Kenneth Burke's dramatistic pentad and human motivation in rhetoric

¶ … 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.

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 -- as it will, according to Bono, when more help reaches the African people.

Stephen Colbert's Speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner, 2006

In this speech comedian Stephen Colbert gives a hysterically funny account of the Bush administration and the White House Press Corps. President Bush and the member of the press are co-agents. Often he takes an idea of Bush's and carries it to its ridiculous conclusion and "gives people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument." The message seems to be that together Bush and the press have cuckolded the American public with a myriad of speech acts and policies that are illogical as well as destructive.

With Bush and the press as co-agents, the scene that contains them is Washington, D.C., the United States of America, and the whole world. The scene is in a state of economic chaos due to the actions of the co-agents. For example, Colbert states that democracy is our "greatest export. At least until China figures out a way to stamp it out of plastic for three cents a unit." He then salutes Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong and says, "Your great country makes our Happy Meals possible." This is a reference to the ubiquitous McDonalds, which makes unhealthy fast food, obese children, and visual pollution of the countryside. The whole speech is commentary on the American scene, about which he is not optimistic at all. About the economy, for instance, he quips, "Mr. President, please, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full... Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash." He goes on to make fun of Bush's standing alone and taking a beating from the whole world that disagrees with his invasion of Iraq.

So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing?"

He also makes fun of Bush's statement, "Let history decide what did or did not happen." If we take that statement to its logical conclusion, then books, "all fact, no heart," and "elitist, telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen" should be done away with so that everyone's right as Americans to decide what happened for ourselves can be exercised.

Likewise, he lambastes over and over again the acts (or lack of acts) of Bush's co-agents, the press. Fox News, for instance "gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side." He "congratulates" the press for not investigating issues that are extremely important, such as, "tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out."

In general, Colbert does not emphasize the nature of the agents but rather focuses on what they do, their acts. The predominant ratio in this speech is scene: act in which Bush and the press have "changed the nature of the scene" and produced "a mutual conformity" between act and scene (p. 19). The acts of the co-agents have changed reality and produced economic chaos, war, and environmental havoc in contemporary society.

The emphasis on scene in this case indicates the opposite of "the maxim 'terrain determines tactics'" (p. 12), which -- if Bush were the rhetor -- would be his argument. Burke states, "the scene-act ratio can be applied in two ways" (p. 13) and goes on to say, "It can be applied deterministically in statements that a certain policy had to be adopted in a certain situation," (and we can see that Colbert did not apply scene this way) "or it may be applied in hortatory statements to the effect that a certain policy should be adopted in conformity with the situation" (p. 13). This is closer to Colbert's meaning.

More Perfect Union" - Remarks of Senator Barack Obama in Philadelphia, 2008

This speech by presidential candidate Barack Obama is a response to media bru-ha-ha over remarks made by the minister of his church, Rev. Wright. It is an important speech and a remarkable piece of rhetoric in that it frankly addresses American racial issues in a manner rarely encountered in this country and is so substantial in content that one could easily write 8-10 pages of analysis. The speech contains several "units," each with a different topic; however, a theme that runs throughout is "the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America." Each topic has a different agent. As he speaks about his candidacy Obama, himself, is the agent. He describes himself as a man of faith and states he believes "in the decency and generosity of the American people." He is a man that loves America, the only country "on Earth [where] my story is even possible." The scene is America from its beginning until now. Obama puts forth the view that "this nation is more than the sum of its parts -- that out of many, we are truly one." This view reflects the quantum science view that the universe itself is not made up of many parts like a mechanical clock, but that the parts are governed by the whole, and the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. Obama's statement implies a well-educated agent, and in fact, he admits he went to "some of the best schools in America." The act, in this unit is a series of steps he took in conducting his life. He married a descendent of slaves, grew up with his white grandmother, and "will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. The emphasis in this unit of the speech is scene:agent with agent predominating, an agent with ties and allegiances both to black and white communities.

In another unit of the speech Obama talks about Rev. Wright, the minister of his church. In this unit Rev. Wright is the agent. This agent is a complex person, neither a saint nor a devil. On one hand he has controversial views and "a distorted view of this country -- a view that sees white racism as endemic and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America...." On the other hand, Rev. Wright's acts show him to be a Christian agent. The acts of Rev. Wright brought Obama to Christianity and taught him "obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor...served his country as a U.S. Marine;... studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and...for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth...housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV / AIDS."

The act of sometimes using "incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike" seems less important in this predominantly Christian context. In this unit of the speech Rev. Wright's many Christian acts result in scene, which is a church that is actively involved in the community and working hard to make life better for the inhabitants there.

The emphasis in this unit of Obama's speech is on the ratio of scene: agent. We see an agent that is clearly dedicated to God's work but not in any sense a perfect agent. He is a human being that has been influenced and shaped in his attitudes by the past scene of racial bigotry and a racially divided society. Scene has a strong influence on his behavior because he has had negative experiences and been discriminated against and felt the effects of racism.

Because of that, Obama forgives him because he can't help it. Rev. Wright's irrational remarks reflect feelings that have arisen in response to his background, his experience in the past. In a sense, the scene has more power than the agent does in this ratio -- not all the time, of course, but in the instances when the Rev. Wright uses "incendiary language" and speaks in a divisive manner. The focus on scene as the prevailing influence excuses Wright's negative behavior without overtly saying that he would like us to overlook the problem or at least not to take it very seriously. Obama uses this strategy in a subtle manner that is quite persuasive and effective.