...Dramaturgy Everyday we play different roles in society. There are different sides that we show to each individual we encounter based on what their roles are in our lives. In this paper, I will discuss the sociological perspective known as dramaturgy. I will describe my front and back stages. My use of impression management will be discussed as well as why we use this form of management. Being social beings on the stage of life, we must play our parts accordingly. Dramaturgy is one social perspective that revolves around role playing. This theory says that we are like actors on a stage and we take on many roles when we interact with others. We constantly change our role (character) when we meet new people. There are two stages associated with dramaturgy and they are the front and back stages. The front stage is the stage where actions are visible to the audience and are part of the performance. Everyday my life is filled with front stages. My office where I work as a Correctional Records Technician serves as one of my front stages. It is there where I assist a multitude of public citizens on a daily basis. My home is another front stage. This is where I take on the role of head of household. The back stage is where performers are present but audience is not, and the performers can step out of character without fear of disrupting the performance. When I get into my car and turn the radio on and hear a song with a nice beat, I start singing and moving to the beat. My car serves...
Words: 701 - Pages: 3
...In the screenplay “Fences,” written by August Wilson, he sheds light on important issues such as racism an African American family, the Maxsons. The play is set in the 1950’s where racism was still at its highest. Although during this time sports teams were becoming integrated, minorities were still not considered equal, thus making the fight for equality tiresome. In the article titled, “Racial Segregation: 1950s and Today,” published by Rollins College, elaborates how racism affected daily life during the 1950’s and compares it to today’s society. In Jay Plum’s article entitled, “Blues, History, and The Dramaturgy of August Wilson,” recaps on Wilson’s plays which contain overlapping themes relating to the struggles African Americans faced with discrimination. The message behind Wilson’s work along with the results of what being on the receiving side of racial inequality are important because…...
Words: 565 - Pages: 3
...Jaimelah Nash Social Psychology SOCG 2033 David L. Monk The never ending show! A summary of Appendix II Life has been said to be theater for many years dating back to medieval times. So far in this book we have discussed that drama has to have an audience because the act must be put on for someone. I think that Max Burkhardt has a very decent theory of dramaturgy, he states that man acts without knowing it whenever he his being observed. In psychology this is called an observational biased, people act differently when they know they are being watched. Nietzsche says that people are constantly playing roles even when they are not being watched. This is very believable because if life is theater then you are always acting or maybe rehearsing. When you are alone your actions may be a rehearsal but they are still actions. This idea alters the idea of dramaturgy because it suggests that there is no need for an audience but, dramaturgy implies that an audience is imperative. Nietzsche suggests that you are the director, play writer, and actor of your life people are always thinking about the past or the future. This could be true because only you know what you are going to say or do and when and most of that conclusion is because of some premeditated thoughts so you must be the play writer and the director. I believe that some people are not the directors or play writers for their life. There are many adults that do and say everything that someone else has embedded into them. Those...
Words: 373 - Pages: 2
...these men seemed very interested in the perception of self in the eyes of others as well as yourself. “Mind, Self, and Society” is an article written by Mead which was placed in the book entitled “Social Theory: The Classic Tradition to Post-Modernism” which was edited by Farganis with the copyright of McGraw-Hill in 2004. This primarily deals with the development of one’s self, or their identity. “Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” is an article written by Goffman which was arranged to be in the book “Inner Lives and Social Worlds: Readings in Social Psychology.” This book was edited by Holstien and Gubrium and has a copyright from Oxford University Press in 2003. This mostly addresses the performance of ones self in comparison to a dramaturgy. In “Mind, Self, and Society,” Mead goes into detail on how people perceive themselves and exactly who they are. The only way you know certain things about yourself is from interaction with other people. By the way they react to your actions, you can gain a stronger sense of who you are. This creates the development of the “I” and the “me” identity. The “I” is how you see yourself and is subjective. In further explanation, “I” is the right now. If you are a guy who is more comfortable in girl clothes, the “I” doesn’t see anything wrong with it because there is the subjective justification. The “me” is how others perceive you and is objective. If you are a guy who enjoys wearing women’s clothes, the “I” doesn’t see anything wrong with...
