For most people in Western culture, there are reasons for comparing culture with drama— our social behaviour includes numerous aspects such as scenes, characters, roles, dialogues, conflicts etc. that is also present in theatre (Vosu, 2010: online). There is always something drama-like in human social behaviour and, in turn, theatre resembles our real lives, since they represent it in one way or the other (Turner, 1990: 13). By studying theatre performances, we can then inspect the ways humans and societies have been represented, but also what these people, their knowledge, values and relations to the society have been like. Theatre analogy therefore functions in both ways — by examining theatre-like situations in social life we get to know …show more content…
Taking as his field of research situations of social crises and rituals associated with them, Turner analyses the ways in which conflicts of different type arise develop and are resolved in a society. He argues that it is precisely during such borderline cases that the parties in a conflict end to be more sharply aware than usual of the rules and principles that govern their mutual relations,” (Vosu, 2010: online).
According to Turner’s view on culture, social dramas are first manifested as a violation of certain social norms; for example moral rules, the law, customs, etc. This violation may be either conscious or non-conscious (Turner, 1990: 8). Conflict can develop into a deeper crisis, but in most cases there is an attempt to resolve the situation by using ritual proceedings that follow particular rules such as legal proceedings. (Turner, 1990: 8). Once the rules have been broken and conflict begins to develop, the leaders of the offended group usually attempt to bring into play certain counter