Abstract

Using Burke’s Hexad, this paper presents the concept of imagined Agent in the case of a group of star high school football players who beat to death wild animals and were ultimately vilified by the local community for their actions. Not only were the players skewered for their position as star athletes who aren’t held to the same standards of justice as other “normal” members of the community, they were also labeled by some rhetors as future murderers, rapists, child and wife abusers, terrorists and more. In that sense, there are also imagined communities of victims beyond the immediate community. The players are imagined as agents of future crimes not yet, or maybe never, committed. Burke’s notion of “attitude,” which he later included as part of the pentad, may help explain this vast overreach in imagining the motives of young football stars.

Key words: Hexad, animal rights, sports heroes