I wrote this essay in Dr. Kimsey’s course, Rhetoric and Public Address. While learning to identify the rhetorical strategies used in academic, civic, and professional situations, we also studied Kenneth Burkes Pentad. We used this framework to dissect the content and nature of different forms of rhetoric. We also applied the Pentad to “Red” McDaniel’s book Scars and Stripes, a reflection on his time as a POW in the Vietnam War. In this essay, I use Burke’s Pentad as a structure to explore how Red inspired his fellow prisoners to retain hope. 

 

 

 

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 

~John1:5

 

            Burke’s Pentad is a razor. It dissects situations and ideas with the relentless blade of precise labeling. It relies on an objective approach which determines the core contents of any occasion. Simultaneously, this razor is a kaleidoscope, each point of the Burkian star yielding different perspectives. Like a hydra, Burke’s Pentad retains the ability to splinter into numerous different analytical focal points. Because of this versatility and potential, I want to focus on a specific portion of “Red” McDaniel’s Scars and Stripes. By limiting the scope of my analysis, I hope to maintain the sharpness of a compact Pentad. In this essay, I will analyze the American prisoners’ postponed departure from Hanoi and Red’s response to this disappointment. I will focus on his resilience that thwarts the shriek of despair. More specifically, I will answer the question: how can Red respond with hope?

In order to understand all pinnacles of the Pentad, we must first establish the most stable point, scene. Unlike its other Pentad identifiers, scene remains somewhat static. It is important to note that “somewhat static” is not synonymous with static. Scene remains flexible. For instance, a Vietnamese prison guard and an American POW share the same setting, a prison camp. However, they do not experience the setting in an identical way. The guard views the camp as the arm of patriotism and justice. The prisoner views the camp as the bowel of humanity. In this case, a singular setting retains flexibility within perspective. Yet, the setting simultaneously remains a singular scene, making it a reasonably static place of departure for analysis.

Before we can examine Red’s response of hope, we must understand the scene in which it occurs. This statement elicits a broader principle regarding Burke’s Pentad. Scene must contextualize action. Like actors on a stage, agents within the Pentad act within the backdrop of scene. The backdrop in Vietnam was bleak. Imagine the rain dripping through the cracks in the bamboo ceiling. You sit in a cold, dark cell. Caked blood and mud cover your back, mixed together by countless days. These days stretch across the floor boards, every notch marking captivity. Your friend’s back is broken. You have a broken arm. Your eyes are blurry with exhaustion and sleeplessness. Your hands are pruned with excessive moisture. The floor creaks with the sounds of restless guards, always watching your misery. Days turn to months. Months turn to years. This is the reality that Red McDaniel lived. Although I cannot capture the depth that Red relays in his book, this is a small picture of the nightmare of Vietnamese captivity. Red recounts his thoughts during a particular torture session. He writes,

I felt myself sliding then. I was being beaten, whipped, falling to the point of nothingness. Death

would be welcome. I wanted the pain to stop…being an American meant nothing in the reality of

the moment. I was simply a human being sliding further  and further toward death, and there was

nothing at all to reach out for anymore, within or without. (118-119)

His clothes were gone. His identity discarded. His political affiliation lay bereft on the ground. At this point, Red was brought to the edge of human existence. He looked into the abyss, a dark and deceitful place. A chasm that calls out with screams of relief and whispers of comfort. Death rattled his keys. This is the scene. This is the bloody backdrop that hangs in tatters behind our McDaniel.

This is the scene in which the reader encounters Red’s struggles. However, my analysis will go a step further. I will also examine a subdivision of scene. If we return to our theatre analogy, this subdivision would equal the act within the scene. The specific act, in a theatrical sense, is a precise scene in itself. It provides the specific backdrop that accompanies Red’s previously mentioned action of hope. Near the end of his captivity, Red experiences a heartbreaking moment.

We were scheduled to leave the following Tuesday. Ten minutes prior to the release –  and we had

our new issues of clothes on by then – Colonel Norman Gaddis…went up for interrogation…When

he came back, however, he said, “Well, I’ve got bad news”…We would not be released. (165)

Deliverance. Rescue. Home. All of these torn from each wounded soldier. Perhaps the darkness is blackest when the light is quickly quenched. In this pit we observe the mettle of Red McDaniel. Similar to his resilience during torture, his spirit in this moment defies despair. While expectations shatter like glass, Red does the impossible. He prepares a sermon.

