6 Best She Monologues – Opening Monologue

Sweet and Twenty (She)

Category: Play Role: She From: Sweet and Twenty

She says

Have you heard the story of the people who used to live here?

The agent was telling us. It’s quite romantic–and rather sad.

You see, the man that built this house was in love with a girl. He was building it for her–as a surprise. But he had neglected to mention to her that he was in love with her. And so, in pique, she married another man, though she was really in love with him. The news came just when he had finished the house.

He shut it up for a year or two, but eventually married some one else, and they lived I here for ten years–most unhappily. Then they went abroad, and the house was sold. It was bought, curiously enough, the husband of the girl he had been in love with.

They lived here till they died-hating each other to the end, the agent says.

Sweet and Twenty (She)

Category: Play Role: She From: Sweet and Twenty

She says

I’ve been upstairs and down for two hours.

That family portrait gallery finished me.

It was so old and gloomy and dead that I felt as if I were dead myself.

I just had to do something. I wanted to jab my parasol through the window-pane.

I understood just how the suffragettes felt.

But I was afraid of shocking the agent.

He is such a meek little man, and he seemed to think so well of me. If I had broken the window I would have shattered his ideals of womanhood, too, I’m afraid.

So I just slipped away quietly and came here. Do you like family portraits?

I hate ’em! They’ve been bequeathed to some museum, I am told.

They’re valuable historically–early colonial governors and all that sort of stuff.

But there is some one with me who–who takes a deep interest in such things.

Enemies (She)

Category: Play Role: She From: Enemies

She says

“A man’s enemies are those of his own household”–yes, especially if they love. You, on account of your love for me, have tyrannized over me, bothered me, badgered me, nagged me, for fifteen years. You have interfered with me, taken my time and strength, and prevented me from accomplishing great works for the good of humanity. You have crushed my soul, which longs for serenity and peace, with your perpetual complaining! Yes, of course. But you see, my dear, I am more philosophical than you, and I recognize all this as necessity. Men and women are natural enemies, like cat and dog–only more so. They are forced to live together for a time, or this wonderful race couldn’t go on. In addition, in order to have the best children, men and women of totally opposite temperaments must live together. The shock and flame of two hostile temperaments meeting is what produces fine children. Well, we have fulfilled our fate and produced our children, and they are good ones. But really–to expect also to live in peace together–we as different as fire and water, or sea and land–that’s too much!

Enigma (She)

Category: Play Role: She From: Enigma

She says

No -it happened to me. It didn’t happen to you. You made up your mind and walked in, with the air of a god on a holiday. It was I who fell -headlong, dizzy, blind. I didn’t want to love you. It was a force too strong for me. It swept me into your arms. I prayed against it. I had to give myself to you, even though I knew you hardly cared. I had to -for my heart was no longer in my own breast. It was in your hands, to do what you liked with. You could have thrown it in the dust. It pleased you not to. You put it in your pocket. But don’t you realize what it is to feel that another person has absolute power over you? No, for you have never felt that way. You have never been utterly dependent on another person for happiness. I was utterly dependent on you. It humiliated me, angered me. I rebelled against it, but it was no use. You see, my dear, I was in love with you. And you were free, and your heart was your own, and nobody could hurt you.

Enigma (She)

Category: Play Role: She From: Enigma

She says

My reason was this: I had learned what it is to love–and I knew that I had never loved you–never. I wanted to hurt you so much that you would leave me. I wanted to hurt you in such a way as to keep you from ever coming near me again. I was afraid that if you did forgive me and take me in your arms, you would feel me shudder, and see the terror and loathing in my eyes. I wanted–for even then I cared for you a little–to spare you that. Did you notice the date? It is the eighth of June. Do you remember what day that is? We used to celebrate it once a year. It is the day–

(the leaf flutters to the table in front of him)

–the day of our first kiss.

Enigma (She)

Category: Play Role: She From: Enigma

She says

I know you hate me. You have a right to. Not just because I was faithless–but because I was cruel. I don’t want to excuse myself–but I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t realize I was hurting you. Yes. I’ve said that before. And you’ve answered me that that excuse might hold for the first time, but not for the second and the third. You’ve convicted me of deliberate cruelty on that. And I’ve never had anything to say. I couldn’t say anything, because the truth was … too preposterous. It wasn’t any use telling it before. But now I want you to know the real reason. Something I’ve never confessed to you. Yes. It is true that I was cruel to you–deliberately. I did want to hurt you. And do you know why? I wanted to shatter that Olympian serenity of yours. You were too strong, too self-confident. You had the air of a being that nothing could hurt. You were like a god. You are still Olympian. And I still hate you for it. I wish I could make you suffer now. But I have lost my power to do that.