“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players” (Shakespeare, 1623). This famous line taken from the work of literature titled As You Like It by renowned poet and playwright William Shakespeare has more truth and relevancy than one would think. Several sociologists and other social scientists have pursued the concept of everyday life being compared to a theatrical performance in the past. One of those individuals was Erving Goffman. Goffman, a Canadian sociologist and author who rose to popularity in the mid-1900s, aimed to explain social theories through symbolic interaction. The application of symbolic interaction, which focuses on an individual’s social interaction as well as their interpretation of said interactions, can be clearly seen in Goffman’s book titled The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. As the title suggests, the author attempted to focus and explain the presentation of self in social settings, and this was done through the sociological perspective now known as dramaturgical analysis. Dramaturgical analysis or dramaturgy, coined by Goffman himself, looks at and analyzes the context of human behavior in social …show more content…
Whether the instructor identifies me as another character or a member of the audience is dependent on whether or not he is interacting with me at the given moment, providing dialogue by calling on me in class or asking me a question in order to further both our performances in the class, thereby initiating a social interaction. I present myself as the student, the character who learns from the teacher, I perform in the classroom as well and I interact with other characters, who I identify as my classmates. The classroom is my “front stage”. My “back stage” is, however, my home: the place where I go to study and do my homework in order to prepare myself for the next