DRAMATURGY IN OUR LIVES

adkins_w_dramaturgy

DRAMATURGY IN OUR LIVES:

A Microsociological Account of Social Interaction

By William Adkins

SOC-332 – Social Interaction

Dr. Robert Adams

William Adkins July 13, 2015

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INTRODUCTION

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” (Shakespeare

1994:622). This oft quoted line from Shakespeare’s As You Like It can seem somewhat clichéd at

this point; however, it is easy to see that, even in 1599, it was understood that life and social

interaction have many parallels with the theater. Erving Goffman is credited with founding the

sociological school of dramaturgy – an analytical technique used to describe a person’s social life

in terms of a drama (Henslin 2015). Goffman shared Shakespeare’s view of life saying, “Social

life mirrors the theater” (Sandstorm et al. 2014:142). The microsociological ideal of Goffman’s

illustrates this point by utilizing terms such as actor, role, frame and framing, scene, as well as

front and backstage to describe daily interactions. So, before we begin to analyze the aspects of

application, it would be prudent to first examine some of the basic tenets and vernacular to ensure

we are all on the same page. The social grammar we are going utilize in this essay can be divided

into three categories: the “where,” the “who” and the “what and how.”

Where

The scene is the location of the interaction; this is where – physically – the interaction is taking

place. So, the scene could be a house, an office, or a restaurant to name a few. The frame or the

act of framing a situation is synonymous with defining the situation: “When we enter a situation

we immediately name it” so that we understand our part within it and can proceed accordingly

(O’Brian 2011:250). Each scene has a front stage and a backstage. These areas, much like any

theatrical production are either where the acting takes place (front stage) – literally, where the

actors perform their roles – or the area they use as a sanctuary to either prepare before a

performance, or to unwind afterwards (backstage) (Henslin 2015).


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Who

This part of the theory is by and large the simplest because it generally only includes the actors

themselves. Simply put, the actors are the people involved in the interaction. The actors enter the

scene and, after framing it, determine who they are within the context of that particular scene;

what role they are supposed to perform as well as gaining a general idea of how the other actor(s)

are going to respond to them and vice versa – they have defined the situation and arrived at a

working consensus (Sandstorm et al. 2014).

What and How

This section is a little more complex than the previous two because it involves the actual

interactions and their meanings or intensions. Within the interactions, each actor has a part to

play, this is called their role. The roles we take on explain our obligations and expectations

regarding specific social situations (Sandstorm et al. 2014). Because our roles are socially

constructed, they vary from person to person, from culture to culture and situation to situation as

well. Understanding what roles we are supposed to play in a given situation and why allow us –

as actors – to better follow our script. Our scripts are derived from our personal or social fronts

which are the expressions we use during our interactions and they are influenced by the scene,

our props and the manner or mood of the other person or people engaging in interactions

(Sandstorm et al. 2014). The props mentioned in the previous statement are any items we utilize

in our interactions: examples could be clothing, make-up other objects we carry or use in our

interactions including our tone and the gestures we make as well as any other item that can be

identified as a sign-vehicle (Henslin 2015). Now, in regards to the role specifically, we recently

read about three key aspects to the roles we play that are important as well: role taking, role

making and role exiting. In role taking, we engage in Mead’s ideal of taking the role of the other


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so we can view the situation from the point of view of the other person involved (O’Brien 2011).

This should accelerate role agreement: however, sometimes improvisation is necessary since we

are rarely able to play the role precisely as we wish (Sandstorm et al. 2014). The role making is

how we go about improving ourselves by building a role performance suitable with what we

believe others expect from us: this can lead to role conflict – where the expectations of one role is

at odds with another – because they do not actually dictate how you are to perform your role, only

the expectations within that specific role (Sandstorm et al. 2014). Lastly we have role exiting.