Red’s response of hope is the act of crafting a sermon. Although it appears tame, the preparation of a sermon is a lion-like roar. The natural response to the situation is to complain and curse heaven. Where is God? Does He not smell the stink of my wounds? Can He not hear the shrieks of my tongue on the torture chair? He is wicked. How can He be good? Curse Him. Curse Him. Curse Him. You deserve rescue. This is the natural response of humanity. When wickedness strikes, we wave our fists at God. Yet, Red’s response is different. His act is radically different. After the brutal setback, Colonel Gaddis says, “I guess you should plan another church service, Red” (165). Red accepts this call to hope. He answers simply, “Yes, sir.” (165). His heart is broken, but he embraces hope.

Now, you may ask, “What of it? A sermon is nothing but words.” In response to this criticism, I invite the reader to examine the agency of Red’s act, the agency of a sermon. Although Red will eventually develop his message, he does not immediately arrive at the result. He struggles with the call to hope. He remarks, “After giving one on worship and the joy of deliverance, what was there to say now?” (165). In the ripples of disappointment, Red is empty. What can he possibly tell these men? They will not embrace the rubbish of groundless optimism. They will refuse passive words of consolatory comfort. Red’s fellow prisoners need a message of substantial hope. How does he develop such a message? What would enable him to propagate the hope that kept him alive for so long? What agency could support a declaration in the darkness?

Red’s agency was his foundational belief in the Christian God. Reader, do not throw this essay on the floor. Do not scoff at an appeal to religion. I am aware of your skepticism and will not address the validity of Red’s theology. Rather, aside from personal beliefs, I will address the impact of Red’s spirituality. It defined his hope and is inextricable from a discussion of his agency. Red remarks, “I had to grab on to the hope that had burned in me since my shoot-down and which God never let die in me. I sat down and prepared my sermon for the coming Sunday” (165). In his position of destitution, Red plows the fields. He feels trapped by pain and enticed by despondency. Yet, he plows the fields. He prepares for rain. He shows up, sits down, and goes about his duty. With this pattern of agency, he finds his message, the message of Job.

Red’s sermon on the book of Job is directly linked to his Burkian purpose. The story of Job is a recollection of human suffering and despair. Job is the archetype of the good man suffering evil. During his trials, Job loses his children, health, land, and herds, leaving him physically and emotionally bereaved. Red acknowledges that Job’s trials were “maybe even more severe than ours” (165). Additionally, Job is surrounded by hopeless people. His wife tells him to curse God and die. His friends mislead him with false accusations concerning his integrity and the nature of God. Similar to Job, the reader can imagine the environment surrounding Red. Were there not voices of doubt? Were there not grumblings of despair? Yet, Red mirrors Job’s initial response. Job spoke, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (1.21). Red does not abandon his faith; he draws upon the heavy embers lying deep in his heart’s hearth. Red’s purpose is to faithfully serve God and others. This purpose drives the agency which leads to his acts of hope.

Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how” (qtd. Goodreads). This quote emphasizes the most important ratio in my Burkian analysis. The ratio between Agent and Purpose is foundational to the Pentad as a whole. The recollection that Red leaves behind in Stars and Stripesrevolves around his personal journey through the horrors of captivity. Red, as an agent, is inseparable from the wave of the narrative. His personal growth and transformation result in tremendous actions of love. Yet, behind this remarkable individual is an iron purpose. Red’s faithful service to God and others solidifies who he is as a man. By understanding the ratio between agent and purpose, the reader can understand how Red accomplishes his acts of hope.

Furthermore, the reader can observe the phantom sixth point of the Pentad, attitude. There it is. Do not miss it! It lurks in the shadows of conscious thought. Informed by the ratio between agent and purpose, one can recognize Red’s attitude of expectant deliverance. For Red, deliverance was inevitable. Either he would return to his home in the United States, or arrive triumphantly on the other side of the Jordan. Deliverance was unescapable. Red’s attitude focused on the optimism of God’s sovereign rescue, whether it come by physical liberation or the hands of death.

What does the analyst do with Red’s story? How does one put into words the culminating effects of his actions? Burke’s Pentad cuts through the fat, labeling the moving and dynamic aspects that accompany a complex Vietnam-era narrative like Red’s. The Pentad exposes the raw realities that rest under subterranean levels of political thought and human emotion. Yet, when these facts are dragged to the surface, who can handle the contents of that net? What are the limits of the human spirit? What are the depths of the human soul? I think I can imagine Red’s response. I think it would be similar to the Apostle Paul’s, a man who knew the flog and the rod alike. In the book of Second Corinthians, Paul wrote, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (12.10). In his weakness, Red’s strength was in the Lord.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

The Bible. English Standard Version.

“Friedrich Nietzsche.” GoodReads.

McDaniel, Eugene B. Scars and Stripes: The True Story of One Man’s Courage in Facing Death as a Vietnam POW. Harvest House Publishers, 1975.