An imaginary, inaugural sketch of what a brief history of the 'interior monologue' might look like. Here 'interior monologue' is explored as both a mode of representing a character's thoughts and more problematically as a practice 'we' might actually participate in.

5. Brief History of the Interior Monologue James Clegg

10. Standard Definitions; ‘Interior Monologue’ Example of an (Interior) Monologue Do I have an original thought in my head, my bald head? Maybe if I were happier, my hair wouldn’t be falling out. Life is short; I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I’m a walking cliché. I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong. Oh well. The dentist called again, I'm way overdue. If I stopped putting things off, I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass, if my ass wasn’t fat, I would be happier. I wouldn’t have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time; like that’s fooling anyone. Fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day; really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing; I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more; improve myself. (Charlie Kaufman [as himself] in Jonze 2003)

11. Standard Definitions; ‘Interior Monologue’ Example of an (Interior) Monologue Er, excuse me, who am I? Hello? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Calm down, get a grip now … Oh! This is an interesting sensation, what is it? It’s a sort of … yawning, tingling sensation in my …my … well I suppose I’d better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so lets call it my stomach. Good. Ooooh, it’s getting quite strong. And hey, what about this whistling roaring sound going past what I’m suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I can call that wind! Is that a good name? It’ll do … perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I’ve found out what it’s for. It must be very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it […] And wow! Hey! What’s this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like… ow … ound … round … ground! That’s it! That’s a good name – ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me? The Sperm Whale (Adams1979, p113-4)

15. Visual Representations Woody Allen as Allan Felix in Play it again Sam (Ross 1972)

16. Visual Representations Fear an Loathing in Las Vegas (Gilliam 1998)

17. Visual Representations (Jonze 2003)

18. Visual Representations

20. Assimilating the diary

23. Broader Uses The Internet A lot of ‘Interior Monologue’ and ‘Stream of Consciousness’ s ites offer people a chance to deposit personal comments about aspects of their lives they feel they want to share. These sites also offer other people the chance to leave comments and responses to the original post; these are might be sympathetic statements offering support.

24. The Ghost in the Machine How does the ‘Interior Monologue’ relate to us? What is the voice in our heads?

30. The Ghost in the Machine “ This trick of talking to oneself in silence is acquired neither quickly nor without effort; and it is a necessary condition of our acquiring it that we should have previously learned to talk intelligently aloud and have heard and understood other people doing so. Keeping our thoughts to ourselves is a sophisticated accomplishment. It was not until the Middle Ages that people learned to read without reading aloud. Similarly a boy has to learn to read aloud before he learns to read under his breath, and to prattle aloud before he prattles to himself. Yet many theorists have supposed that the silence in which most of us have learned to think is a defining property of thought.” (Gilbert Ryle 2000, p.28)

31. The Ghost in the Machine “ People tend to identify their minds with the ‘place’ where they conduct their secret thought. They even come to suppose that there is a special mystery about how we publish thoughts instead of realizing that we employ a special artifice to keep them to ourselves.” (Ryle 2000, p.28)

36. The epistolary novel ‘ Writing even encouraged inner contemplation through the medium of the ‘diary’ of the ‘confession’, an inner dialogue in which the individual could place on record, objectify and even narrativize his/her own private experience. If circulated, this could be read by other individuals, offering the opportunity to reflect on or narrativize their private experiences, as opposed to simply embracing the orally transmitted common public identity and traditions of a larger group.’ (Cobley 2001, pp. 79-80)

39. The epistolary novel Another example of the epistolary novel, which translates as ‘novel of letters’, is Pamela . Published in 1740 it purports to be the letters and diary entries of a “virtuous modest girl”. Samuel Richardson, Pamela (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)