The Pentad and Its Usage in Interpreting a Scene - Essay Example

?The Pentad and Its Usage in Interpreting a Scene Introduction According to Burke (1945), there are five key terms of dramatism – act, scene, agent, agency and purpose. The act is what was done, the scene is where it was done, the agent is who did it, the agency is how he did it, and the purpose answers the question of why the person did it. Shearer (2004) states that Burke, while not putting forth a necessarily original idea in his pentad, nevertheless put an original spin on it by stating that the pentad is all one – each of the terms above affect every other term, because each of the terms of the triad are inextricably linked with one another. Overington (1977) states that dramatism essentially dictates how people explain their actions to themselves and others, while taking into account the cultural and social context of these actions. How this dramatism is used to interpret the scene of the doctor giving a gynecological examination to a patient is the topic of this essay. Discussion Therefore, Burke's pentad, according to Shearer (2004), give a heuristic framework that we may use to interpret actions. On the surface, then, the picture displays an agent, who is the gynecologist, who is making the action of performing a gynecological examination on a patient, the purpose is to ascertain if the patient has some kind of gynecological issue that would necessitate treatment, the scene is the gynecological office, and the agency is the action of using a speculum to probe the inside of the patient's genitals. This is what is on the surface of the picture. That said, there are other underlying counterthemes that can be brought out of this picture. Emerson (2008), for instance, maintains that a gynecological examination is unique, in that it brings the private into the public. Emerson (2008) states that, with the case of gynecological examinations, the actors are virtually the same throughout different gynecological examinations with different women – the doctor and the staff who must be present, if the doctor is a male. The setting is usually the same throughout the different gynecological examinations – they take place in some kind of medical setting. The acts are the same, and the agency is the same throughout. What is at question, and why the patient might be apprehensive, is the purpose of the act. There must be a reassurance that the doctor does not see the act as being sexual in any way. The purpose must be medical in nature, and not sexual. This, perhaps, sets the act of a gynecological examination apart from other medical procedures, for there are no other medical procedures that have underlying sexual connotations. The medical world, according to Emerson (2008), must be reassuring to the patient that the genitals are just like any other part of the body, and that they treat the genitals as such. Just as there is not necessarily something sexual about, say, removing a patient's appendix, then the examination of a woman's genitals must be assured to have the same degree of non-sexuality. Emerson (2008) maintains that this level of professionalism, and treating the woman as mere objects, are necessary in the context of the gynecological examination – if there is any kind of hint that this is not the case, that the woman is somehow seen as a sexual object, then what is happening to the woman would be an affront to her dignity. It would be, in essence, a battery upon her. This is why the medical definition of what they are doing, the purpose of what they are doing, is so important – the act must have some kind of medical purpose and definition, otherwise the act is purely a sexual one. Therefore, the patient must accept the medical definition of what is occurring. If not for the medical definition, the patient would not have her dignity. If not for the medical definition, the staff would not be able to get the patient to cooperate (Emerson, 2008). Hopfl (2002) would refer to the attitude of the doctor and the staff to professional competence, and this is compared to both actors and whores. A whore, states Hopfl (2002), quoting Diderot, is someone who feels nothing for the man that she is with, yet pretends to do so, and this is the mark of her professional competence. An actor is the same way – he or she may feel nothing for the other actors, or may feel nothing towards the very part that he or she plays, yet comes across like he or she does feel these emotions. This, too, is a sign of professional competence. Likewise, the doctor who conducts a gynecological examination must divorce himself from what he has previously believed about the female genital, and must, in essence, become like the whore or the actor, and pretend that the genitals are just like any other body part. That the genitals are not typically thought of as being sexual. This is the artifice that the doctor must adopt (Hopfl, 2002). Just as the whore must approach men with a sense of dispassion and detachment, and the actor must do the same (if the actor really believes in what is going on, this would be dangerous for the actor if, say, the actor is involved in some kind of tragedy or dark material), so must the doctor approach the issue of the patient's genitals. This would be the display of the doctor's professional competence in this case. Since the professional competence is akin to acting, then the setting for the professional competence might be compared to theatre. The doctor's office might be considered to be this theatre, much like an organization might be considered to be theatre. Such is the idea put forth by Boje et al. (2003), who states that an organization might be like a theatre, which means that the members of the organization, in this case the doctor and the staff, are essentially actors who are carrying out various roles. In this case, the actor and the audience are each interested in maintaining the situation. In the literal case of the doctor and the gynecological patient, then, the doctor is the actor, and the patient is the audience, and each are interested in maintaining the situation – the situation being that this gynecological examination is just that – a medical examination. To define the situation as anything more than this would be tantamount to a battery, or, at the very least, an affront to the patient's dignity. Mangham (2005) talks in terms of social