Erving Goffman (1922–1982) was a major Canadian-American sociologist who played a significant role in the development of modern American sociology. When the structural-functionalist theory was dominant in America, where the focus was on system theory and the mechanisms by which social structure is maintained and reproduced, Goffman struck a different path with a focus on interaction.

He looked at social life through an interactionist approach, based on the primary premise that the self and society are created and re-created during interactions. Goffman published a series of books and essays that gave birth to dramaturgical analysis as a variant of symbolic interactionism. Some of his important works include Asylums (1961), The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), Encounters (1961), Behaviour in Public Places (1963), Stigma (1965), Interaction Ritual (1967), Strategic Interaction (1969), Frame Analysis (1974) and Gender Advertisements (1979). Goffman’s important contributions to sociology were in illustrating how social interaction takes place in social terms and is amenable to sociological investigation.

In his book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) Goffman outlined his dramaturgical approach.  This book was a report that was developed in connection with a study of interaction undertaken for the Department of Anthropology and the Social Science Research Centre for the Department of Anthropology of the University of Edinburgh. He writes:

I meant this report to serve as a handbook detailing one sociological perspective from which social life can be studied, especially the kind of social life that is organized within the physical confines of a building or plant. A set of features will be described which together form a framework that can be applied to any concrete social establishment, be it domestic, industrial, or commercial.[i]

I flag of some of the features that he describes below as one articulates his dramaturgical approach. Goffman uses theatre as a metaphor to represent how people behave in society and represent themselves. According to this approach, the individual is an actor and society is a stage. In simple words, the dramaturgical approach points out the commonalities between theatrical performances and the ‘acts’ that human beings put on in their everyday interactions. It states that human social interactions are fragile, maintained by performances.  

Goffman writes:

I shall consider how the individual in ordinary work situations presents himself and his activity to others, how he guides and controls the impression they form of him, and the kind of things he may or may not do while sustaining his performance before them. In using this model, I will attempt not to make light of its obvious inadequacies.[ii]

Two points can be flagged off in the above quote. One is the obvious use of ‘he’ and ‘his’ that may lead to a hasty dismissal of Goffman as antithetical to feminist analysis. This however would be not just hasty but would go against the grain of theorizing. Significantly feminist scholars have drawn from his work to further feminist analysis of the social.[iii] The other is the attentive awareness of the ‘obvious inadequacies’ of his model emphasizing the need to do theory seriously and be open to the limits of one’s approach.

Goffman describes the way that people try to control the impression they make on others in social encounters. They want to be received well. They want to be taken as credible. At the same time, the others are interested in checking up on the person’s sincerity, trustworthiness and general suitability as someone worth spending time with. Micro-level interaction is complex.

Thus in face-to-face encounters in “real-time,” people might not have access to information from the person’s background. In such a situation they may compare ‘what the person intentionally expresses about themselves against other expressions that the person unintentionally “gives off”.’ Thus facial expressions, mannerisms, gestures, nervousness, quality of clothing, application of make-up, use of language and so on become crucial to make sense of the interaction. ‘This dynamic between a person’s self-presentation and the audience’s critical discernment sets in motion a number of micro-level structures that govern the course of social interactions no matter their specific content’ (Little 2016).

Key Elements in this Approach

The concepts of frontstage and backstage are key elements in this approach. In all social interaction, there is a front stage which is the parallel of the stage front in a theatrical performance where the performance of self takes place. Actors both on the stage and in social life are seen as being interested in appearances, wearing costumes, and using props. Furthermore, there is a backstage place where this performance is prepared.  Here actors can shed their roles and be themselves. For example- For a waiter, the front stage is the restaurant floor, where the waiter performs their identity as a waiter and the kitchen is the backstage where that identity is relaxed till he receives another order.

In Goffman’s dramaturgical approach all humans are actors performing their carefully constructed roles to maintain the deception. He argues that all of us monitor people we encounter and hence are skilled in the arts of impression management. When individuals interact, they want to present a certain sense of self that will be accepted by others. There are high chances that the members of the audience can disturb the actor’s performance. Hence, the actor uses techniques to maintain certain impressions in the face of problems they are likely to encounter which is called ‘impression management.

In today’s times when online communication has become the dominant way of social interaction and the internet has blurred the divide between front stage and backstage, it is worth asking the question, where is backstage? When someone mistakenly sends a wrong message or comment meant for another recipient it can be looked at as a threat which makes the performance weak.  Hence it is important to understand that the backstage is nothing but the place where the individual prepares for his performance, whether it is performing face-to-face or online, there is a certain identity of the self that he wants to present to the audience. The core element of the dramaturgical approach is the creation of the self through social interactions. Therefore, whether it’s a face-to-face interaction or online interaction the dramaturgical approach is indeed useful in understanding how individual identities are created and recreated in everyday life through social interactions.

A perceptive quote from a commentator captures how Goffman’s later writings build upon the arguments laid out in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, though detailed, does not provide a comprehensive description of interactive processes. In exploring the construction of presentation among individuals and teams, Goffman does not fully explore the nature of marginalized individuals, the importance of ritual or ceremony in the dramaturgy, or the construction of character. A reading of these complementary notions from Goffman’s later work, including Stigma and Interaction Ritual, provides a vehicle for expanding the analysis of the interaction of everyday life into the broader experiences of human interaction (Barnhart).

References:

1. Appelrouth, Scott, and Laura Desfor Edles. Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory: Text and Readings. 2020.
2. Barnhart Adam D. http://web.pdx.edu/~tothm/theory/Presentation%20of%20Self.htm
3. Cuff, Edward C. et al. Perspectives in Sociology. 2006.
4. Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London, 1978.
5. Goffman, Erving. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. 1968.
6. Little, William. 2016. Introduction to Sociology. 2^nd edition. Rice University.
7. Ritzer, George. The Sociological Theory. 2011.
8. https://opentextbc.ca/mediastudies101/chapter/dramaturgy/, accessed on 2nd March 2022.

[i] http://www.munmund.net/courses/fall2016/resources/Goffman_PresentationOfSelf.pdf

[ii] Ibid

[iii] West, Candace. 1996. Sociological Perspective.39:3: 353-369.

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Madhura Joshi has completed her MPhil from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. She currently works as a researcher on a project with Nossal Institute of Global Health, University of Melbourne.