Analysis Of Erving Goffman's Presentation Of Self In Everyday Life

Saykao Goffman 4 Page Commentary Erving Goffman’s book Presentation of Self in Everyday Life was a really dense book with dozens of concepts that could make someone cry with how complex they could be. The book started with a solid framework outlining his ideas that could are closely related to symbolic interactionism because when people are in a social environment they are constantly trying to make definitions of themselves and the situation they are in. Therefore, Goffman has made a large argument that a presentation is a given act that someone is trying to make another person believe what they believe to giving off. Except, it does not always come out that way, due to people not always perceiving what the actor believes that they are giving

The main part of the individual presentation is to focus on his front, what the audience sees, and how well he can make people believe that is his main goal. Therefore, it makes the argument of the sincere versus cynical fairly deeper because that opens up the avenue of an actor possibly having the whole authority of a situation, due to them being able to manipulate an entire social setting if they wanted to. Additionally, Goffman introduces how a team performance works, meaning 2 or more people collude. While Goffman talked about roles slightly before, this opens up his ideas of what roles are additionally seen in society like the non-person, informant, go-between, and shill, that can help either the audience, actor, or both. It adds a complex dynamic to social settings that is constantly keeping the quality of the performance high by the director of a team and its members to an audience. The reason why is because those roles that Goffman explains about can go into the back regions of a performance possibly discredit the whole show. Those ideas then lead to Goffman explanations of the importance of both individual and group impression management. Impression management theory says people tend to try believe in their performance while not getting too carried away, and having plans B and C, if a scene would occur from any members of the audience or performers that could discredit them, forcing a spotlight of embarrassment on that individual or the group