of each speaker; eliminating the pauses,
stammerings, and irrelevancies that litter everyday talk; and
pacing the exchange for both efficiency and verisimilitude.
Mas (lo siento!)
• In addition, any contrasts between what a character says in
various contexts can be both convincing and revealing.
• This is especially crucial in drama, since the characterization
must come almost entirely through the dialogue.
Romeo and Juliet
• In Romeo and Juliet, Lord Capulet makes a series of strikingly
different pronouncements about his daughter Juliet’s freedom
to choose a husband.
• He first tells her new suitor, the County Paris, that he must
“woo her” and “get her heart,” for his own permission
depends on her “consent.”
Romeo and Juliet
• When, a short while later, Juliet has become deeply
depressed, supposedly over her cousin Tybalt’s death, Capulet
decides that marriage would be the ideal cure for her
melancholy.
• He tells the count that he can vouch for his daughter’s
agreement to an immediate wedding:
– “I think she will be ruled/In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt
it not.”
Romeo and Juliet
• Juliet, however, is grieving over her forced separation from
Romeo, the son of her family’s mortal enemy, whom she has
secretly married.
• Without revealing the reason, she refuses the match with
Paris.
• Capulet, outraged, tells her:
– “An you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;/An you be not, hang,
beg, starve, die in the streets.”
Romeo and Juliet
• Capulet’s initial permissiveness, it is suggested, depended on
his complacent conviction that his daughter’s will coincides
with his own.
• His authority is threatened, Capulet goes from being an
indulgent parent to the ruthless tyrant.
• The inconsistencies in his attitude make him a more plausible,
albeit not a more sympathetic, character.
Still More!
• In a novel, a novella, and a short story, the author may also
shape the impact of dialogue by using speech headings:
– Descriptions of characters’ vocal tones or gestures as they speak
a line:
• “slapping him jovially on the shoulder”
• “explain Wilson quickly”
• In plays there may be stage directions
• Some plays use stage directions sparingly (Shakespeare), while
others use quite elaborate directions:
Stage Directions
• From Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie (this is in the
aftermath of a quarrel between the adult son and his mother)
The music of “Ave Maria” is heard softly.
Tom glances sheepishly but sullenly at her averted figure and
slumps at the table.
The coffee is scalding hot; he sips it and gasps and spits it back
in the cup. At his gasp, Amanda catches her breath and half turns.
Then she catches herself and turns back to the window. Tom blows on
his coffee, blancing sidewise at his mother. She clears her throat. Tom
clears his. He starts to rise, sinks back down again, scratches his head,
clears his throat again, Amanda coughs. Tom raises his cup in both
hands to blow on it, his eyes staring over the rim of it at his mother for
several moments. Then he slowly sets the cup down and awkwardly
and hesitantly rises from the chair.
Explanation
• From the background music to the gasps and throat clearings
to the awkward glances, it is clear that both parties to the
quarrel care about one another and are preparing to make up.
Style
• The style of dialogue also varies considerably from work to
work.
• Some authors of fiction, such as Henry James and George
Eliot, give characters long, elaborate speeches.
• Others, such as Hemingway and Salinger, are notable for the
economy and naturalness with which characters speak.
• Drama also shows an enormous range in degrees of formality
Style
• Some authors use a combination of direct and indirect
discourse, in which a third-person narrator summarizes the
words of a character but replicates his or her characteristic
idioms and patterns of thought.
• In James Joyce’s “Eveline,” the protagonist is contemplating
the freedom that she hopes to have, after she elopes to
Buenos Aires, from the oppression that she suffers at work
and at home:
“Eveline”
She would not cry many tears at leaving the Stores.
But in her new home, in a distant unknown country, it
would not be like that. Then she would be married—she, Eveline.
People would treat her with respect then. She would not be
treated as her mother had been.
Explanation
• Both the young woman’s wonder at the new status that
marriage will convey and her resentment of the ill treatment
that she has undergone are reflected in the colloquial word
choice— “would not cry many tears” –and simple sentences–
“People would treat her with respect then.”
Explanation
• The use of her own name– “she, Eveline” – stresses her need
to confirm that it is really she who will attain the incredible
rise in status.
• The indirect discourse, the fact that the narrator is reporting
Eveline’s words, however, suggests what the story goes on to
show, that Eveline does not have the confidence or the selfknowledge to carry through with her one chance to escape.
Another Example
• Jane Austen uses third-person narration of a character’s
dialogue very differently in the scene from Emma in which the
social-climbing Mr. Elton proposes to the heroine.
• Emma, who has been angling to match him with her friend
Harriet, is shocked.
• The episode is narrated from Emma’s perspective:
Emma
To restrain him as much as might be, by her own manners, she was
immediately preparing to speak with exquisite calmness and gravity of
the weather and the night; but scarcely had she begun, scarcely had
they passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she
found her subject cut up—her hand seized—her attention demanded,
and Mr. Elton actually making violent love to her: availing himself of
the precious opportunity, declaring sentiments which must be already
well known, hoping—fearing—adoring—ready to die if she refused
him; but flattering himself that his ardent attachment and unequalled
love and unexampled passion could not fail of having some effect, and
in short, very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as
possible. It really was so.