This is the process of disengaging from a role and beginning the process of heading in a new

direction with a new role (Sandstorm et al. 2014). People who are becoming an “ex” often find

that they experience role residual where others continue to identify them with a prior role

regardless of the individual’s efforts to distance themselves (Sandstorm et al. 2014). These basic

concepts are essential for comprehending the dramaturgical perspective we are about to employ

in our three settings. In the following analysis, we will be looking at these aspects of interaction

from an autoethnographical point of view regarding the goings on in my home, out in public –

specifically with my family and how I interact with the public in front of my family – and while I

am at work. The goal is to attempt an answer to one seemingly simple question: who am I? In

our text, I read I poignant statement that I hope helps in our analysis, “To tell us to simply ’be’

ourselves implies that who we are is easily, quickly, and accurately perceived by those with

whom we interact” (O’Brien 2011:252). We shall see.

SETTING 1: At Home

I generally have three roles which I undertake in my home; however, my repertoire does

expand if we are entertaining guests. While at home I am primarily Dad. I have three young sons

(age 5, 3 and 1) and since I was laid-off from my full-time position with a DOD contractor in

October of 2013, I have been the stay-at-home parent in charge of the daily responsibilities that in


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the past were scripts associated with the female gender identity (cooking, cleaning, tending to the

children, et al.). Yet, I am still the handyman for household and vehicle repairs as well as the

resident lawn maintenance technician, bug killer and reptile trapper. So, as we can see, I have

few conflicts regarding my current role (social, gender and internal to name a few). People who

do not know us intimately are normally surprised to hear that our roles (mine and my wife’s) are

deviant of the societal norm. I am also a husband and friend to my wife. For the better part of the

last 15 plus years, she has been the one constant in my life which has been surrounded by a sea of

variables. She is the main reason I am able to remain consistent in my roles, both in and out of

the home. Some of the obligations with this role center around the emotional and physical

relationships one would generally consider normative regarding a married couple as well as the

supportive relationship one would generally associate with a very close friend. I like to think that

no matter where I am in life she is my backstage, my safe-haven where I can let my guard down

and be more “me” than anywhere else. Finally, I am also Bill: even though I am a Dad and a

husband, I do like to have time to myself. As comfortable as I am with my wife and as much as I

love and trust her, I still need time by myself. From time to time there is a visible role conflict

and my children often have trouble seeing me as anything other than Dad – they are experiencing

role residual – and expect me to be that role and only that role all the time. Fortunately I have not

had to do much role exiting in this scene – other than the occasional employment change –

because my wife and I experience a strong dyadic relationship (somehow that is still possible

even with our children in the equation). Yet, I realize that this strength is subject to the “ongoing

cooperation” of my wife and, as a dyad is totally dependent on the interactions of only two

people, “it is vulnerable and can break down” easier than a more stable coupling of three or more

(Sandstorm et al. 2014). That said, there is still a fair amount of impression management being


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performed and a large requirement that I be a mutable individual and be open to improvisation

should the need arise (Sandstorm et al. 2014).

SETTING 2: In Public

Setting the scene and framing for a public venue is an intensely difficult task because the

location (being a main component) can vary widely from a shopping mall to a small restaurant, or

from a public library to a large sports venue. Depending on your culture and socialization, each

of these locations and the myriad others that could be represented here have different meanings,

thus they require a unique role, script, props, et al. That being said, since the idea of the

dramaturgical perspective is socially constructed, we can rest easy in the knowledge that a

generic application of our social structure can be made for all of those scenarios that affords us a

baseline from which to build our specific schemas. A few examples that come to mind are

walking on the right side of the walkway/hallway to move from one space to another (I think we

remember that from grade school), the expectation that if multiple people are waiting in a line

that we would join that line (as opposed to rushing to the front as they do in other cultures) and

showing respect to our elders and being polite to those around us as a general means of mass-role

agreement and consistency. These are just a few or the roles and scripts my wife and I are trying

to teach our children to ensure their complete socialization and acceptance into the mainstream.

