A children’s rights monologue It is a speech in which a single participant talks with himself or with an absent interlocutor to reflect on the laws that are necessary for the protection of children.
The monologue is a text in which the author addresses himself, but also addresses the readers or the audience. Through this type of speech, information is obtained about the feelings and thoughts of the character who executes it, and allows connecting with his psychology and way of seeing the world in a more authentic and uninhibited way.
It is possible to find monologues in many literary genres, such as poetry, short stories, essays, plays, newspaper articles, novels. It differs from dialogue, because in it the communication occurs between two or more people.
According to the work of which it is a part and the expressive intentions, there are three types of monologues:
- dramatic monologue or soliloquy. It is a complete play or part of it in which one of the characters talks to himself out loud and expresses his thoughts and feelings.
- comic monologue. It is a humorous speech enunciated by a comedian to reflect on various themes of daily life. Its purpose is to make the audience laugh.
- Inner monologue or stream of consciousness. It is the first person narration of the flow of thoughts of a character in a literary work. It is a technique that tries to capture the ideas of the character on paper. Its reading can be complicated, as the logic of thought does not usually have coherence.
Examples of children’s rights monologue
- “Rights” by Hugo Midón (2004). In this song from the play Crooked Rights, the character refers to the right to equality that children have, regardless of social or ethnic origin, language, religion, opinions or nationality. It has to do with article 2 of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Yo
We look at the same moon
we look for the same love
we have the same laugh
We suffer from the same cough
They give us the same vaccines
For the same measles
we speak the same language
with the same voice
Chorus
I am not better than anyone
And no one is better than me
That’s why I have the same
Rights that you have
II
We sing the same hymn
with the same heart
we have the same laws
the same constitution
We tread the same land
we have the same sun
We prick the same potato
with the same fork
- extract from The boyby Jules Valles (1989). In this novel, the protagonist Jacques Vingtras (whose story is a reflection of the author’s life) reflects on the right of children to be protected against mistreatment (article 19 of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child), after having been himself a victim of this during his childhood and part of his adolescence.
I don’t have a complaint to make. I don’t even have a chipped marble on my conscience. One time my father gave me thirty cents to buy a notebook that cost twenty-nine. I kept the penny. This was my only slip up. (…) If I went to Paris, again! Leaving prison, I would shake hands anyway. (…) And good. I’ll do my time here, and I’ll go to Paris afterwards, and when I’m there, I won’t hide that I’ve been in prison, I
I’ll shout it out! I will defend the RIGHT OF THE CHILD, like other HUMAN RIGHTS.
I will ask if parents have freedom of life and death over the body and soul of their child; if Mr. Vingtras has the right to martyr me for having been afraid of a miserable job (…). Paris! Oh I love her! I glimpse the printing press and the newspaper, the freedom to defend oneself, and sympathy for the rebels. The idea of Paris saved me from the rope that day.
- Excerpt from “Globalized Children’s Rights”, by Susana Dalle Mura (2011). In this article, the author reflects on the new problems that are attacking the rights of children in the era of globalization.
(…) Everything that has been done up to now is insufficient and crippling for the adequate protection of children in a globalized society, since new problems related to it are appearing. It would be necessary to visualize the current problems of this age group with a concrete planning in terms of public policies, contemplating the current and future situations of the same.
(…) Today more than ever we must protect children in all their forms and latitudes, recognizing in reality their rights: to health, to education, to housing, to a family, to a nationality, to identity, not to work at an early age. All rights violated both in the international community and in our country and in the province.
(…) It is men and things that we must change, and not the laws. We have declarations, conventions, protocols and laws at the international, national and provincial levels. However, there is a lack of values and civic awareness to change reality. Everyone talks about change so that nothing changes or changes, but only in the rules and not in reality. In childhood policies we need more answers and less verba. Greater efficiency and commitment of society as a whole in the use of available resources and better preparation to face the daily problems of childhood and adolescence. It is clear that children do not have an opinion or vote. Is it for this reason that they are permanently marginalized in social priorities?
Childhood is the future of a country and, without health and education, subjected to the scourges of early child labor, human trafficking, drugs, crime, poverty, malnutrition, violence, hopelessness and lack of family and social values, does not have a decent future.
