Pentadic Criticism of Select Western and Chinese Plays

Abstract

This study applies Burke’s Pentadic Criticism on the study of selected western and Chinese plays (The Family Reunion by T.S. Eliot; Thunderstorm by Cao Yu) to explore the pentadic elements inherent in each of them. From the perspective of pentadic criticism, the five elements of act, agent, agency, scene, and purpose in the plays, as well as the ten pairs of ratios between them are probed into to figure out the rhetors’ motives individually. Through the analyses of both pentadic criticism, the researcher find out that the rhetors’ motives can be discerned by analyzing their choices in shaping the acts, scenes, agents, agencies, and purposes within the play.