Literature Glossary
Don’t be an oxymoron. Know your literary terms.
Over 200 literary terms, Shmooped to perfection.
Interior Monologue
Definition:
Ever wished that you could read your boyfriend's or girlfriend's mind? If you could, you might catch their interior monologue.
In writing, interior monologue is a narrative technique that shows the flow of thoughts going through a character's head that other characters, for obvious reasons, aren't privy to.
Don't worry. We're not going to make you read our mind for some examples. Instead, start with T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and then move on to "Something There" from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, where Belle and the Beast let their interior monologues sing. Literally.