4 Best Miss Julie Monologues – Opening Monologue

Miss Julie (Jean)

Category: Play Role: Jean From: Miss Julie

Jean says

You say that, but you despise me all the same. No matter! One time I entered the garden of paradise -it was to weed the onion beds with my mother! Near the orchard stood a Turkish pavilion, shaded and overgrown with jessamine and honeysuckle. I didn’t know what it was used for and I had never seen anything so beautiful. People passed in and out and one day -the door was left open. I sneaked in and beheld walls covered with pictures of kings and emperors and there were red-fringed curtains at the windows -now you understand what I mean -I – I had never been in the castle and how my thoughts leaped -and there they returned ever after. Little little the longing came over me to experience for once the pleasure of -enfin, I sneaked in and was bewildered. But then I heard someone coming -there was only one exit for the great folk, but for me there was another, and I had to choose that. Once out I started to run, scrambled through a raspberry hedge, rushed over a strawberry bed and came to a stop on the rose terrace. For there I saw a figure in a white dress and white slippers and stockings -it was you! I hid under a heap of weeds, under, you understand, where the thistles pricked me, and lay on the damp, rank earth. I gazed at you walking among the roses. And I thought if it is true that the thief on the cross could enter heaven and dwell among the angels it was strange that a pauper child on God’s earth could not go into the castle park and play with the Countess’ daughter.

Miss Julie (Miss Julie)

Category: Play Role: Miss Julie From: Miss Julie

Miss Julie says

Perhaps. But you are too. Everything is wonderful for that matter. Life, people -everything. Everything is wreckage, that drifts over the water until it sinks, sinks. I have the same dream every now and then and at this moment I am reminded of it. I find myself seated at the top of a high pillar and I see no possible way to get down. I grow dizzy when I look down, but down I must. But I’m not brave enough to throw myself; I cannot hold fast and I long to fall -but I don’t fall. And yet I can find no rest or peace until I shall come down to earth; and if I came down to earth I would wish myself down in the ground. Have you ever felt like that?

Miss Julie (Miss Julie)

Category: Play Role: Miss Julie From: Miss Julie

Miss Julie says

Don’t you think I can stand the sight of blood? You think I am weak. Oh, I should like to see your blood flowing -to see your brain on the chopping block, all your sex swimming in a sea of blood. I believe I could drink out of your skull, bathe my feet in your breast and eat your heart cooked whole. You think I am weak; you believe that I love you because my life has mingled with yours; you think that I would carry your offspring under my heart, and nourish it with my blood -give birth to your child and take your name! Hear, you, what are you called, what is your family name? But I’m sure you have none. I should be “Mrs. Gate-Keeper,” perhaps, or “Madame Dumpheap.” You dog with my collar on, you lackey with my father’s hallmark on your buttons. I play rival to my cook -oh -oh -oh! You believe that I am cowardly and want to run away. No, now I shall stay. The thunder may roll. My father will return -and find his desk broken into -his money gone! Then he will ring -that bell. A scuffle with his servant -then sends for the police -and then I tell all -everything! Oh, it will be beautiful to have it all over with -if only that were the end! And my father -he’ll have a shock and die, and then that will be the end. Then they will place his swords across the coffin -and the Count’s line is extinct. The serf’s line will continue in an orphanage, win honors in the gutter and end in prison.

Miss Julie (Miss Julie)

Category: Play Role: Miss Julie From: Miss Julie

Miss Julie says

You only say that. And for that matter I have no secrets. You see, my mother was not of noble birth. She was brought up with ideas of equality, woman’s freedom and all that. She had very decided opinions against matrimony, and when my father courted her she declared that she would never be his wife -but she did so for all that. I came into the world against my mother’s wishes, I discovered, and was brought up like a child of nature my mother, and taught everything that a boy must know as well; I was to be an example of a woman being as good as a man -I was made to go about in boy’s clothes and take care of the horses and harness and saddle and hunt, and all such things; in fact, all over the estate women servants were taught to do men’s work, with the result that the property came near being ruined -and so we became the laughing stock of the countryside. At last my father must have awakened from his bewitched condition, for he revolted, and ran things according to his ideas. My mother became ill -what it was I don’t know, but she often had cramps and acted queerly -sometimes hiding in the attic or the orchard, and would even be gone all night at times. Then came the big fire which of course you have heard about. The house, the stables -everything was burned, under circumstances that pointed strongly to an incendiary, for the misfortune happened the day after the quarterly insurance was due and the premiums sent in father were strangely delayed his messenger so that they arrived too late.