ENGL101A Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Kenneth Burke, Stick Figure
Document Summary
Aristotle states that we"re mimetic beings (i. e. we are a being that likes to imitate what"s around us). Kenneth burke states that human beings are symbol-using animals (i. e. we use symbols to communicate). A word will never be equal to the actual thing. We use oppositions to recognize things (e. g. we know what a pen is in part because it isn"t a pencil). Modality: how close to reality a representation is (e. g. a stick figure is something with low modality, while a picture of someone has high modality). Humankind is separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making . In attempting to represent things and communicate them, we lose our connection to them in reality.
