In what the General Practitioner called ‘this intelligent searching work’, the author of “Stigma” and “Asylums” presents an analysis of the structures of social encounters from the perspective of the dramatic performance. He shows us exactly how people use such ‘fixed props’ as houses, clothes, and job situations; how they combine in teams resembling secret societies; and, how they adopt discrepant roles and communicate out of character. Professor Goffman takes us ‘… More >>
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
This is a revolutionary book. It introduces the stage metaphor into sociology; all of social interaction is a performance on a stage. It’s questionable how novel this metaphor is, but this is certianly its first explicit statement. The language used to present the ideas of the author is, like most sociological writing, unecessarily complicated. There are some problems with clarity and structure; the book just doesnt have a holistic feel for me. No sociological background is presupposed, there is extensive quoting from other sociological sources, many footnotes, and various other ways to enter sociological literature throught the book. So if you are interested in reading sociology, this is probably a good place to start (again, the language is unecessicarily thick and this may be it’s bane as an introduction).
However, the book is misguided. The idea of viewing social interaction as a performance on a stage is unecessary. The authors motives for saying this will make my position clearer.
(The following is a charicature of the author’s argument). There is certianly a large amount of social behavior which is directed towards other people (the audience) in order for the audience to build an impression of the actor. Well, if it can happen here we can draw a parallel with other situations, infact all situations and therfore all of social interaction is like a performance on a stage, “All the world is not, of course, a stage, but the crucial ways in which it isnt are hard to specify” (p 72). The performances can either be with individuals, or groups of people, and they can be performing conciously or unconciously. (end of charicature)
There are other arguments, obviously, and the statement “we can draw a parallel with other situations” is most of the content of the book, which i dont like to gloss over with a sentence. But the real question here is, is the view worthwhile? My answer: No. Social interaction is a complex phenomena that cant possibly be summed up with a signle metaphor. Yes, some social interaction is like a performance, where indivudals are intentionally making impressions on one another. Yes, some social behavior can arise from unconcious beliefs. However, most social interaction is exactly the way we see it, conciously controlled, meaningful, purposeful interaction with individuals; it is not some kind of performance with the purpose of creating a “reality”.
I hope my view of the book is clear so that the biases on the final part of my review can be sorted out: the book is a waste of time. Where the author is right, the statement is little more than common sense. Where the author goes outside of common sense, he’s wrong, sometimes plainly so. This book is part of the tradition in sociology of thinking that society pulls the wool over each individuals eyes, that reality is a social construct with no purpose other than social control (here the wool is the performance, and the control has to do with impressions … but this quickly degenerates into an obscure mess of assertions). There is no real empirical support given for most of the claims. Where “evidence” is given, the evididence is so heavily intepreted that it fails to correspond to facts in the world but rather to facts about the views of the reporter. Where there is no correspondence to the world there is no truth. Various sources of sociology are cited, but this is more like intellectual bullying. Saying that some author, which also didnt have any empirical support for his claims, agrees with you is just to bully your reader into acepting your claims. The claims in the book have no practical application in the world, but only serve to intepret situations differently, and in personal opinion, less correctly. Nothing said here will lead to better predictions about social behavior or a better understanding of psychology. In short, this isnt a scientific study at all.
My final qualm with the book deserves its own paragraph, the use of language. The best example is the definitions given at the end of the introduction “A performance may be defined as all of the activity of a given participant on a given occasion which serves to influence in any way any of the other participants” (15). This is a curios definition. Me breathing while i work is a performance, it changes the percentages of O2 and CO2 in the atmosphere near my co-workers. Me staring into space is a performance, other people see me stare into space and are therefore influenced. Infact, me simply existing is a performance, since my existance causes a gravitational effect on the other participants, as well as influencing them to create beliefs about me existing. Its as if Goffman created a definition for performance which included all possible actions taken by any person, and then wrote a book about how all possible actions taken by any person fall under the category of performance. He didnt. He used a word that we associate with controlled behavior (performance) and defined it in a way no one is used to. Then he used alot of word play to show that behavior has no substance, its all for the purpose of maintaining social reality. I hope this very limited example shows the terrible use of language that is endemic to Goffman and sociology more generally.
So an ode to sociology is in order … actually no it isnt. Why wont this subject go away? This book is an integral part of sociology, and it espouses the methods and style of sociological researchers and writers by being an archetypical work within the tradition. The methods are questionable; the style is obscure. Like it or hate it, sociology is a part of modern thought. Read the book to be an educated person and keep in mind its intellectual failings.
Rating: 2 / 5
Good presentation of the settings around presentation and staged performances. It never goes into any tedious details, but focus more on the aspect of “teams” and “stages”, much like what can be found in theatres. [Opinion] Everyone ought to make themselves conscious of these structures.
Rating: 3 / 5
It was in the exact condition that was described. It is a book that I purchased for a college class. I am not that excited to read it but at least amazon and the person selling it made that part easy.
Rating: 5 / 5
Erving Goffman’s theory in this book stands firm even still today. The “taken-for-grantedness”, and the “world as a stage”, all fit nicely in today’s contemporary analysis of human social dynamics. It is commensurate with Pierre Bourdieu’s practice theory, and can be applied to any social and linguistic discourse analysis.
Rating: 5 / 5
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman truly is a “must read” book. Really. You learn about your own daily life — that is good. But the “must” comes from the fact that this book influenced so many psychologists and sociologists who write today — so go to the source to understand that foundation of contemporary social thought. And don’t forget to enjoy the analysis of what people are acting when they go to the beach !!
Rating: 5 / 5