Dramatic Monologue

Sara is sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea clasped tightly between her thin hands. She is wearing a thick cardigan. It is a summer’s evening.

Rae asked me today why her daddy was never around. I couldn’t see her face because they were bent over her drawing, but I could see her eyebrows, they were knotted together in concentration. Or confusion. Maybe both. I knew she was bound to start asking these sorts of questions, for a 6 year old she’s pretty clever; I don’t know where she gets it from, not from me that’s for sure and definitely not from her dad. But how do you tell a 6 year old child that her own daddy doesn’t want her? You can’t. It would be like kicking a dog; no matter how many times you apologize and explain that it was an accident, it wouldn’t be able to understand. And so you’ll end up spending the rest of your day thinking about the cry of pain that you caused it to make. Huh. You’re probably sat there thinking I’m mad; comparing my beautiful six years old to a dog, you’re probably thinking I’m not fit to be a mother. My parents certainly didn’t think so, but me and Rae proved them wrong. We managed alright for a few years, but then the council threatened to cut my benefits if I didn’t get a job. It all got a bit messy after that, but me and Rae pulled through. And now here I am a dinner lady at Rae’s school; it all worked out for the best. I drop Rae off in the morning then I come back to the school, do my shift (11:00 – 1:00), go home to relax for a bit and then go back and pick up Rae. We’ve got each other and that’s all that matters. That’s what I told her when she asked why her dad was never around. She looked up from her drawing then, her big brown eyes (that’s so like her dads) fixed onto my face. Thinking about it now she probably didn’t like that answer, but she must have seen something in my eyes because instead of asking another question she just nodded and went back to her drawing. Smart kid. 

Nature Documentary Transcript on Sam

Narrator:  Humans; an incredibly advanced race of monkeys, which millions of years ago were just tiny planktons floating in the vast ocean; but due to evolution, have become individual rulers of the vast habitat that we call Earth. Unlike most animals humans are immeasurably diverse, each so unique and different that they might as well be a race by themselves. Humans differ from each other through the colour of their eyes, hair, the shape of their face, mouth, nose, body; the list is endless.

This particular human is of brown skin, dark hair, dark eyes, and can usually be found in parts of South Eastern Asia, although today we find her in the heart of England, due to its migration patterns. This human is called Sam and is still fairly young in terms of a human’s life span, which in captivity can be up to 90 years. Some even live past the 100 year mark. Sam can be distinguished from other humans by the silver markings on her left arms known as bracelets. Another way to distinguish between humans is by the clothes they wear; Sam can usually be found wearing black jeans and most likely black Converse’s. Most humans at her age can be found living with their parents; however they are expected to look after themselves most of the time. They are also expected to have part time jobs, a social life, as well as attain good grades in school. Which this particular human is having difficulty with, as we can tell by the dark bags under its eyes.  These can also be caused by staying up late on social media sites like Tumblr and Twitter.

Although humans vastly differ from each other, certain habits occur during particular periods in their life. For example  Sam and people like her are known as teenagers and usually spend most of their time in school; where they are forced to interact with other people their age, a task that she finds easy enough due to her talkative nature.  During the 16 year mark; a human of Sam’s age usually spend their Friday nights out with friends partying. However Sam has a particular disorder that makes her a social recluse and so instead of partying she spends her time indoors, in her bedroom listening to music and reading a book. When she is not in school, or at home she divides her time between work and friends. In order to survive most humans need to work; their food and shelter depend on it; and for Sam whose lifestyle is shopping, a job is a necessity.

A human’s diet usually consists of 3 meals a day, food from all seven food group is needed for long term survival. Most humans try conforming to this diet; however if given the choice Sam would happily live on pizza and ice cream.

Humans are exceptionally advanced animals although many may argue differently. No-one however can deny the brilliance of many famous humans such as Shakespeare, Aristotle, Pythagoras etc. Many humans when fully grown will achieve great things in life, some even achieve great things when they are younger, Sam on the other would just be content with passing her A- Levels. 

The Idiolect of an Idiot

Like many teenagers my age I have a tendency to use fillers in my sentences, my favourite one being ‘like’ a habit that annoys my parents because it’s not ‘proper.’ Many adults of course would agree with this but I would just like to point out that using ‘umm’ although more proper is just as annoying as using ‘like.’ The language of teenagers I’m sure adults also find confusing, because as creative people we constantly change the meaning of words. For example the word ‘sick’ to someone like my dad would equal the word ‘vomit,’ but to the people of my generation it can also mean ‘good’ and ‘bad’ simultaneously, all depending on the context. As much as I’d like to say that I’m not guilty of using the word ‘sick’ as an adjective, I can’t; after hearing it so many times from so many different people every day words like ‘sick’ and ‘cool’ manages to weave its way into my vocabulary.

There are many words and phrases that my generation uses that I really, really hate to hear; the usage of ‘man’ after every sentence is one of them, along with extremely crude words and many swear words. However just like with the word ‘sick’ I somehow find myself using these words when talking to my peers. When talking to an adult on the other hand, I find myself using bigger vocabularies, using a more formal tone, and try to use language correctly (just like how I am now.) This is probably to do with the fact that I always try to prove to people that although teenagers don’t use the English language correctly most of the time, we actually can, we just choose not to. Whenever answering calls on the house phone I adapt to the tone I use when speaking to an adult, however as the phone conversation goes on I usually start to lose the formal tone and go back to speaking like how I normally do. This is usually when words like ‘cool’ and the sentence fillers come in.

The idiolect of a person is how they talk and how they phrase things, it’s their ‘personal language style.’ Although the way you speak may change when talking to different people, the way you phrase words, and the way you say them doesn't, and because everyone is different our idiolect is too.