Dramaturgy

The individual … itself does not derive from its possessor, but from the whole scene of his action, being generated by that attribute of local events which renders them interpretable by witnesses. A correctly staged and preformed scene leads the audience to impute a [body] to a preformed character, but this imputation – this [body] – is a product of a scene that comes off, and is not a cause of it. The [body], then as a performed character, is not an organic thing that has a specific location, whose fundamental fate is to be born to mature, and to die; it is a dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented, and the characteristic issue, the crucial concern, is whether it will be credited or discredited (Goffman, 1959)

Goffman went to a small island and he observed the native people on a daily basis, he told them that he was studying farming, so they talked to him about farming, because they were farmers. But he was really interested in studying how the present themselves. He generated this idea the people were like actors, they saw the self as performance and he looks at it as a drama, as stage acting.

Goffman looks at the relationship between the performer and the audience, and used it to understand social interaction.

Goffman points out that many individuals use scripts.

e.g. when you talk to old friend there are a certain set of ideas/questions that you ask them (have you talked to ... lately? how’s your daughter? Etc). Certain themes and ideas that are reoccurring and they are sort of scripting how we talk to each other and what we talk about.

Goffman suggests that, like actors the individual has props all around them. He/she use these things like an actor putting on a play, and has all of these things around to shape how he/she is presented to others.

e.g. Do we pick up the chair and throw it, do we sit on it, do we answer the phone, the clothes we wear.

Goffman suggest that actors have a stage/setting, and that he/she can create that setting.

Front stage – the actor formally performs and adheres to conventions that have meaning to the audience. The actor knows he or she is being watched and acts accordingly. This is a fixed presentation.

Back stage – the actor is able to step “out of character” without disrupting the performance, as no one is watching. The audience cannot appear in the backstage.

Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

What is the self

Goffman defines the self as an image, deriving from the perceptions and responses of others, this if known as the face of the person. Goffman defines “face” as social values that a person claims for himself by the role/position he presents in social encounters. He explains that humans have different types of face:

-          Good face

-          Bad face

-          Wrong face

-          Out of face

-          Loss of face

Positive face – connection with others 

E.g. Need to be liked, culturally derived norms to be a desirable human being

Negative face – autonomy; freedom from imposition 

E.g. Need to be free, have an open schedule, freedom from imposition by others

Wrong in Face – Information that discredits the persons face or inconsistent with the face that is known within their cohort, which cannot be integrated into role/position that was formerly accepted

            E.g. Think of a time when an embarrassing secret surfaced, how did others respond to the new information. The new information is inconsistent with the face they associated to you before,

Out of Face – When one attempts to make social contact with others without having formed a role/position within the cohort.

E.g. Walking up to a group of strangers and talking to them about your sex life

Loss of Face – When this face becomes disrupted we lose it, and in turn lose the internal support that would once have protected us.

The role of this self is not a stable one.

Social Death - When a person is stripped of all attributed of a regular self you suffer a kind of Loss of face.

            e.g. Mentioned in the lecture, some patients in psychiatric wards have a tendency to steal and hide soap. These small acts are little gestures of resistance, a method used to reclaim the self

Role Dispossession – Individuals are usually defined by a collection of roles, such as mother, friend, carer, employee and wife. In a total institution, residents lose the ability to perform the functions associated with these roles, at least in the manner in which they were accustomed.

e.g. Sometime individuals are unable to care for sick family members because of the demands of the work schedule. Instead, these individuals are forced to abdicate responsibility for their loved ones to the assigned others.

Role distance – how individual fill certain roles but also are able to distance themselves from the role.

E.g. the university student who works at McDonalds during the summer holidays is not symbolically defined by this social role because of the social meanings attributed to being a student and the status of holiday work.

Testing

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