The Rhetoric of Violence

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

THE RHETORIC OF VIOLENCE James C. Gunter Department of English Master of Arts This thesis seeks to understand how we read and understand the use of depictions of violence by examining its rhetorical presentation. Although the media gives us a mixed understanding of the way that experiencing violence secondarily (that is, through all types of media) affects us, scholarship in this area has proved clear connections between viewing/experiencing depictions of violence and raised levels of aggression. On the other hand, there is a clear difference between gratuitous depictions of violence and socially useful depictions of violence (i.e., the difference between a slasher movie and a holocaust movie) that that area of scholarship does not expressly take into account. I argue that the language of trauma studies has the ability to evaluate the impact of violent texts on audiences and that Kenneth Burke’s Dramatistic Pentad has the ability the examine depictions of violence to uncover explicit and hidden ideologies that affect the presentation of the violence and, thus, our reception and interpretation of that violence. Working in conjunction, these two theories can help audience’s understand depictions of violence on an ideological level and help them to assess the violence’s potential traumatic impact on themselves and others within certain contexts. To demonstrate this theory of understanding violence, I make two short analyses of Native Son and The Lovely Bones and demonstrate an in-depth analysis of Fight Club and Blood Meridian in order to give an example of the type of reading I am advocating and its potential for understanding and interpreting depictions of violence in ways that uncover both social benefit and harm. In the end, I hope that this theory of reading violence might extend beyond the sample readings I have done and into other types of media, so that we can all understand the ways that violence is used rhetorically for social and political purposes and be able to both use it and interpret it responsibly. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have been very fortunate to work with some extremely talented individuals who have opened my mind to great ideas and helped me to understand the theories presented in this thesis and their application to both my graduate studies and my personal life. I would like to specially thank Gary Hatch for his insights and direction in putting all my ideas into some sort of coherent form and organization and for pointing me in the right direction when gaps in my theories arose. I would also like to thank the other members of my committee, Brian Jackson and Trent Hickman, Brian for his energy and encouragement, and Trent for his skepticism and earnest scholarly inquiry into my research and philosophical viewpoint as well as his mentorship as a teacher and scholar. I also greatly appreciate the support of Nancy Christiansen who gave me Burke’s Grammar cold and told me to teach it to my fellow grad students. She was instrumental in helping my lay the groundwork for this thesis by encouraging my examination of violence through Burke’s pentad. Gloria Cronin has been an inspiration to me by opening my eyes to the ways that cold literary theory actually applies to the real world and to my personal life. And I want to thank her for helping me to understand and explore trauma theory through a comprehensive paper on its history and application, without which this thesis would not have been nearly as compelling. My fellow grad students have also been a continual wealth of ideas and support both in writing this thesis and in my teaching. Fellow grad students Ethan Sproat and Jake Robertson deserve special thanks for their friendship, energy, and intellects—they have been examples to me of what a scholar should do and know. Finally, I would like to thank my beautiful wife Alicia who supported me through the graduate program by taking care of the kids when I was working, cooking dinner when I was hungry, and holding me up spiritually. This thesis would not have been possible without her. TABLE OF CONTENTS GRADUATE COMMITTEE APPROVAL iii ABSTRACT v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii CHAPTER 1: FICTION AND RHETORIC, VIOLENCE AND TRAUMA 1 The Mirror Fallacy 3 The Rhetoric of Fiction 5 The Rhetoric of Trauma 14 Reading Violence, Inflicting Trauma 18 Toward a Theory of Reading Violence 24 CHAPTER 2: DRAMATISM: ACTING OUT TRAUMATIC IMPACT 26 The Ethics of Reading Violent Texts 27 Uncovering Ideology through Pentadic Analysis 29 The Lovely Bones 34 Native Son 40 Moving Toward an Understanding of Violence 44 CHAPTER 3: DECONSTRUCTING TYLER DURDEN: THE RHETORIC OF VIOLENCE IN FIGHT CLUB 45 Dramatism and Consumer Culture 47 The Paradox of the Fight Club Ideology 50 Traumatic Impact 55 The Social Usefulness of Fight Club 60 CHAPTER 4: THE EVENING TRAUMA IN THE WEST: THE RHETORIC OF VIOLENCE IN BLOOD MERIDIAN 63 Featuring the “Agent” 65 The Kid 65 The Judge 69 Conflicting Ideologies 72 The Dominant Ideology 76 Traumatic Impact 78 Identity and Social Benefit 81 CHAPTER 5: AFTERMATH: DECODING VIOLENCE, REMAKING IDENTITY ...82 WORKS CITED 89