Words: 954 - Pages: 4
...Thursday, January 14, 2010 Erving Goffman DRAMATURGY Read: Appelrouth & Edles 478-518 Goffman’s books include: Asylums, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Encounters, Behavior in Public Places, Stigma, Interaction Ritual, Strategic Interaction, Frame Analysis, and Gender Advertisements. Article: “The Interaction Order.” Goffman was considered a symbolic interactionist (for good reason), although Goffman himself found the label wanting. Denying an allegiance to that tradition or even to the more general label of “theorist,” he was more prone to refer to himself as simply an “empiricist” or a “social psychologist.” In some respects, Goffman’s self-description may be the more accurate, for his work drew from a number of distinct approaches that he fashioned together in forming his own novel account of everyday life. Goffman wrote with the flair of a literary stylist, his was not the dry prose all too common among scientist. Instead of adopting the standard practice of situating ones analyses within a particular intellectual lineage or reigning contemporary debates, Goffman was busy inventing his own terminology, as he set out to “raise questions that no one else had ever asked and to look at data that no one had ever examined before.” Goffman was at the forefront of important movements within sociology, for instance, doing ethnomethodology before the ethnomethodologist and exploring the central role of language in social life (the “linguistic turn”) well...
Words: 1765 - Pages: 8
...SOCI 2040 6.0G Sociological Theory TA: Jonathan Adjemian Nick Kozlowski Symbolic Interactionnalism and Dramaturgy: Goffman and Russel Hochschild Goffman is known for the development of dramaturgy, which approaches social life in the sense one would observe a play. When individuals meet, they read each other’s information to bring preconceived understanding into play. Information they are interested in are general socio-economic status, their conception of self, attitude, competence, trustworthiness, etc. Information about the individual is obtained so that the situation can be defined, allowing prediction of what will happen next, and to understand the situation. The term performance refers to all activity of an individual that is observed by an “audience”. The individual gives meaning to themselves through this performance as well as giving impressions to others, which are them reflected back to the individual. For example, a teacher who gives a poor lecture may reflect on himself through the bored reaction of his students. Setting is where such an interaction takes place, different settings have different actors which may lead an individual to act differently. We act differently around friends then we would in a professional workplace, or may act differently based simply on who is present. Appearance is meant to portray to the audience the performer’s social status, social state or role, which can be determined by uniform, gender, age, etc. Goffman describes 3 different...
Words: 292 - Pages: 2
...Dramaturgy is a concept developed by sociologist Erving Goffman is the idea that life is a never-ending performance an individual is born and thrust onto the stage of everyday socialization and learning to play the assigned role that is fixed to a setting (). An individual is constantly performing and evolving in the company of others in order to have an interaction where the impression of the individual can be managed. In order to have a successful performance a region “defined as any place that is bounded to some degree by barriers to perception.” p. 92 is important (). Performances can take place in two regions with different effects on the individuals performance the front region and back region are critical in order to manage an impression...
Words: 794 - Pages: 4
...Terra Runyan Walmart pulls 'Naughty Leopard' Halloween costume made for TODDLERS after complaints from outraged parents (September 26, 2013) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2432913/Walmart-pulls-Naughty-Leopard-Halloween-costume-TODDLERS-complaints-outraged-parents.html#ixzz2iht9tRma Naughty: behaving badly, guilty of disobedience or misbehavior. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/naughty) A word that used to mean “misbehaving” has now been sexualized. How has a word that once meant to behave badly, turned sexual? What does this mean for people now? In this paper I will use symbolic interactionism to explain the article. In the “…Naughty Leopard…” article it describes how the toddler costume is stirring up controversy within the parenting community. The word “naughty” has been put on a package next to a toddler girl, wearing a black dress with leopard trim, and leopard ears. Parents believe that by using the term “naughty” Walmart is trying to “sexualize” our children. The costume has been pulled from the shelves, and a spokesman for Walmart has apologized and said “It was never our intention to offend anyone and we apologize to any customers who may have been offended by the name of our costume”. Let’s look back at the history of the term. The word “naughty” during the 16th century meant "unhealthy, unpleasant, bad (with respect to weather), vicious (of an animal), inferior, or bad in quality". In the early days in Middle England, the word “naughti”...
