Hidden Monologue Example
'That little [play] was . . . the first text that I wrote in the same way in which I would later write all my novels: rewriting and correcting, redoing a thousand and one times a very confused draft that, little by little, after countless emendations, would assume definite form.'
-- Mario Vargas Llosa
A Hidden Monologue buried in the dialogue . . .
JOAN
Snow White in Brooks Brothers. And you missed it.
LARKIN
I didn't!
JOAN
Oh, yes you did. You always do.
LARKIN
We'd come out of the clinic that morning. Biting cold. I'd
forgotten the sound of cold like that.
JOAN
Sounds miserable.
LARKIN
Burgess was oblivious, as always. We could've been in the
West Indies for all it mattered.
JOAN
What did he say?
LARKIN
Oh, he talked about theory and strategy. The Gobi, Hudson's
Bay. He was doing it again with White Alice.
JOAN
And then what happened?
LARKIN
I'm hearing my breath freeze as it comes out. Sun driving
off the snow. I could barely see where he was. After all
those weeks inside. No warmup. "Got back your clearance,"
he says. Just ... Bam.
JOAN
Really?
LARKIN
Uh, huh. Like it was doing laundry. Which for him I suppose
it was. I knew he wasn't doing it for old times, no matter
what you think. "This is my ticket to the Home Office."
JOAN
That's amazing.
LARKIN
That's how he put it. Like everybody gets one. Above a
certain level. Beyond a certain point. So I asked him,
What's my ticket?
JOAN
I can't believe it.
LARKIN
Well, he stops and he looks at me. I know that look. And he
says, "You don't need one. You've got me."
JOAN
(Gently)
Do you get it now?
And unearthed from this pile of dialogue . . .
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