PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY LIFE GOFFMAN

A detailed Summary of 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

The mother engages in a group talk while the daughter is beside her. The mother comments on her daughter's looks and the audience responds in the positive way. Therefore, the mother performs as a "shill," a member of the team who "provides a visible model for the audience of the kind of response the performers are seeking," promoting excitement for the realization of a goal, as an example of a "discrepant role" in the team (146). In each circumstance, the individual assumes a front that is perceived to enhance the group's performance - mother-daughter performance.

When there is little or no occasion for "dramatizing" the performance the student will always appear unconcerned when the subject of work comes up, to show that work isn't a priority in his life. This process, known as "dramatic realization" (30), is predicated upon the activities of "impression management," the control (or lack of control) and communication of information through the performance (208). To emphasize this, he may leave files on the floor, or leave books half open to show that work is a something he does when he has time in between partying or talking to friends, and if someone comes round he will show mock concern about going out rather than working, before quickly agreeing to go out, even if he knows he has work to do for the next day, all in order to dramatize the front he his performing, and therefore make the front more credible.

Most of Goffman's attention goes to the different techniques and processes that are involved with the constitution of the self in interaction. This includes the use of props to present one's self, the control of the audience, and impression management. The techniques of impression management include: the concealment of the secret pleasures of previous performances, the concealment of errors, concealment of the process of the performance (only showing the end-product), concealment of dirty-work, and mystification, i.e. performers create a social distance so that the audience cannot question the actor. These techniques can be seen as means of self-control, that is, dramaturgical discipline to handle or avoid embarrassment. Note that the audience is also involved in efforts to cover up this "fakeness" of the performance. Usually, all performers have an interest in maintaining the totality, coherence and smoothness of the performance.

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. There is a sense of detachment, not engagement. The very use of the vocabulary of the stage gives the impression of insincerity and contrivance on the part of the participants. So it is no wonder that this work is often characterized as cynical by naive commentators. Few are likely to see it as a celebration of the self; more likely is the view that it is at least neutrally a dissection, or more actively an expose of social manners. But such reactions are superficial and unjust because in this book Goffman analyzes the ordinary, everyday people in everyday life, circumstances in which personal ruin is more literary than real, in which the price to be paid for failure is not much greater than embarrassment, circumstances in which efforts to sustain creditable selves are largely successful. 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. It is in those circumstances that Goffman shifts his stance and creates an eloquent and passionate assertion of the dignity and value of the self and a defense of its right to resist the social world even when, from the observer's point of view, it resists what may be for its own good.

What gives Goff

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Approximate Word count = 2536
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Politics