Dialogue versus monologue

Dialogue, then, is the basic form of human speech — and monologue, in which one speaker is silent for a very long time, exists only in special cases such as theatrical performances, prayers, and ceremonial speeches.

Peter Farb, Word Play

Peter Farb never met my father or a guy I used to work with or any number of other people I've known who can't seem to stop talking. I saw an old man in a restaurant one day who wouldn't pause his monologue long enough for his server to break away and attend to other diners.

Ideally dialogue is the basic form of human speech, yet monologues are found in more than just stage plays, literary works, speeches and prayer. (Actually, prayer is ideally supposed to be a dialogue. Most people just don't do it very well.) So many individuals enjoy the sound of their own voices. They have their stories to tell and insist that others listen to them, even if they have heard them before. So many of us just don't know when to shut up. Listening is the part of conversation most often ignored. Even when we seem to be listening, we may actually just be waiting for a chance to launch into our own monologue.

Tom Hanks in Cast Away

The best conversations are, of course, dialogues. And dialogue is often the best part of a novel, at least when the author is kind enough to remind us frequently who it is who is talking. Movies without much dialogue are possible — I am thinking of Robert Redford';s Alone and Tom Hanks's Cast Away. Yet in most movies, as in most plays and TV shows, things start to get interesting when people talk to each other.

And so it is in life. Most of us need somebody to talk with, at least once in awhile. Those monologues we recite when we are alone just aren't the same.