“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players:” Kenneth Burke & Sloths

Sloths are nature’s adorable, animate garden gnomes. Due to their excessive adorableness, they are capable of magnetizing the attention of creatures far more intelligent than them for hours without doing anything but existing. According to this very informative video, sloths move around three feet per hour. Because they move so slowly, algae can grow on them. This fact may be off-putting to some, but it mostly just adds to the sloth’s ridiculous charm. Despite the sloth’s laziness and odor, it is often still a favorite subject of human adoration.



Kenneth Burke, a man likely never compared to a sloth, was a leading contributor to rhetorical theory, contributing many concepts to previously established methods as well as inspiring many new ones. One such concept is that of the pentad, which Sonja K. Foss describes as being “rooted in Burke’s notion of dramatism, the label Burke gives to the analysis of human motivation through terms derived from the study of drama” (Rhetorical Criticism 355). Through pentadic criticism, a critic can uncover the who, what, where, when, and why in anything actively expelling a statement. These answers reveal themselves, and what is most important about the overall message, in the artifact by their interactions with each other. Again, symbolism is used in everything, and so everything can be viewed as a drama, which means it has the five aspects of the pentad:  act, agent, agency, scene, and purpose.

Like the sloth, Kristen Bell is absurdly adorable. The thirty-three year old actress is most famous for her role as the title character in the television show, Veronica Mars, but has not escaped the public sphere since the show ended in 2006. In 2012, she appeared on Ellen, the talk show hosted by Ellen DeGeneres. On the show, the two discussed the events of the actress’s previous birthday, on which her husband threw her a party and invited a sloth, sending Bell into a panic attack. A year later, after the video of Bell’s breakdown went viral, DeGeneres invited her on the show again, this time to meet another sloth.

Part One:

Part Two:

In these videos, these elements of the pentad can be seen:

Act:  showing adoration for sloths

Agent:  Kristen Bell & sloths

Agency:  her fame, adorableness, and low emotionally composed spectrum

Purpose:  to inform about the destruction of the habitats of sloths due to deforestation

Scene:  the talk show, Ellen

By viewing this interaction through a pentad, an understanding of its motive and the philosophical systems of the rhetor, in this case Ellen DeGeneres, can be acquired. In pentadic criticism, the most important element is discovered through evaluations of ratios comparing the elements to determine which element is most important in the ratio, as follows:

Scene-act: no

Scene-agent: no

Scene-agency: no

Scene- purpose: no

Act-scene: yes

Act-agent: yes

Act-agency: yes

Act- purpose: no

Agent-act: no

Agent-scene: yes

Agent-agency: no

Agent- purpose: no

Agency-act: yes

Agency-agent: yes

Agency-scene: yes

Agency- purpose: no

Purpose-act: yes

Purpose-agent: yes

Purpose-agency: yes

Purpose- scene: yes

These comparisons demonstrate that the most important factor in this artifact is the purpose, which is to inform about the destruction of the habitats of sloths (an endangered species) due to deforestation. Foss relates Burke’s theory that because purpose is the dominant element, the philosophy of the rhetor in this instance is mysticism (Rhetorical Criticism 363). Degeneres’s motive with this rhetorical piece is to incite in her audience empathy with Bell and / or the sloth and to create unity of purpose in the condemnation of deforestation. In using such cute agents, DeGeneres creates a greater likelihood of her audience caring enough to consider the harmful effects of deforestation. Perhaps a fraction of this audience might even do something about it.

A Marxist Mini-Critique of Scar's Rallying Cry

At the end of the 20^th century, the Walt Disney Animation Studio was in the midst of a Renaissance. Their new Broadway-style of films were consistently popular and critical hits. In 1994, one of the most enduringly popular of these films was released: The Lion King.

While The Lion King is filled with a lovely cast of characters, perhaps the most intriguing is Scar, the film’s antagonist. Scar is the younger brother of the king, Mufasa, and therefore next in line to the throne until Mufasa’s heir, Simba, is born, which is the event that begins the film. Immediately after this jubilant scene, the film cuts to Scar, brooding in a cave.

Thus, the conflict of the film is introduced: Scar wants power, and he is bitter about his lack thereof. As Simba grows, so does Scar’s contempt. Finally, his hatred culminates in a plan to dispose of the two standing in his way of power, a plan which he spells out to his minions, the hyenas, in the musical number, “Be Prepared,” widely recognized as one of the best villain songs ever.

Though it is structured in this way, Scar’s actual endgame is not to make the hyenas understand his plan, but to rally them to his cause so that they will provide their assistance. He does this by convincing them that his rule is in their best interest, as it will lift them to the top of the food chain by letting them rule with him. All that Scar desires from them is their undisputed loyalty: “Of course, quid pro quo, you’re expected / to take certain duties on board.”

A few times during his speech, the hyenas attempt to question Scar, but he shuts them down each time. As Scar reveals his visions of his own future station of grandeur, Shenzi, one of the hyenas, asks, “And where do we feature?” Scar cuts her off, blowing off her question, saying “Just listen to teacher.” Leading up to this, Scar has been establishing the entire hyena species as unintelligent, making it easier to marginalize them. The first three stanzas of his speech/song is entirely devoted to this, and he calls hyenas such things as “crude and unspeakably plain” and says their “powers of retention / Are as wet as a warthog’s backside.” By creating this “false consciousness,” which is described by Craig R. Smith as “controlling ideologies… [that] are not properly grounded in the social and productive condition,” Scar convinces them that they are inferior, effectively taking away their voices (Rhetoric and Human Consciousness 299). Smith states that the illusions of “false consciousness” “are an outgrowth of the material interests of those in power” (299). After he has the hyenas following him unquestioningly, he accentuates the point that because of their stupidity, they need him to lead them if they want to succeed: “The future is littered with prizes / And though I’m the main addressee, / The point that I must emphasize is / You won’t get a sniff without me!” While asserting that they are a worthless species, Scar promises them all the glory he will receive if they follow his plan for “the coup of the century.” After Scar demoralizes the hyenas, removing their agency, he offers them this salvation; they can follow him, and together they will rule the savannah.