3 Best Anna Monologues – Opening Monologue

The Rights of the Soul (Anna)

Category: Play Role: Anna From: The Rights of the Soul

Anna says

Ah, no. Remain here -now you hear me. You wished that I speak, now I do…. It is I now who command you to stay. You must understand very well that after a scene such as this, everything is finished between us, so I must tell you everything. I listened to you and will listen to you again if you wish, but you also must listen to me. What have you ever done for me? What help have you given me? Have you known how to see when it was right that you should see? Have you known even how to suspect? Was it necessary that a man die…. Not even that! When you were not suffering, as you are suffering now, did you know how to see the way I suffered? You thought that my sorrow was for a dead relative! You did not understand that I was crazed; you slept next to me and yet you did not realize that the first few nights I bit the covers so as not to cry out. In a moment you realize all the facts. And what are these facts? That I, your wife for many years, have defended your peace in silence. I have fulfilled that which people call my duty. Then your curiosity is awakened and to make up for lost time you wish to violate my soul and penetrate down to its very depths. Ah -Paolo, no, no; one cannot do this. No, it will not help to know everything. One does not enter into the soul the front door; one enters stealth. You have tried to force an entrance; now you see there is nothing more inside for you.

Ivanov (Anna)

Category: Play Role: Anna From: Ivanov

I am beginning to think that fate has cheated me, Doctor. There are a great many people, perhaps no better than I, who are happy without having had to pay for their happiness. But I have paid for everything, absolutely everything! And so dearly! Why should I have had to pay such terribly high interest? My dear friend, you are always so considerate of me, so tactful, you are afraid to tell me the truth, but do you think I don’t know what my illness is? I know perfectly well. Can you tell funny stories? Nikolai can. You say that Nikolai is this or that, one thing and another. How can you know him? Is it possible to know a man in six months? That is a remarkable man, Doctor, and I am sorry you didn’t know him two or three years ago. Now he’s depressed, he doesn’t talk, he doesn’t do anything, but then… how fascinating he was! I fell in love with him at first sight. I just looked at him and the trap was sprung! He said, “Come,” and I cut myself off from everything; it was just like cutting dead leaves with a scissors, and I went. But now, it’s different. Now he goes to the Lebedevs’ to amuse himself with other women, and I sit in the garden and listen to owls screech.

Anna Christie (Anna)

Category: Play Role: Anna From: Anna Christie

Anna says

I s’pose if I tried to tell you I wasn’t- that- no more you’d believe me, wouldn’t you? Yes, you would! And if I told you that yust getting out in this barge, and being on the sea had changed me and made me feel different about things,’s if all I’d been through wasn’t me and didn’t count and was yust like it never happened- you’d laugh, wouldn’t you? And you’d die laughing sure if I said that meeting you that funny way that night in the fog, and afterwards seeing that you was straight goods stuck on me, had got me to thinking for the first time, and I sized you up as a different kind of man- a sea man as different from the ones on land as water is from mud- and that was why I got stuck on you, too. I wanted to marry you and fool you, but I couldn’t. Don’t you see how I’d changed? I couldn’t marry you with you believing a lie- and I was shamed to tell you the truth- till the both of you forced my hand, and I seen you was the same as all the rest. And now, give me a bawling out and beat it, like I can tell you’re going to. Will you believe it if I tell you that loving you has made me- clean? It’s the straight goods, honest! Like hell you will! You’re like all the rest!