King Channels Browning?

As an English major in college, one of the least interesting classes I took was one on Victorian poetry. I am sorry if I offend any Victorian scholars, but much of the class dragged...the one exception was Robert Browning. I was fascinated by his use of dramatic monologue, where one person does all the speaking, but you get a sense of what's going on around the speaker by his reactions to other people. Probably the most famous of these dramatic monologues is the poem "My Last Dutchess," where the Duke is the speaker, and you realize he has murdered several previous wives due to jealousy. But Browning wrote some very long dramatic monologues as well, playing out protracted dramas. It's amazing how much of a story you can learn through one speaker and his/her reactions. As a writer, it's also a tantalizing way to sort of handcuff yourself. How much can you reveal at what point while restricted to this particular style?

Apparently I'm not the only one taken by the idea of the dramatic mologue. Stephen King's novel, Dolores Caiborne is in fact a dramatic monologue told entirely by Dolores herself. There are no chapters, and no other characters heard from, except through Dolores. You realize she's in a police station giving testimony, but every single detail is filtered through her words. It's probably not the kind of novel I'd like to read all the time, but it is amazing how King managed to pull it off. His style is still apparent, as Dolores gives her background and you ger to know her and her family and her struggles. It might be a stretch that she is allowed to go into so many side details when she is supposed to be giving a statement on one specific thing, but that can be excused by the small-town atmosphere and the fact that she's known the policeman from his childhood. All in all and brilliant experiment, making me wonder if Stephen King was channeling the ghost of Robert Browning :p