Explanation
• The omniscient narrator makes clear Emma’s aversion to his
first hints by describing her plans to ignore them.
• That ploy swiftly fails, the fervor of Mr. Elton’s advances
reflected in the verbs: “seized,” “demanded,” and “making
violent love” –in the last case, it should be noted for modern
readers, only in words, not in actions.
Explanation
• Then follows the summary of his proposal.
• Had the narrator allowed the young man to speak for himself,
there is a chance that he might have gained some undeserved
sympathy from readers.
• As the offer is presented, however, in a series of participles
and with all of the “sentiments” focused on his own feelings
and desires, rather than on Emma’s, the superficial and selfserving nature of his “ardent attachment” is made abundantly
clear.
Indirect Discourse
• Indirect discourse can be an effective means to signal either
pathos—pity for weakness and suffering, as with Eveline—or
ironic detachment, as with Mr. Elton.
• In either case, the narrator is implying the tone by speaking
for the characters rather than allowing their voices to be
heard.
Repartee
• A technique for creating lively dialogue, common to both
drama and prose fiction, is repartee:
• A rapid-fire exchange of witty remarks in which each speaker tries
to score against an opponent in a verbal fencing match.
• Taming of the Shrew example:
Taming of the Shrew
PETRUCHIO: Nay, come, Kate, come, you must not look so sour.
KATE: It is my fashion when I see a crab.
PETRUCHIO: Why, here’s no crab, and therefore look not sour.
KATE: There is, there is.
PETRUCHIO: Then show it me.
KATE: Had I a glass I would.
Explanation
• It is clear from the brevity of the parries and the candor of
Kate’s witticisms both that Petruchio will have no easy task
and that the couple is well matched.
Soliloquy
• A soliloquy (from the Latin word for “to speak alone”) is a
monologue delivered by a character who is alone on stage.
• He or she may address the audience as though they are
confidantes or simply seem to be thinking aloud, expressing
thoughts that are too private or too risky to share with other
characters.
Soliloquy
• Soliloquies represent a break in the ongoing action and are
reserved for major characters, usually the protagonist, and for
important revelations.
• Often, Shakespeare’s villains will confide in the audience in
order to parade their cleverness and ruthlessness.
Iago
• Iago has bribed a man named Rodrigo, who is in love with
Othello’s wife, Desdemona, to help break them up. He tells
Rodrigo that he will “Put money in thy purse,” and then he
delivers the following soliloquy to the audience:
Iago
Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;
For mine own gained knowledge should profane
If I would time expend with such a snipe (fool)
But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor,
And it is thought abroad (rumored) that ‘twixt my sheets
H’as done my office (business in bed). I know not if’t be true,
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
Will do for surety. He holds me well; (in high esteem)
The better shall my purpose work on him.
Cassio’s a proper man (handsome). Let me see now:
To get his place, and to plume up my will (gratify my desire)
In double knavery—how, how? –Let’s see:
After some time, to abuse Othello’s ears
That he (Cassio) is too familiar with his wife
He hath a person and a smooth dispose (manner)
To be suspected—framed to make women false.
The Moor is of a free and open nature
That thinks men honest that but see to be so;
And will as tenderly be led by th’ nose
As asses are.
I have’t! It is engendered! Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.
Explanation
• Several aspects of Iago’s nature are revealed in the soliloquy:
–
–
–
–
His deviousness
His lack of scruples
His twisted values
His wily intelligence
• He scorns the hapless Roderigo, whom he sees as a “fool” and
a “snipe,” valuable only for the “profit” of amusement
(“sport”) that he provides.
Explanation
• He feels hate toward Othello, and his extremely jealous of him
simply because of the “suspicion” that Othello has had an
adulterous affair with his wife Emilia—a charge that even he admits
is based on implausible gossip.
• It is not only human faults that evoke Iago’s contempt, however; he
is even more scornful of virtues:
– Cassio’s handsomeness and courtly manner
– Othello’s “free and open nature”
• He allies himself with the forces of evil—”Hell” and the “night”
Effects of Soliloquy
• The effects of a soliloquy on the audience are similar to those
of first-person narration in a short story or a novel.
• The audience must gauge the reliability of the speaker.
• If the speaker is a villain, the audience may feel both flattered
and revolted.
• When the motives are benevolent, the effect is to create
bonds of sympathy between speaker and audience.
Aside
• An aside is a speech, usually brief, that is heard only by the
audience, or sometimes, is addressed privately to another character
on stage.
• It can represent thoughts said aloud.
• In Hamlet, King Claudius plots to kill his stepson/nephew by
poisoning his wine at a fencing match. When the queen drinks that
wine instead, he knows that expressing anguish aloud would risk
revealing his treasonous scheme, so he confines his reaction to a
horrified aside:
– “It is the poisoned cup; it is too late.”
Ta Da!