PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY LIFE GOFFMAN
In the The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life Goffman seeks to show the reader how everyone sets out to present themselves to the world around them, always trying to maintain the role they have selected for themselves, since those whom they meet not only try to decide what role it is you are playing, but also whether or not you are competent to play that role. More significantly, impression management is a function of social setting. Erving Goffman portrays everyday interactions as strategic encounters in which one is attempting to "sell" a particular self-image--and, accordingly, a particular definition of the situation. He refers to these activities as "face-work." Beginning by taking the perspective of one of the interactants, and he interprets the impact of that person's performances on the others and on the situation itself. He considers being in wrong face, out of face, and losing face through lack of tact, as well as savoir-faire (diplomacy or social skill), the ways a person can at tempt to save face in order to maintain self-respect, and various ways in which the person may harm the "face" of others through faux pas such as gaffes or insults (209). These conditions occur because of the existence of self presentationa
These techniques can be seen as means of self-control, that is, dramaturgical discipline to handle or avoid embarrassment. On the front stage of publicity, the self uses more props and works harder on the right presentation of self than in the back stage of privacy. The author's language in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is very cold, with sufficient irony on occasion to seem more amused than sympathetic. The very use of the vocabulary of the stage gives the impression of insincerity and contrivance on the part of the participants. The process of establishing social identity, then, becomes closely allied to the concept of the "front," which is described as "that part of the individual's performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance" (22). In contrast, there are circumstances in which the self is profoundly threatened, in which it is attacked and discredited and its actual survival put to doubt. Most of Goffman's attention goes to the different techniques and processes that are involved with the constitution of the self in interaction. People present a line, a face, and this face, while it is often unrealistic and unreal should always be consistent. The performance is more "cynical" in the front region, perhaps. Nevertheless, says Goffman, even in these most intimate moments and spaces of social life, some rituality remains (there are no lonely actors). The second scene takes place at the formal wedding reception among family and friends. Extending the dramaturgical analysis, he divides region into "front," "back," and "outside" the stage, contingent upon the relationship of the audience to the performance. In the back stage, the preparations for the front stage performance are made, the garbage of performances is there taken care of, actors prepare and rehearse their roles, and they can meet there before and after the performance. Public and private lives are sustained by the ritual performances of the everyday.
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