Monologue

Tanner Monologue from Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy

From Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy by Bernard Shaw

male · defiant · 1:37 min

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Talk! Talk! It means nothing to you but talk. Well, go back to your mother, and help her to poison Rhoda's imagination as she has poisoned yours. It is the tame elephants who enjoy capturing the wild ones. (ANN: I am getting on. Yesterday I was a boa constrictor: to-day I am an elephant.) Yes. So pack your trunk and begone; I have no more to say to you. (ANN: You are so utterly unreasonable and impracticable. What can I do?) Do! Break your chains. Go your way according to your own conscience and not according to your mother's. Get your mind clean and vigorous; and learn to enjoy a fast ride in a motor car instead of seeing nothing in it but an excuse for a detestable intrigue. Come with me to Marseilles and across to Algiers and to Biskra, at sixty miles an hour. Come right down to the Cape if you like. That will be a Declaration of Independence with a vengeance. You can write a book about it afterwards. That will finish your mother and make a woman of you.

About this piece

30s · determination · freedom · identity · family · rebellion

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