D R A M ATI S M

ENG 211: RHETORIC

T U E S D AY F E B R U A RY 1 6 / 1 8 2 0 1 6

NEGOTIATING
LIFE WITHOUT
NEGATIVES

BURKE: RHETORIC ALLOWS US TO CREATE

SOCIAL STRUCTURES, RULES, AND REALITIES
Rhetoric is symbolic.
Rhetorics use of the negative creates morality
and guilt.
Rhetoric creates hierarchies.
Rhetoric prompts us to achieve perfection.
Action requires rhetoric, motion does not.

IDENTIFICATION
Identification is the degree of overlap between
individuals that share common ideas, values,
experiences, or attitudes.
Identification may be obvious and direct.
Identification can be created through antithesis.
Identification often goes unnoticed.

BURKES PENTAD
A tool for interpreting motives, not a system for
description.
The elements of the pentad are:
Act:What happened? What is the action? What is going on?
What action; what thoughts?
Scene:Where is the act happening? What is the
background situation?
Agent:Who is involved in the action? What are their roles?
Agency:How do the agents act? By what means do they
act?
Purpose:Why do the agents act? What do they want?

By identifying relationships, or ratios, between

GUILT: RESULTS FROM RHETORIC,

CAN BE REMOVED USING RHETORIC
Tragic redemption removes the guilty individual from the social order.
Order is disrupted by guilt.
Purification, through mortification or scapegoating, attempts to remove the guilt.
Order is restored if the purification is sufficient to remove the guilt.

Comic enlightenment chastises the guilty individual, but does not remove
the person from the social order.
Order is disrupted by incongruity.
The guilty person is belittled.
Through this process, all may learn more about how to be effective members of
the social order.

WALTER FISHER:
NARRATIVE PARADIGM
Fisher says that all humans are storytellers and we base
our stories on good reasons.
Narrative rationality is used to assess stories and
includes two standards.
Narrative probability asks whether a story is consistent with
itself.
Narrative fidelity evaluates how true the individual
components of the story seem to the listener.

ERNEST BORMANN: STORIES FORM

COMMON WAYS OF SEEING THE WORLD
Individuals in small groups use rhetoric to share
stories, or fantasies.
Fantasy sharing allows individuals to share their
culture.
Fantasy themes are the contents of the stories they
tell and fantasy types or stories that are commonly
known.
A rhetorical vision results when individuals develop a
common way of seeing the world based on the

SYMBOLIC CONVERGENCE THEORY

TERM

DEFINITION

FANTASY
THEME

SHARED EXPERIENCES
OR STORIES RETOLD
AMONG A GROUP OF
PEOPLE

FANTASY
TYPE

COMMON STORIES TOLD

OVER AND OVER AGAIN

Can we apply this theory to

fantasies common to the
US?
The rights and freedoms of
the individual.
Multiculturalism

CHAINING THE PROCESS BY WHICH

OUT
FANTASY THEMES OR
TYPES ARE THROUGH A
GROUP OR CULTURE

Meritocracy

RHETORIC COMMON WAY OF

AL VISION SEEING THE WORLD
THAT RESULTS WHEN
MANY PEOPLE SHARE IN
A FANTASY THEME

U.S. Exceptionalism (we are

different from and more free
and just than other nations)

The possibility of being a selfmade person (pulling ones

self up by the bootstraps)