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Perfection In Burke's 'Rhetoric Of Motive'

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Burke uses the word “Perfection” in multiple examples through out his writings. In his book “Rhetoric of Motives” he related perfection with finishedness, “Its ‘perfection’ or ‘finishedness,’ if translated into the terms of tragic outcome, would entail the identifying of that motive with the narrative figure whose acts led to some fitting form of death . . . (the perfection being by the same token death, quite as the attaining of a given end moves death as such effects as went with the attaining of the end. (14)” When thinking of the word perfection I agree with the thought of finishedness, but I did not connect it to death until I stopped to think about it. When you think of death the first thought that comes to my mind is not perfection, but when thinking about heaven then I see the tie in. Heaven in the perfect place, which goes with the fact of when you pass away that is where you go, which is perfection. …show more content…
It is no longer about death, but of having control, which is completely opposite. “If there is some force to be controlled, we can control it either by perfecting the means of control or by imparing the force to be controlled. The Facists, the hopeful, the propounders of business culture, believe that the future lines in perfecting the means of control. (114-115)” With the last quote it is stating that death/the end is the perfect, while this quote is saying having control / perfecting control is ideal. One quote is driving for the want of letting go, while the other is driving to obtain

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