Life is a stage

: ca-pub-7347027319770159 

Evring Goffman

Born 11 June 1922 Mannville, Alberta, Canada Died 19 November 1982 (aged 60) Nationality Canadian American,

Dramaturgy is a sociological perspective used in a micro sociological sociological account of social interaction in everyday life Erving Goffman American sociologist development in his seminar  in 1956, titled "the presentation of self in a everyday life ". Dramaturgy uses the metaphor of a theatre in it's explanation of social interaction of human behavior. 

According to this perspective indicated Individuals perform actions of everyday life as if they were performance on a stage.

View Erving Goffman a Canadian graduate and a PhD holder 

In his doctoral citation  in 1956 Goffman proposed his dramaturgy and his idea that life is like a never ending play in which there are actors, in his theory he believe whatever we do we do in interaction, we are playing out some roles in our interaction 

He used the metaphor of theory to show how people behave in a society and represent themselves, people are actors and the society is the stage, the individual interact with one another just as actors exchange dialogue in a drama.

As the actors exchange dialogue is guided by the values of the norms which are accepted in the society, Goffman stated that as people engage in interaction we constant also engage in "impression management by this he meant that during interaction people try to control the impression people others have about them ( the way I want you to see me)

He said that people have certain goals in mind which according to they will behave, the bahaviour presented in such a case is what the one that will be accepted to whom we want to give the impression. E.g going to an interview well dressed that's impression management.

Goffman used concept of front stage self and back stage self to show how we present ourselves 

The front Stage Self (Life)

This is the self we want to show the world how you want them to see you.This the self we present  when we go out of our family setting,when we interact with people we are not yet comfortable with, this is where our impression management come into play, you bring your best behaviour for people to accept us, e.g when we appear I'm front to our friends parents we try to behave our selves and we are mindful of the words we use

The Back Stage self (Life )

The back stage self refers to that aspect of self which we really are (the original me) the self we exhibit when we are in a familiar settings or environment where we are comfortable there is no need to manage, this back stage unobserved so we are relaxed not acting.

Criticism Of dramaturgy 

It was criticised based on his methodology,  it does not have specific systematic methods of testing proposition about our society.

Dramaturgy slighted the impact of social unity such as impact of,social unity, impact of institutions on our behavior 

The major criticism against dramaturgy is that is not a theory at all and does not add explain and analyze human behavior 

Irving Goulner criticized Goffman dramaturgy and termed it sociology of fraud because the theory portray human interaction as fraud there by claiming morality has been stepped aside 

Contributor 

Dr. Anyoha