So this week's topic was Dramaturgy- this is where Goffman believes that we are each a part of a performance and life is one big stage, where 'on stage' you act in a particular way so to be seen in a certain way. Similarly 'off stage' one also acts in a particular way, this is more closely to how one really thinks and feels, but cannot communicate whilst acting a particular role. For example at work someone may be really nice and polite to all customers no matter how rude they are, but as soon the customer leaves they go out the back or to the lunch room and bitch about how horrible that particular customer was. Unlike I think many of my fellow sociological students in this course I at first found this concept hard to follow, however once I have sat down and really looked at it I can see how easy it is to apply to real life, because every day we play different roles when we are with different people and in different situations, but then we come home and can be whoever we are and take care of those things 'backstage' that allow us to put on our 'performances' each day.
In trying to understand Goffman and his metaphor of Dramaturgy I came across a paper by Giddens (On rereading the Presentation of Self: Some Reflections, 2009), and far from making the analogy any clearer it instead may me question the validity of purely thinking of life as performance. Giddens says that the theatre is all about the make believe and is 'meticulously' prepared beforehand, and that in 'real life' things are in fact 'real' and that sometimes the performance is not very well rehearsed. I found this interesting, whilst I agree that we all play different roles throughout our day to day lives. in reality we have no 'rehearsal' before going out and performing these different roles and I believe it is this 'lack of' rehearsal that makes up our frontstage performances.
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