Words: 1162 - Pages: 5
...it is forbidden by religion. Also, suicide was more than just being frowned upon. If suicide were attempted, they would be put on trial and punished. If your attempt of suicide as successful you were buried in disgrace outside of the city and you were considered a condemned soul. To conclude, Elizabethan audience would understand how Hamlet would not break the law to commit suicide in respect of his religion. Where as a modern day audience would not understand why he would not, because of the knowledge they do not obtain about the Elizabethan era and their laws and religion. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet (The New Folger Library Shakespeare). Simon & Schuster; New Folger Edition, 2003 "Suicide in Elizabethan England." Hamlet Dramaturgy. N.p., 19 Feb. 2013. Web. 14 July 2015. "Internet Shakespeare Editions." Suicide: An Act of Dignity or Despair? N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July...
Words: 265 - Pages: 2
...Research Investigation How would a director interpret the twentieth scene of Peter Weiss’ The Marat/Sade ‘Monsieur de Sade is whipped’ in the style of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed? Word Count: 1521 (Excluding quotes and citations) James Hilditch Standard Level Theatre 2/5/13 In 1950s and 1960s Brazilian Augusto Boal developed a new brand of political theatre designed to liberate the oppressed people of the world. Boal was angered by the theatre’s, “top-to-bottom process: the writer delivering the sermon to otherwise ignorant spectators who therefore remained passive receptacles of somebody else’s view of the world” and looked to flip the paradigm through his “Theatre of the Oppressed”. The underlying concept of Theatre of the Oppressed is that “we can amend, adjust and alter our actions to have different impact and to change our world” . Boal felt that, “The spectators in the people’s theatre cannot go on being passive victims” and his workshops became a “practice revolution”. He encouraged his audiences present images of oppression, discuss how the issue would be solved, and then enact a “rebellion”. In most cases Boal used workshops to convey his message, as a result a director interpreting the Marat/Sade would act as a facilitator in encouraging the “spect-actors” , 3 to construct images of oppression and finally overcome it. Figure 1 A picture of the Theatre of Oppressed at work; presented in-the-round. The Persecution...
Words: 2263 - Pages: 10
...In Australian society today it is very common for people to meet over a cup of coffee in a cafe. This essay will firstly touch on the history of the growing of coffee and its consumption. The essay will then explore the rituals and relationships that occur through café culture and link this to Symbolic Interactionism as well as discuss coffee in relation to Globalisation Theory, and in particular to Ritzer’s McDonaldisation theory. It will conclude with the argument that the consumption of coffee is not only limited to people’s enjoyment of flavour or the feeling that caffeine provides, but is a social interaction in itself. Coffee is native to the mountains of Ethiopia, with the first historical records of it being roasted and brewed by the 1500’s. According to Mark Pendergrast, author of Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, the general consensus is that coffee beans were then transported from Ethiopia, across the Red Sea to Yemen. For a time no fertile beans were exported, but an Indian pilgrim took fertile seeds to India and began the growing of coffee plants. The consumption of coffee then spread to England and to Europe by 1650. It is said that by the year 1700 there were over 2000 coffee house in London alone (ABC Rear Vision, 2009). Coffee beans are now grown in the area between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, in countries which are (mostly) developing. According to the International Coffee Organisation, Brazil produced and...
