interior monologue
Thoughts rendered textually
Interior monologue is a literary technique presenting a character's thoughts as continuous, uninterrupted flow—the mind talking to itself.
Unlike dialogue, it isn't spoken aloud; unlike third-person narration, it stays inside the character's head.
The term overlaps with stream of consciousness, though interior monologue tends toward more coherent, organized thought: Her interior monologue revealed doubts she never voiced.
- soliloquyDramatic speech to oneself
- UlyssesGreek hero, Latinized
- unreliable narratorStoryteller whose credibility wavers
- stream of consciousnessNarrative mimicking uninterrupted thought
- self-talkSpeaking to oneself mentally
inner voice · introspection · fragmentation · narrative voice · focalization · self-reflection · quiet contemplation · modernism · Virginia Woolf · Mrs Dalloway · nonlinear narrative · first-person perspective · James Joyce · rumination · subconscious mind · internal dialogue · mental chatter · private thoughts
- personal writingdiary, journal, autobiographical essay, memoir, memoirs
- literary devicesmetaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, alliteration
- British ModernismVirginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Bloomsbury Group, Vorticism, D.H. Lawrence
- first personI, me, my, mine, myself
- modernismPicasso, Matisse, Duchamp, Braque, Kandinsky
- monologuessoliloquy, character voice, spoken word, recitation
interior monologuespoken dialogue
Voiced character conversation
public address · proclamation · spoken word · speech · oration
interior monologuedialogue
Spoken exchange between parties
conversation · exchange · discussion · colloquy · back-and-forth
interior, exterior, monologue, interiors, monologist, monologues, interiority, interiorly, interiorized