actors – individuals have many different roles that they may play in their lives, and are able to shed their roles as they move into different areas of their lives. A good example of this might be a tough-talking attorney who tears apart a witness on the stand, then tells the witness after court that it is nothing personal, and he was just doing his job. In the case of the doctor giving the gynecological examination, the doctor is merely playing a role, and that role is divorced from his usual role in his everyday life. As a husband, the doctor plays the role of a man who is interested in a woman's genitals for very different reasons than he would be interested in these same genitals as a doctor. Just as a lawyer might see the opposing counsel as an adversary in court, then have a beer with him or her after court and talk as friends, so must the doctor compartmentalize the woman's genitals – they mean one thing in one context, or role, and quite another in another context, or role. Berger (1990) refers to Goffman's concept of “role distance” which is germane to the discussion. This essentially means that people play roles that are expected of them in society, in order to fit into society. An example given by Berger is the African-American, in earlier times, who played the part of the clown, in order to not seem threatening to the dominant white majority. Foote (1990) states that in sociodrama, people who are assigned statuses as actors are told to play appropriate roles that terminate when the situation has been resolved. The resolution of the situation which encompasses the actor's actions is recognized by both the actor and the audience. Messinger et al. (1990) refers to the sense of “being on” and “being off” - there is behavior that is meant for the stage, and behavior that is meant for being off the stage. Messinger, like Berger (1990) states that African-Americans spend their lives being “on” - acting the part of the African-American in society, while secretly mocking those who essentially force them to take these roles in order to fit in. Turner (1990) writes in terms of “self-roles” and “other roles” - one cannot exist without the other. The role of father cannot exist without the role of child. The role of doctor cannot exist without the role of patient. Etc. There is, within this relationship between the self-role and the other-role, a sense of role reciprocity – when one person's role changes, it is because of the perception of the role of others. In the case of the doctor with the gynecological examination, the doctor is the self-role, and the patient is the other-role. The patient sees the doctor in this role, and, if the patient perceives the doctor to be in another role – say that the patient has suspicions that the doctor is becoming sexually gratified in some way from doing the gynecological examination – then the doctor ceases to be in the role of doctor, but, rather, takes on the role as sexual batterer, and the dignity of the patient disappears. This is why it is important that the doctor's role stabilizes within the context of the gynecological exam. Conclusion In the picture that is the subject of this essay, there is a very normal thing occurring – a patient is receiving a gynecological examination from a doctor. That is the action, and the scene is the doctor's office. The agency is the use of the speculum and stirrups – the stirrups position the woman, and the speculum is used to probe the woman. The purpose is to ascertain if the woman is healthy. However, this is assuming that the doctor, and the patient, accept their given roles. But the fact is inescapable that, for everybody but a doctor, the woman's genitals are a very personal and private part of the woman's body. It is not something that is meant for viewing by everybody. In fact, only the intimate partner of the woman ordinarily would be allowed to view her genitals, let alone touch them. Touching a woman's genitals would not be appropriate for anybody but the intimate partner – it would be inappropriate, for instance, for a woman's lifelong best friend to touch her genitals, or her parents, or anybody else in the woman's life. Therefore, the doctor has to play a certain role, in order for the touching of the genitals to become appropriate. The role is a part that the doctor plays while he is doing this – that he is simply performing a medical procedure, no different than, say, taking blood pressure or drawing blood. If the doctor does not play this role, and if there is any kind of hint that the doctor's interest is anything other than medical, then there is no dignity for the patient. Of course, this is all theory – doctors are, in theory, supposed to be able to compartmentalize what they are doing when they have a woman in stirrups, and they are exploring her genitals. But, one has to wonder if doctors are human after all. Do they get excited when they are exploring the genitals of a beautiful woman who is very in shape? Do they get sickened by the sight of an extremely overweight patient? If this is true, if the doctors do have these feelings, does it then mean that the doctor, after all, is taking himself out of the role of dispassionate and detached observer – because, if the doctor sees patients differently, then this means that the theory that patients are virtually all the same, you seen one, you seen them all, is not really true. So, doctors are essentially asked, during their time that they are in their doctor roles, to not also be human – because a normal human would notice the difference between a young, beautiful woman and an older, overweight woman. But to notice the difference, and, therefore, feel differently about these different patients, would mean that the doctor is no longer correctly performing his role. And this has profound consequences for the dignity of the patient, and the way that the doctor is perceived in this context. Doctors must therefore, essentially, leave his or her humanity at the door of the doctor's office, in order to do his or her job correctly, with regards to the woman in the stirrups. Bibliography Berger, P. (1990) “Sociological perspectives – Society as drama,” in Brissett, D. & Edgley, C. (1990) Life as Theater: A Dramaturgical Sourcebook. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Boje, D., Luhman, J. & Cunliffe, A. 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