Term Paper on "Burkian Analysis Brief Analysis of Three Speeches"

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Burkian Analysis

Brief Analysis of Three Speeches

Using Kenneth Burke's Dramatistic Pentad

An everyday enigma of human experience is figuring out what motivates the people around us, whether they are people with whom we interact or people we watch in the media. Burke's use of dramatism is concerned with discovering human motivations in rhetoric, "for every judgment, exhortation, or admonition, every view of natural or supernatural reality, every intention or expectation involves assumptions about motive, or cause" (Burke, 1945, p. xxii). Moreover, Burke argues, "the subject of motivation is a philosophic one" (p. xxiii). In his view, motives rest in and spring from an underlying philosophy, which is not usually apparent but must be ferreted out by analyzing the person's rhetoric; that is, analyzing how people justify what they want, the symbolic strategies they use to influence others and to get their own way.

Burke provides a systematic way of examining rhetoric in order to more accurately attribute the underlying, perhaps hidden, motives of the communicator or, at least, to gain insight into them. What Burke calls the "pentad," is a set of terms derived from drama that can be applied to any unit of rhetoric in order to uncover the philosophy and motives of a rhetor with "a kind of simplicity that can be developed into considerable complexity" (p. xvi). But this does not imply absolute clarity or that there will be no ambiguity!

Burke points out that as long as God's motive for creating the Universe remains ambiguous to human beings, no escape from ambiguity is possible:

We take it for granted that, insofar as men cannot themselves create the universe, there must remain something essentially enigmatic about the problem of motives, and that this underlying enigma will manifest itself in inevitable ambiguities and inconsistencies among the terms for motives. Accordingly, what we want is not terms that avoid ambiguity, but terms that clearly reveal the strategic spots at which ambiguities necessarily arise [italics Burke's] (p. xviii).

Rather than try to get rid of it, "we consider it our task to study and clarify the resources of ambiguity" (p. xix), for transformation takes place only where ambiguity exists! This implies that ambiguity among the terms of the pentad is like an underlying substance that makes transformation possible. The terms participate, he states, in a "common ground [that] makes for transformability" (p. xix). What, in fact, gets transformed? Presumably, I think, rhetorical strategies are transformed into the previously invisible philosophy and motivations they express. This conceptual transformation results in a transformation of reality.

The Pentad

The five elements of drama, or terms, are familiar: scene, agent, act, agency, and purpose. Burke (1945) begins by stating that the scene contains all the other elements and reflects the quality of the elements. For example, in a movie a storm rages as the protagonist battles the enemy. The scene contains implicitly (or ambiguously) all the elements that will be explicitly portrayed. The scene is the environment or background -- the time, place, era, social conditions, etc. -- in which the act, action, or interaction takes place. The act is what happens, and the agent is the one that perpetrates the act. The agent must intend to perform the act and consciously do it (as opposed to something accidental like slipping on the ice, which is only motion, not act). Burke states, "...the scene-act ratio either calls for acts in keeping with scenes or scenes in keeping with acts -- and similarly with the scene-agent ratio" (p. 9). Thus, the scene is never separate from other elements, nor are the elements completely distinct from each other. Burke uses the metaphor of the hand to explain the pentad, in which each finger (or term) has its own character but springs from the same palm and relates to the others.

The goal in using this pentad of terms for analysis of rhetoric is to discover the ratio or relationships between the elements. There are ten possible ratios: "scene-act, scene-agent, scene-agency, scene purpose, act-purpose, act-agent, act-agency, agent-purpose, agent-agency, and agency-purpose" (Burke, 1945, p. 15), but in the first chapter Burke is concerned mainly with scene-act, scene-agent, and act-agent. He touches on agency as well but not in great detail. Which ratio, among the possible combinations of terms, predominates and is emphasized in that particular piece of rhetoric indicates the underlying philosophy of the rhetor. Is it the intrinsic nature of the agent that makes him act as he does? Or is it the relationship of scene to agent?

Does the scene impel the agent to take action (a soldier that operates a machine gun on the battlefield, for example), or is it the nature of the agent that makes him act as he does?

or does the agent arrange the scene to suit his/her internal qualities, which helps the agent bring about the act (a woman cooks her husband's favorite meal, for example, lights candles, and puts low music on in order to trigger a romantic act)? Agency is the term used to describe how the act is accomplished. Agency may involve the agent's use of an instrument (the machine gun the soldier uses, for example, or the killer in a mystery story that uses poison). Or agency could be an implementation of a law or manipulation of the media (for example, civil rights legislation as the means to relieve injustice).

Once a predominant ratio emerges from the analysis, Burke (1945) shows an underlying philosophy that goes with that particular ratio. A focus on agency, for example, indicates a philosophy of pragmatism and practicality. Hiliary Clinton argues for example that she know how to get a universal health care plan through Congress. This is an emphasis on agency. An emphasis on act reveals a philosophy of dynamic realism in which reality-taking-form is the focus. Thus a ratio of agency:act would reveal a strong emphasis on how to accomplish an act (how to pass legislation that will bring universal health care to everyone, for instance).

When scene is emphasized, it implies that the agent and act are strongly affected by it. The agent may have no choice but to act as he does if scene demands it. Burke uses Marxism as an example of this in which it is believed that the economic situation drives the worker's quality of life. This would be a ratio of scene:agent.

Brief Analysis of Bono's Speech at the National Prayer Breakfast

Bono wants church leaders to pressure the government for more aid to Africa. Because he is speaking to religious leaders -- Christian, Jews, and Muslims -- his appeals are religiously based and supported by scripture in the New Testament, Old Testament, and Koran. The agent is the government that will provide more money to help the African people. Bono argues that the church is a powerful agency for change and a feasible or practical means for achieving God's will in the political arena. "When churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened -- and acted. When churches started organizing, petitioning, and even -- that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying...on AIDS and global health, governments listened -- and acted." He goes on to argue that the church in doing these things is an instrument or agency of God. "Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor...the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor."

Scene serves a double function in this speech. On one hand, the scene is in Africa and characterized by sickness, poverty, and human misery..."in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house...in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives." The scene becomes all the more important because, according to Bono, God is also there. "God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them." This last statement leads to the argument that God will bless us (Americans) if we truly and substantially help the poor in Africa. God is the ultimate and invisible Agent, Scene and Act. But in human terms, the predominant ratio is Agency: Scene. Church leaders must pressure the government to act in Africa. In other words, the scene can only change through the efforts and acts of the American government, but pressure must be brought to bear by religious leaders before that act can be accomplished so that the scene that contains them may change. Burke tells us that an emphasis on agency, or "means of doing" (p. 15) denotes a pragmatic philosophy, a way to accomplish what needs to be done. The focus on act indicates a philosophy of dynamic realism in which reality is taking shape --… READ MORE

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