Words: 1806 - Pages: 8
...looking-glass self and how society affects us as individuals. Mead’s theory of socialization did include the idea of this social mirror that affects how we perceive ourselves, but he also touches heavily on two components of self. Mead claimed that the two components I and me make up yourself. Mead described the I as a person’s behavior, usually impulsive and spontaneous. Mead then described the me as the rules of society. This theory claims that the I and Me work somewhat separately and together to help shape our behaviors and allow us to see ourselves through a social mirror. Just as Mead’s theory of self and social imaginations helped show our roles in society so does Erving Goffman’s dramaturgy theory. However Goffman’s theory tends to focus more on social behavior. The name dramaturgy actually came from the fact that Goffman used roles in theater production as metaphors for our real-life roles in society. The one that I feel related most heavily to Mead’s theories was the use of props in our lives, in order to please our audience (Capek). Goffman defined impression management as when we do specific things in hopes of the approval of our family and friends, which Goffman would describe as our audience. This relates heavily to the social mirror and look-glass self concept described earlier. Another key concept of Goffman’s theory is the use of props in our lives. It is stated that both positive and negative props are used in our daily encounters. Goffman suggests, that props...
Words: 1880 - Pages: 8
...When thinking about how is Ophelia driven insane and ultimately to her death in Hamlet the play. I was surprising confused as to what series of events lead to what and therefore, it was difficult to choose one or even two that I thought were 100% concrete. Because at the outset of the play when we meet Ophelia, who is a sweet young lady that appears to be pretty, intelligent, and a symbol for courtly innocence and decorum. By the end of the play she somehow manages to have drowned, which was either potentially an act of suicide, or just a symbol of the madness she had fallen in to. I think everyone on this Earth is bound to suffer some heart ache at one time or another. Losing my first love was one of the worst gut wrenching things I ever experienced. I also have some experience in seeing someone erode from stable healthy mental state to a complete and udder mess. Mental stability is a somewhat tenuous thing that I feel society’s take for granted. Here are some of the theories that I agreed with, about Ophelia taking such a tragic turn. 1) She is heart-broken over Hamlet. “The idea that Ophelia is more heart-broken over the loss of her father or more heart-broken over the loss of Hamlet tells you a great deal about her character and what she values.” (Informing Bethany Lutheran College's, 2013) 2) She is heart-broken… over Polonius. “Again, for her not to be deeply affected by the loss of her father is equally unlikely. I don’t care if she’s a lovesick teen, if her...
Words: 516 - Pages: 3
...------------------------------------------------- Creative art and Fine art . By a broad definition of art,[9] artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art; however, some theories restrict the concept to modern Western societies.[10] The first and broadest sense of art is the one that has remained closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft." A few examples where this meaning proves very broad include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, and military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology. The second and more recent sense of the word art is as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art and emerged in the early 17th century.[13] Fine art means that a skill is being used to express the artist's creativity, or to engage the audience's aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience towards consideration of the finer things. The word art can refer to several things: a study of creative skill, a process of using the creative skill, a product of the creative skill, or the audience's experience with the creative skill. The creative arts (art as discipline) are a collection of disciplines that produce artworks (art as objects) that are compelled by a personal drive (art as activity) and convey a message, mood, or symbolism for the viewer to interpret (art as experience). Art is something that stimulates...
Words: 609 - Pages: 3
...of spirit in Marlowe. Faustus is too stiff necked a pursuer to deny the medieval morality tradition. Here we see the typical temptation by no evil figure. Rather we see a knowing Faustus deliberately setting himself upon an evil course. The supernatural context of Faustus’ tragedy and the central importance of the theological concepts of evil and suffering within that context distinguish it from all other tragedies of the time, and suggest its relationship to the Eng morality play. Even though Marlowe’s play seems by and large to grow directly from the English Faust Book rather than from the stage tradition of the moralities, there is no doubt that the morality tradition provided Marlowe with both its thematic precedence and devices of dramaturgy on which to draw. Hardin Craig’s definition of a morality play as the presentation of man in the post lapsarian situation, where he is destined to die in sin unless he be saved by the intervention of Divine Grace and by repentance, is very certainly and properly applicable to “Dr. Faustus”. This general thematic import of morality play was very characteristically embodied in a dramatic structure defined by the conflict of the abstract forces of Good and Evil in the hero’s soul, who represented all mankind Undoubtedly, the conflict between the forces of Good and Evil provides the major dramatic tension in ‘Dr Faustus’, and Faustus himself ‘stands and falls’, as the central figure in the conflict, the only human figure of any real dramatic...
Words: 891 - Pages: 4
