Monologue commentary

I chose to write a monologue based on a sister losing her younger brother through a tragic accident, I believe this to be a good choice as it can appeal to a wide range of readers. Primarily, the target audience for my monologue would be young adults and above, I feel this is a suitable age/s due to the emotional content throughout, any younger would not be appropriate as the theme is very serious and should not be exposed to children as it may change the way they think about this topic in the future. I aim for it to be performed during an acting piece due to the genre, this would widen my audience to people who take an interest in dramatic pieces. In my piece, the lexis I used was relatively simple as I thought this appropriate as it could be read by everyone, therefore if I used more complex lexis, some readers will be unable to understand the meaning of the piece. The length of my sentences are varied throughout as this text will ultimately be spoken so not every sentence will be of a similar length for example ‘doctors say I am still grieving’ to the length of ‘I was always scared that I would hurt you or that I would somehow lose you, however I still could never bring myself to put down that glass and not pick it up in my almost lifeless hands again, I thought I was being a good sister, how wrong I now am.’ This gives the effect of speech also through the use of commas which represent a pause which is common in a typical conversation/spoken verse. Throughout my monologue, I have used personal pronouns in the first person ‘I’ and ‘we’ etc. this will allow the piece to become more personal and encompasses the reader/audience, building a closer and direct relationship between those listening and the performer. It will make the audience empathise to the character in the way they are giving a person encounter, also because this piece is a monologue, the other characters on the ‘stage’ will not be aware of the monologue, making the audience feel as though they have been personally selected to keep a dark secret. I used the rhetorical questions such as ‘forgive me, tom? ‘this will cause the audience to think and question if the person should be forgiven or not, allowing them to try and figure out the piece on a different level and have their own thoughts of the events. The purpose of my piece is to primarily entertain an audience through the use of dramatic and emotional content. I believe this to be an appropriate as this will allow the audience to connect with the meaning but also as my monologue is aimed towards young adults and older, this type of content would not be appropriate for a younger child as it may be thought of as too distressing due to the focus and topic it is based on. Through researching emotional monologues, I discovered, most are based on upsetting times in a person’s life or an illness. I feel this is because they are the most common things to have happened in someone’s life, of this content. This will ultimately mean the audience observing the piece will be able to make a personal connection to the character and understand more about the meaning behind the words and understand how the character feels towards the situation they are in. In my case, the loss of a younger brother ‘My car, which still containing his now limp body were towed out of the lake around an hour later…I had not moved’ Due to my monologue being spoken, it was not necessary to use a range of graphology as it would not add of take away the actual purpose of the text. However, I did use a simple font ‘Calibri (body)’ in size 11, this will allow the monologue to be easily read by the person performing it and help them remember it at a faster pace.

Word count- 594 + 83 (quotes) = 677 overall