interior monologue

American  

noun

1. Literature. a form of stream-of-consciousness writing that represents the inner thoughts of a character.

2. Movies, Television. the device of showing a character on screen who does not appear to speak, although the character's voice is heard on the soundtrack to create the illusion that the audience is hearing the character's thoughts.

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interior monologue British  

noun

1. a literary attempt to present the mental processes of a character before they are formed into regular patterns of speech or logical sequence See also stream of consciousness

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Etymology

Origin of interior monologue

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

In pages-long, often dialogue-heavy sections without paragraph breaks, quotation marks or full stops, Petterson shares his character’s interior monologue.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 2, 2022

Lawyers appearing before the court sometimes resented his elaborate hypothetical questions, which could resemble an interior monologue with a point discernible only to him.

From New York Times • Jan. 26, 2022

Peppered with amusing person-on-the-street commentary, set off in their own smaller frames, this is a woman's interior monologue brought to life as both candid semi-autobiographical memoir and cinematic fantasia.

From Washington Post • Oct. 5, 2020

The interior monologue of a character is not particularly reproducible as film, and that’s why so much of Roth has been hard for people to adapt.

From Slate • Apr. 20, 2020

The two friends conjectured his mental labor from his concentrated look, and the low exclamations which were escaping him like the echoes of an interior monologue.

From The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Jordan, Charlotte Brewster