Essay on Life Is a Drama

When we talk about life, we may always think life is a drama. Dramatism is a theory that compares life to drama. Kenneth Burke was the person who founded Dramatism Theory and he claimed that it was a way to analyze people’s relationship with each other. Dramatism contains three key aspects: identification, the pentad, and guilt restoration. Dramatism is an explanatory theory used to understand why a person does this. People who do things have their reasons behind their actions. Burke’s theory provides a fresh understanding of people, behavior, and symbolic interaction. Dramatism can help us know how people behave in their daily lives and why they behave like that.

The dramatic theory was developed by Kenneth Burke, who had a big influence on the study of communication. Burke had written several books on semiotic theory in his life. One of the most famous theories was Dramatism. Burke found out that all the standard theories for an interpretive study would fit in Dramatism. An essential part of Dramatism was the drama including dramatic elements which helped to analyze a communication event.

Let me first talk about pentad. There were five points in the pentad. The Act describes what was done. The Scene describes where the event happens. The Agent is a description of the people who make the decision. The Agency is a description of the method that was used to prove the decision that was made including messaging, or storytelling. The Purpose suggests that why people have to make the decision. These five points can be easily understood as When, Where, How, What, and Why in a drama. Dramatistic Pentad helps us to know the motivation behind the decision. Every single point helps us know the whole process better (Dramatism Theory Explained 2017). For example, you find that your cookie box is empty and you are looking for someone who ate your cookies. People who ate your cookies said that because they were stressed out they ate your cookies. The people who ate your cookies tried to deflect attention away from herself by saying that 'because he was stressed out so that she ate all the cookies.” From my perspective, Pentad is easy for me to apply and understand. Pentad can be applied to simple cases or even more complex cases. Through one thing, I can clearly distinguish what the five points are which helps me understand the process behind this. There is another example that supposes a male friend of yours discovers that his best friends always say something bad about your male friend to others. So he took a few pictures of his friend’s grimace and sent them online to retaliate. So on the Internet, everyone can see these pictures of a grimace. In this case, the agent is your male friend who poses the picture on the Internet. The scene may be in this boy's room, where he can use his phone to pose the pictures. We would say that this happened in the middle of the night when the boy was most angry. An agency is a tool used to perform actions. In this case, the agency will be a phone which is used for taking the pictures. The purpose of this behavior is to retaliate against his friend. Dramatistic Pentad can be also used to analyze political speeches. Pentad is useful when we are trying to respond to something that you have different opinions towards one thing. How does the author define the behavior, if the author is emphasizing the subject, then you will guess what will happen from the perspective of the scene. If the author emphasizes a tool, such as a new technology, then we can speculate on the author's purpose.

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Identification helps us to distinguish between two overlapping pieces of information. Burke thought that there was rhetoric in identification so it can not be ignored. Burke believes that human activity is a way to purify one's sins, usually through public speaking. Other emotions can be also related to this concept, such as shame and anxiety. The reason why people sometimes say something nice is because people feel guilt towards something. It may be unintentional happens. At the same time, Burke claimed that speakers can use two ways to help them eliminate their guilt. The first method is to look for a scapegoat. There are also two types of scapegoats, universal or factional. In the common scapegoat behavior, the speaker blames everyone for the problem, so the audience will think of the victim, which means that the scapegoat also includes themselves. In some scapegoat behaviors, the speakers attribute their problems to a specific group or a specific person. This created a disagreement among the audience. The second way is to eliminate their guilt through humiliation. These people will usually be sentenced to some kind of punishment so that they can reflect on and realize their crimes. Feeling guilt will happen in daily events(Dramatism Theory Explained 2017). There is also a concept called Guilt-Redemption Cycle which is considered to be the plot or the root of all rhetoric in the whole drama. From this perspective, Burke concludes that the perpetrator’s motivation is to clear our guilt. The feeling of guilt sometimes includes shame, anxiety, and embarrassment. There is always some symbol or action that appears when people start to feel guilty. When people have the feeling of guilt, they may take actions to help them eliminate the feeling. Guilt is a motivating factor in human drama(Dramatism Theory Explained 2017).

In this theory, Burke provides three types of communication to form a social hierarchy within society. The first is superiority. This kind of communication occurs when a person feels that they have the confidence to control the situation. They act confidentially because they 'know' that what they are saying is right. That is to say, when people can be sure that their things are right, they will not take into account the feelings of others and directly speak out. The next one is inferiority. This kind of communication occurs when there is a concession during the communication. This means that the speaker will continue to talk to you about certain things even if you don’t understand them. People will still follow the speaker's thoughts. The last one is equality. This can happen when people have different opinions or the same opinions towards certain topics. It can occur between different socioeconomic classes. This happens when both may feel superior or both feel inferior to others. When two people disagree, you will not just interrupt others and keep listening even if they start talking badly about you in the next second. In my opinion, I understand inferiority very well. When two people communicate, you can know the education level of the other person from the communication. When I find that my education level is not as high as that of the other person, I will naturally follow the other person's thoughts. I will follow his thoughts and let him know that I can understand him, instead of not following him and exposing my shortcomings(Dramatism Theory and Kenneth Burke).

There is an application of Dramatism. In 1969, Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy and his assistant had a car accident. He accidentally drove the car from the bridge into the pond. Kennedy escaped, but his assistant drowned. About a week later, he explained what happened in a compelling public speech and tried to regain the support of the people. In his speech, Kennedy wanted to achieve two things: one was to minimize his responsibility for the accident, and the other was to make the people of Massachusetts responsible for whether he continued to govern. In the first appeal, Kennedy described himself as a helpless victim of the incident that led to the death of the young woman. He explained that due to his confusion and injuries, he did not report the accident. Kennedy's description made him the victim of a tragedy. In subsequent speeches, Kennedy proposed that if citizens wanted him to resign, he should resign. By analyzing the speech, the scene shifts to the public's reaction to the accident. The agent becomes the people of Massachusetts. The behavior is their decision whether he should resign. The agency will send a resignation statement to get him to step down. Citizens thought this was a very effective speech. The reaction was very positive, and Kennedy continued to serve as president(Dramatism Theory and Kenneth Burke).

Burke's dramatic theory is highly respected by people. This theory is established based on previous rhetoric research. This also provides difficulties for learning Dramaism without contact with old rhetoric. Burke's work has changed. The world of rhetoric, although it may not be complete. The dramatic theory explains well the motives behind decision-making and subsequent actions.