Convergence Theory and Fantasy Theme1

Convergence and Fantasy Theme

The whole idea was borrowed from Kenneth Burke's notion of dramatism.

Burke used drama as a metaphor for communication.

Action/Motion Dichotomy:

Motion

Motion is purposeless.

Action

Action is purposeful movement of bodies.

Humans act and this implies choice and freedom.

For Burke, language is symbolic action designed to induce cooperation.Language is never neutral, through symbolic action, you display your attitude about the subject.

Perspective by incongruity:

Identity by negation...plus new insight: The negative is unique to human language.

Guilt

is an outgrowth of the negative.

Because we can never measure up to social norms...we experience guilt.We feel the need to symbolically rid ourselves of the guilt, so we go through a ritual of purification to gain redemption.

Purification

We purify through:

• scapegoating,
• mortification,
• victimage.

Language is the house of the negative. The house of morality.

Through Perspective by incongruity, we create representative anecdotes (metaphors).

• Roseanne sees Man = dog.
• Nietsche sees man = warrior.
• Burke sees man = actor.

  Dramatism: Burke's metaphor for symbolic action/language. This metaphor is categorized through the use of the Pentad.

  Pentad

  • Act
  • Scene
  • Agency
  • Agent
  • Purpose

  As individuals we are "alienated," trapped, alone, inside the bone that surrounds our brain. We can overcome this only through the use of symbols. The goal of our actions on the stage is "identification."Identification: The attempt to get others, through language, to share our world view.

  An appeal to identification is "Consubstantiality." Consubstantiality: The creation of the idea that you and the reader, listener, observer share (at least part) of your world views.

  Motives: For Burke, motives are the final action

  1. Language is a set of terminstic screens which deflect, select, and reflect.
  2. Terminstic screens are saturated with motives.
  3. Motives are both conscious and unconscious.
  4. Motives are discernible through "what goes with what" in a writers work. The Pentad shows the relationships in the text.

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  Convergence Theory

  This school of thought began with Robert Bales' studies of small group communication.

  He saw that group interactions often involved the telling of very dramatic stories in order to cause the group members to "converge." The stories, Bales called fantasy themes.

  Ernest Bormann lifted this idea an applied it to text in general.

  Fantasy Theme Analysis:

  1. "reality" is composed of narratives explaining how things are believed to be.
  2. The stories are created in small groups
  3. and chained out to the larger society.

  Fantasy:

  "The creative and imaginative interpretation of events that fulfills a psychological or rhetorical need."--Bormann

  Fantasy Theme:

  the content of a fantasy message.

  FTs are composed of:

  1. dramatis personae (Characters)
     • a. heroes
     • b. villains
  2. plot lines
  3. scene
  4. sanctioning agents (legitimizes story)

  Fantasy Type: A repeated plot or fantasy that has been shared by the community at large.A stock scenario which carries inherent meaning.

  Common American FTs include:

  • the American Dream
  • the Conspiracy
  • the Restoration

  Convergence:

  people coming together to share fantasy themes and the identification that creates.

  Rhetorical Vision:

  The view (created by FT) of how things are, have been, and will be.

  Chaining:

  The act of spreading the FT throughout the community and attempts to do so to the world at large.

  Fantasy Theme analysis is a kind of metacriticism in that it views the entire process of signification: practice, theory, and criticism as the object of analysis.

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  NOTES

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  • Robert F. Bales, Personality and Interpersonal Behavior, (NY: Holt, 1980).
  • Ernest G. Bormann, "Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision: The Rhetorical Criticism of Social Reality," Quarterly Journal of Speech 58 (1972) 396-407.
  • Ernest G. Bormann, "Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision: Ten Years Later," Quarterly Journal of Speech 68 (1982) 288-305.

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    Questions? Email me at Sophist@Bigfoot.Com.