Life as Theater: Some Notes on the Dramaturgic Approach to Social Reality

TLDR

Viewing self and world from this perspective is described as being “on.” The paper aims to question the dramaturgic approach to social experience, examine the actor’s perspective in everyday life, and argue that the view of being “on” is misread as the dramaturgic analyst’s perspective. The authors describe a perspective that frames life as a theater and use observations from a mental‑patient study to demonstrate its incompatibility with the natural view. They conclude that attributing the “on” perspective to the dramaturgic analyst is a misreading that the analyst has not adequately guarded against.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to raise some questions about the uses of the approach 1 to social experience, a mode of analysis finding increasing use in social-psychological circles. In particular, we wish to inquire into and comment upon the nature of the actor's 2 perspective in everyday life, as this is sometimes assumed to appear to the dramaturgic analyst. To this end, we shall describe a perspective the world and the self within it, a perspective that renders life a kind of theater in which a is staged. Someone viewing self and world from within this perspective will be said to be on. In order to show the incompatibility of this perspective with the view that persons in everyday life seem to consider natural, we shall present some observations by and about mental patients taken from a recently completed study.3 Finally, we shall suggest that the perspective of persons who are on is akin or identical to the view seemingly attributed by the dramaturgic analyst to his subjects, that is, to persons plying their routine rounds of daily activities. We shall hold that this seeming attribution is a misreading of dramaturgic analysis, if a misreading against which the dramaturgic analyst has not sufficiently guarded.