A protected childhood, in all its breadth and necessity, will be able to flourish and bear fruitful fruits in the community where it develops. Argentina wake up!
- “Who named the moon”, by Mirta Goldberg (1994). In this poem belonging to the book New Smooth Wind Ithe poetic subject reflects on the right to have a name and a nationality (article 7 of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child).
Who named the moon?
Could it have been the lagoon?
that from seeing her so much at night
decided to call her moon?
Who named the elephant?
Could it have been the watchman?
one day when he was walking very leisurely?
Who named the roses?
Who names things?
I think about it every day.
Will there be a gentleman called Ponenombres
What gets the names from the Names?
Or did the sand alone decide to be called sand
and the sea only decided to call itself sea?
As will be?
(Thank goodness for me
he named me
my mother.)
- Extract from “Look and see”, by Sergio Kern (1997). In this story, the narrator reflects on the right to education of disabled children, and refers to article 23 of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
II
Now I’m going to school and it rains all the time. And it looks like the drops are going off like Christmas firecrackers in the plastic pilot my dad put me in.
Today the one who makes books will come and I think he’s going to get wet if he doesn’t have a pilot like mine.
My dad told me that my pilot is made of yellow plastic. And he was telling me about many
things that are yellow The bananas are yellow. Ripe lemons are yellow. There are yellow plums. The roof of the taxis is yellow (…).
V
They all fell silent. It seems that the man who makes books came in. He told us his name and started talking about him when he was little. It seems that his father also made books.
Now he starts to tell how he sees things. How he looks at them and then draws them. She talks about the colors things have after the rain. It already seemed to me that something like that should happen after the rain. Because everything is freshly washed. It is logical!
Now you are talking about the color things have when they rust. I’m going to ask my dad why things rust.
Now he says he’s going to read us some stories. But that they are stories that he did not write. He says that he is going to read us stories that he liked a lot (…).
VII
Now he has finished reading the stories and tells us that he is going to draw us a picture on the blackboard so that we can see how he draws. (I think it was time for a good time for him to show what he does.) And he tells us to start drawing too while he draws his picture. Well, it seems that the boys brought everything to draw. We had already been notified of that, so I also brought my own.
VIII
(…) The man who makes books told us that we could draw whatever we wanted and that it didn’t have to be from the stories he had read. That we do anything, whatever we like.
But I am going to model in plasticine the characters from the story about the monsters that go to school that he read to us. Because he made me laugh.
(…) So I start making the Mummy and it’s re-easy because it doesn’t have clothes or a cape. Then I do Dracula but I can’t find the fangs. I don’t even remember if I already did or not. And in the end I go back to Frankenstein. He already made the little head with screws in the ears. I put the legs on him and lay him down next to the Mummy and Dracula who are also lying down. Now I’m kneading her little arms. I already put one on him and he was perfect. I’m finally with the other little arm. There is no chalky noise. The one who makes books stopped drawing on the blackboard and says that he is going to come to see what we did.
IX
It seems that it comes directly to our table. He advances chatting with another man who brings him here. The other gentleman tells him: “Look, based on what you discussed and read, what this blind girl did.”
(I am blind.) But I don’t like being called that way. Calling me blind is fine. My dad says that you have to call things by his name and that’s it.
The man who makes books was speechless, it seems. Then I hear the other man tell him: “By the way, we didn’t tell you that there were blind people among the children.
Because if not, you wouldn’t have talked about what you talked about or drawn what you drew.” And she begins to explain that it is a pilot plan (like my yellow pilot?) So that those who
we are blind let’s be more together with the kids who are not.
Chocolate for the news. My dad had explained everything to me.
But the one who makes books no longer listens to him and asks me what my name is.
–Ximena –I tell her, and I add –Ximena with “X”.
And then the one who makes books starts talking to me all with “x”, and I start laughing and he too and I miss her too.
Then the man of the books starts to look at the Mummy and Dracula and tells me that he loves them and I laugh more.
And he tells me that the Frankenstein I did seems incredible to him. And I shake my head to the other side, because he gives me a bit of shame. And he tells me that he himself, since he is chubby, is identical to my Frankenstein.
And I think about how lucky the man who makes books was. With those screws in his head and eating all the “s”, he could still learn to make books (…).
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