Of course, there will come a time that they begin to think and act for themselves, but I only hope

that they are intelligent enough to know their roles and when it is expected and appropriate to

perform them and when it is ok to exit from them. Public interactions are also a great teaching

and learning source for improvisation. The actors and the audience agree on the scene, but

everyone has their own interpretation of the framing, so the actors have to determine how their

performances relate to the other actors, take the role of the other actors and make any necessary

adjustments to ensure there is a working consensus (O’Brien 2011). Furthermore, engaging in


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regular interactions with the general public allows you to hone the various interaction strategies

like tact, accounting and emotional labor that make the consensus possible (O’Brien 2011).

Without this practice we would not be able to conceptualize the reality that is present “in the

expressions of social meaning” which can only truly be “achieved through interaction” with

others (O’Brien 2011:259).

SETTING 3: At Work

If there were ever a place that we had to take all of our interaction strategies and put them

to use, it would be within the work environment. I currently work in sales – as a disclaimer I do

work from home, so my presentations are vocal in nature only – and the sales arena is one where

the need to display control in the form of emotional labor, tact, improvisation, identity negotiation

and consensus is essential for success (O’Brien 2011). I do, on occasion, go to a corporate office

for training, meetings, coaching and things like that, but 90% of my work if performed from the

comfort of my home office. This can make my efforts at impression management and dramatic

realization difficult to convey to supervisors and coworkers without some overt display, but my

ability to perform the role of “salesman” to my audience is still essential and the idealization of

“me” in those situations can be just as effective (O’Brien 2011). Making my role in these

situations can be quite fun since each call – although guided by a literal and metaphorical script –

is different and each customer has different needs to be fulfilled. The most difficult part of any

sale position, in my opinion, is the emotional labor and how the salesperson must flip that switch

and become a positive, can-do, helpful person even in the midst of personal turmoil or

professional strife. Putting on a happy face can be a very difficult thing to do for some people

during very trying times when all you want is time backstage to vent and recover before going

back out to your front stage. This requires a person to be adaptable and consistent


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simultaneously. Yes, you read that correctly; you have to learn to be steady and mutable

(Sandstorm et al. 2014).

CONCLUSION

The dramaturgical perspective is a theory within microsociology, which is one of

the main points or focuses of sociology. Microsociology, unlike macrosociology, studies

the nature of normal, everyday social interactions and agency on a face-to-face or small

scale basis (Henslin 2015). It is based on interpretative analysis (read: qualitative

analysis) rather than statistical or empirical (read: quantitative analysis). Why is it

important to make that distinction? Well, Rodney Dangerfield is quoted as saying,

“Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an

actor acts he does not hide; he exposes himself” (BrainyQuote 2015). From the

dramaturgical perspective (from the microsociological perspective) it is said that the

elements of social interaction are dependent upon the time, the place, the audience and

our learned definitions associated thereto. In other words, to Goffman and other

dramaturgical sociologists, the “self” is a sense of who are: a dramatic effect emerging

from the immediate scene being presented (Ritzer 2007). So, by playing our part – by

acting our role for our given audience – we are exposing ourselves and even through our

myriad interaction strategies it can be argued that we are representing at least a small part

our truest “self” within each performance.


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References

BrainyQuote. 2015. Rodney Dangerfield Quotes. Retrieved April 12, 2015

(http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rodneydang120486.html).

Henslin, James. 2015. Essentials of Sociology: A Down-To-Earth Approach. Boston,

MA: Pearson.

O’Brien, Jodi. 2011. The Production of Reality: Essays and Readings on Social Interaction 5th

ed. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

Ritzer, George. 2007. Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots: The

Basics. New York, NY. McGraw-Hill.

Sandstorm, Kent, Kathryn Lively, Daniel Martin and Gary Alan Fine. 2014. Symbols, Selves, and

Social Reality: A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Social Psychology and Sociology. New

York, NY: Oxford.

Shakespeare, William. 1994. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. New York, NY:

Barnes & Noble.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rodneydang120486.html

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DRAMATURGY IN OUR LIVES