Discourse and Pentadic Rhetoric: Analyzing Interstellar's Novelisation Through Burke and Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca

Abstract

Viewing a narrative is not the same as hearing it—nor is it the same as doing it or engaging with it; that is, personally and kinesthetically experiencing a tale. In each mode, many items are modified in various ways. The purpose of telling a story—whether in novels, short stories,—is to describe, explain, summarize, and elaborate; the narrator possesses a point of view, the ability to travel through time and space, and occasionally the ability to enter the minds of characters. The current study rhetorically analyses Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar movie and novelisation as a case study via an eclectic framework based on models suggested by Kenneth Burke (1969) of rhetoric and Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1971) of discourse analysis. Two questions are raised: 1. How does the novelisation reframe or introduce the movie's themes, narratives and characters? 2. How does the use of some rhetorical strategies affect the communicative goal of discourse? Through analysis, some prominent points the study underscores are: the novelisation increases emotional involvement by delving into inner character reflections and use of descriptive language; the novelisation provides a more introspective and detailed exploration of these topics, resulting in a more engaging intellectual experience; and both mediums successfully engage audiences, but the framework has emphasised how the cinema appeals to emotions through sensory immediacy, whilst the novelisation speaks to readers who seek intellectual depth and narrative complexity.