Hand out - 11.3. - Goffman and Departed

Ervin Goffman


In order to maintain a stable self-image, people perform for their social audience. As a result of this interest in performance, Goffman focused on dramaturgy, or a view of social life as a series of dramatic performances akin to those performed on the stage. (p 362 Ritzer)


Goffman assumed that when individuals interact, they want to present a certain sense of self that will be accepted by others. The actors hope that the sense of self that they present to the audience will be strong enough for the audience to define the actors as the actors want. This could be characterized as “impression management” It involves techniques actors use to maintain certain impressions in the face of problems they are likely to encounter, and methods they use to cope with these problems (Pp 362-363) this we can see in the movie


Following this theatrical analogy, Goffman spoke of front stage and back stage


The front stage is that part of the performance that generally functions in rather fixed and general ways to define the situation for those who observe the performance. (p 363)


The back stage – where facts suppressed in the front or various kinds of informal actions may appear. Performers can reliably expect no members of their front audience to appear in the back. Furthermore, they engage in various types of impression management to make sure of this (p365)


Stigma – the gap between what a person ought to be, “virtual social identity” and what a person actually is, “actual social identity.” Anyone who has a gap between these two identities is stigmatized. (p367)


Ritzer, George. 2000. Sociological Theory; McGraw – Hill, New York