The Pentad Analysis Everything Isn t Black And White....

Pentad Analysis: Everything isn’t Black and White Kenneth Burke’s Pentad Criticism is a theory used to analyze and describe any symbolic act or action. The Pentad is the tool that is used to analyze the five basic elements of drama. Burke (1945) describes the pentad in depth in his essay, â€Å"The five key terms of dramatism.† The five terms are, of course, act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose. Burke says that these terms, or some variant of them, will always figure into any statement of motives, and we can explore how a rhetor attributes motives by looking at how he or she uses the five terms. Act is central as dramatism is a theory of symbolic action and refers to how a person describes what was done or what happened. Scene refers to the setting of the act. Agent, of course, is the person or entity that committed the act, and agency refers to how the act was committed (means, method, etc.). Finally, purpose refers to why an act was committed (toward what ends). According to Burke, humans use the terms of the penta d to attribute motive (either to themselves or to others), and all five of these terms will figure into any rounded statement of motive. Burke (1967) teaches us that if we study the language or â€Å"terministic screens â€Å"of people, we can gain good insight into how they are able to attribute intentions or purposes to themselves and also to those around them. Motive and terminology are related, and dramatism is concerned with this connection. As a system, dramatism is