Book: A Rhetoric of Motives

Overview
Kenneth Burke's A Rhetoric of Motives reframes rhetoric as the study of how language functions to create social bonds, shape motives, and organize human behavior. Rather than treating persuasion as merely a set of techniques for winning arguments, the book examines how symbolic action constructs identities, communities, and authorities. Burke shifts attention from formal proof to the ways rhetoric mobilizes people by enabling them to identify with one another or to mark divisions.

Core argument
Burke argues that rhetoric is fundamentally constitutive: it does not just transmit information but makes people into audiences, agents, and allies by supplying motives. The central move is identification, the process by which one person aligns with another through shared language, values, or symbols. Identification operates alongside division; rhetorical strategies both bridge gaps and dramatize differences, and the persuasive force of language depends on the interplay between these two dynamics.

Key concepts
Consubstantiality captures how identification works: individuals become "consubstantial" when they share substance, interests, beliefs, or perspectives, through rhetoric, even while retaining distinct identities. Burke places "motive" at the heart of rhetorical analysis, treating motives as socially produced orientations revealed in language rather than as preexisting psychological facts. Terminological choices and metaphors function as "equipment for living," providing habitual ways to perceive situations and justify action.

Identification and division
Identification is not merely sympathetic agreement; it often involves complex rhetorical moves such as claiming common ground, using representative symbols, or appealing to shared interests. Yet rhetoric also produces division by defining enemies, exclusions, or discrepancies that require resolution. Burke emphasizes how leaders and institutions use identification to achieve organization and cohesion while simultaneously relying on distinctions that maintain hierarchy and control.

Guilt, purification, and redemption
A recurring motif is the social role of guilt and its rhetorical management. Language creates norms and expectations, and when those are violated guilt emerges as a motive calling for action. Rituals of purification, apology, scapegoating, mortification, serve rhetorical ends by restoring order or redirecting blame. Burke explores how redemption narratives and symbolic transactions repair social ruptures and reinstate identification among groups.

Method and breadth
Burke's method blends theoretical reflection with close readings of political speeches, religious rhetoric, and everyday discourse, demonstrating how rhetorical analysis illuminates diverse domains. He draws on dramatism, a perspective that treats language as symbolic action akin to theatrical performance, with agents, scenes, acts, motives, and purposes interacting to produce meaning. This dramatistic lens foregrounds the situations and roles that language constructs rather than treating words as neutral conveyors of truth.

Significance and influence
A Rhetoric of Motives expanded the study of rhetoric beyond classical persuasion to encompass the constitutive power of symbolic life. Its concepts of identification and consubstantiality have influenced rhetorical theory, communication studies, cultural criticism, and social theory, encouraging scholars to attend to how language forms communities and justifies social orders. The book remains a foundational statement about the social psychology of rhetoric and the ethical stakes of symbolic action.