George Herbert Mead and Erving Goffman Essay

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George Herbert Mead and Erving Goffman are two theorists in the study of sociology that have impacted the way we see sociology today. Their works, when closely examined, actually share some extreme similarities. Both of these men seemed very interested in the perception of self in the eyes of others as well as yourself. “Mind, Self, and Society” is an article written by Mead which was placed in the book entitled “Social Theory: The Classic Tradition to Post-Modernism” which was edited by Farganis with the copyright of McGraw-Hill in 2004. This primarily deals with the development of one’s self, or their identity. “Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” is an article written by Goffman which was arranged to be in the book “Inner Lives and …show more content…
The front stage is what everyone sees, so it would be public social encounters. Naturally, this means that backstage would be time spent by yourself.

Comparisons between Mead and Goffman are not hard to come by. When it comes to the “I” and the “me,” it can be compared to the front stage and the backstage. Front stage would be most closely associated with the “me” because it public encounters of social situations are how people start perceiving you. The backstage could be related to the “I” because the time spent by yourself is how you begin to see yourself. The script of Goffman’s dramaturgy can be construed as social norms. When it comes to scripts in a play, it is strongly discouraged for actors to deviate away from the script. Deviating away from the script is essentially straying from the social norms. Just like in a dramaturgy, people do not know how to react when someone strays from the script. For instance, if you were watching the musical “Grease” and Danny Zuko came out wearing woman’s clothing, the audience would not know how to react and would say that this isn’t the way “Grease” should be done because it deviates from the script. If a boy asks a girl to go to prom and they both wear dresses, people would think that is wrong because it deviates from the script and that this isn’t the way that the encounter was supposed to happen according to social norms.

Though the similarities may not be extremely
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