The Presentation Of Self In Everyday Life Erving Goffman Summary

Goffman’s essay on face-work provides its reader with clear and concise explanations of social interaction. The theoretical framework he uses is micro sociology and his analysis takes on a dramaturgical perspective. He gives and precise definitions specific examples to get his point across. Goffman defines face as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact” (Goffman, p.5).

Both Cooley and Goffman have studied the social nature of the self. In this essay I will analyse their views of the self in social interactions and compare which one of these positions is more accurate.

In his book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman (1959) focuses on the self as a staged production in which people actively present themselves to different audiences one encounters. To bolster his conceptualization, Goffman used an interesting metaphor of “all the world’s a stage” (1959, 254). This, he terms as a “dramaturgical approach” (Goffman 1959, 240) in which an actor puts on a show for others; drawing analogies between human behaviors and the theater. Goffman (1959) likens the individual to an actor on stage performing for and with other individuals involved in the situation. Three types of space exist for the actor to perform on, to enact the self, and to interact with others: the front stage, the backstage, the outer region. Goffman (1959) utilizes specific dramaturgical terms such as performance, teams, front and back regions, sign-vehicles, and highlights the process of dramatic realization. These terms will be discussed in the following sections.

In “Presentations of Self in Everyday Life,” Goffman is constantly explaining how everyday life is a dramaturgy. A dramaturgy is the art of dramatic composition and essentially the production of a theatrical play. A social situation is much like a play. Every play has a stage, actors, a script, a set, rehearsals, and practices. In a social situation, the stage is where the encounter takes place, the actors are the people involved in the encounter, the script is the social norms of the social encounter, and the set is the environment where the encounter takes place. It takes practices and

Functionalist Erving Goffman studies the sociological approach of Dramaturgy in his book ‘The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’ (Goffman, 1959), he built his theory based on earlier work completed by Kenneth Burke. However there are distinct differences in features of the theory between Burke and Goffman as Burke believed that life was in fact a literal

Humans by nature, as suggested by Aronson, are a highly socialable species and care a lot about what others think of them. This has lead to the existence of a belief in public appearance or the sub-conscious development of self presentation. This is the foundation for Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts” (William Shakespeare). This essay

Erving Goffman was a sociologist known for developing the symbolic interaction and dramaturgical theory perspective. The dramaturgical theory is a social psychological perspective that studies human behavior and social interaction in terms of the analogy of the theater. This perspective is also related to symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism is a theory based on interaction and communication, facilitated by many different words, gestures, and other symbols that have acquired various meanings. Dramaturgical theorist focus on how people manipulate various aspects of themselves and their settings to influence how others define and respond to them. In this perspective, “the self” is constructed of the various roles that one acquires, in order to present their various selves in ways that sustain particular impressions to their audiences. “The self” is a private possession established in and reflective of an individual’s personality, which includes ones values, beliefs, motives, traits, and dispositions. In addition, a person’s “self” is acquired through social relationships and is a structurally fundamental process that may change due to various situations. As humans interact with one another they are placed in social categories based on their attributes and actions. These assessments are primarily based on ones knowledge of roles.

Erving Goffman is one of the most important American sociological theorist in the second half of the century and was also influenced by Durkheim, Freud, and Simmel in his work. He is well known for his analysis of human interaction which is now called “dramaturgical analysis”. Dramaturgical Analysis is the study of social interaction in terms of theatrical performance. For example, Goffman uses terms like “front”, “setting”, and “performance” when explaining his theory. The front is also known as the expressive equipment, intentional or unintentional kind employed by the performer. The setting is also part of the front and involves the physical layout like

Dramaturgy is a theory brought up by sociologist Erving Goffman, he presented the idea that a person is like an actor on a stage. Dramaturgy plays an enormous role in developing one’s self and is used in nearly every social interaction that occurs. My most recent partaking of dramaturgy took place Tuesday night. This situation started off when I arrived at the boy’s basketball game at my school gymnasium, and instantly I went into acting mode. The main characters in that interaction where the basketball players, the crowd, cheerleaders, and myself.

The purpose of this assignment is to record your life for one day and critically discuss how you are an actor in society; how you affect your social surroundings; and, how your daily life is shaped and constrained by society. This will allow you engage with many of the sociological concepts reviewed to-date including newer concepts such as impression management, stage theory and emotional labor.

Goffman, E. 1959. ‘Performances’ chapter 1, from the presentation of self in everyday life. London: penguin.

Goffman was the first to introduce the topic of dramaturgy in his work. Dramaturgy is his idea that life is a play. The people are actors and the every day world around us is our stage. (1959, p.13) He uses the image of a theatre performance to express the behaviour of people in everyday social interactions. Although not always aware of it, every individual in a social situation is assigned a role in the performance. Every individual obtains a role in social interaction and the audience observes and reacts to the performance. Goffman discussed the three different regions of performance as the front stage, the back stage and off stage. Each region has a particular impact on one’s performance.

Erving Goffman sees self-presentation in six aspects, which are all related to the idea of life as a drama; persona, performance, staging, teams, role, personal style. According to Goffman, a persona is when someone wears various personality ‘masks’ depending on which roles they are undertaking, for example, when someone is with their friends the mask they wear defines them as a kind, friendly person whereas when they are with the family the mask will come off and their personality will change. I wear a mask when I’m with my friends and this portrays me as a friendly, outgoing character, whereas the mask I wear at home is loud, moody and unproductive.

George Herbert Mead’s theory of the “I and the Me” claims that people are an object to the audience due to the emergence of the perspective of the others. The self is recognized as a social object set by our social structure and behavior. Mead divided the self into two separate parts. The “I” is known as the actor of the self. The “me” is the object that is formed by the evaluations of the audience’s perspective towards the self. Thus, the “me” controls and discipline the “I” of the self. The concept of the “I and the Me” was first derived from the work of self development. Mead wanted to focus on how the two separate part of the self define the identity of the person through symbolic interaction.

Ever since I took drama classes in high school I felt that we always put on an act. A show almost, that we put out for the people we interact with daily. Erving Goffman, “Canadian-American Sociologist” (Encyclopedia In., 2017) also believed this, he compared social interactions to the theater, where individuals take a particular role. According to Goffman this “theatrical metaphor consists of a stage, actors, and an audience” (Crossman, 2014). It also consists of the onstage, backstage and offstage. These three stages show different behavior on a person.