M*A*S*H, 1984 and the Rhetorical Situation

Bitzer writes, "Rhetorical discourse is called into existence by situation; the situation which the rhetor perceives amounts to an invitation to create and present discourse" (9). Being a person who looks for the humorous or outrageous in pretty much every situation for my own amusement, I have to agree (at least in that sense). Generally speaking, when dumb things happen, I call it an invitation to make fun of something. My comments are generally not required and frequently not wanted, but as the rhetor, I see the situation and present my discourse. My siblings and I can have entire conversations this way-- we were trained early by watching endless episodes of M*A*S*H. We don't even think about it any more, since being smart alecks is our modus operandi, but others still do: One day my sister and I were in the car with our nephew, who interrupted our conversation to ask, "How do you guys do that?" We were confused and asked him to clarify, so he said, "You say funny stuff all the time." Clearly, our 11-year-old nephew is our niche audience.

Bitzer goes on a few paragraphs later, "Imagine a person spending his time writing eulogies of men and women who never existed" (9). Remember the scene in 1984 when Winston Smith had to do that very thing? He created a war hero, who immediately existed because the Party said he had existed. In this instance, as Bitzer says, "through the oddest of circumstances" the obituary "fit the situation" (9). Of course, in the context of the book, Smith isn't quite engaging in writing an obituary just to do it, as Bitzer is talking about; the Party creates a rhetorical situation that calls for fictional writing. And it doesn't seem odd to anyone that Smith should meet it.

I'm not entirely in line with Bitzer's claim that the situation always comes first; as discussed in class (and evidenced by the Party in 1984 deciding they needed a war hero to celebrate), sometimes the rhetor creates the situation. Even when it comes to my sister and I dazzling our nephew with our wisecracking skills, the situation is partly already in existence-- something happens or something is said that we can laugh about, plus we have an appreciative audience in our nephew-- and partly sustained and extended by whatever we say next. So, as with most other things in life, I have to say that it's both.