Dramaturgical Analysis Of Sociological Perspectives

When analyzing information it is important to keep in mind how perspective shapes the reality through which information is analyses. Sociologists have formed different perspectives to attempt to explain behavior in particular social situations. Symbolic interactionism, phenomenology/ethnomethodology, and feminist theory perspectives all take different approaches and angles towards trying to answer questions about behavior and reality in society. No one perspective is seen as correct, but all are seen as useful. With the combination of these different perspectives one can obtain a better grasp of the behavioral world and of reality itself. I will conduct an analysis of three separate stories and attempt to outline and highlight parts where the …show more content…
Symbolic interactionism has three basic premises. First, it says that people act towards things based on the meanings those things have for them. Second, these meanings are derived from social interactions. Last it is modified though interpretation. (A&E, 465) Sociologist such as Mead and Goffman take these premises to form theories on symbolic interactionism. Mead focused on social experience and the components of the “self”. Goffman focused on the presentation of self, making a dramaturgical analysis of social life describing it as a play with scripts and actors. These theories can be used to help make sense of Matt, Sarah, and Tom’s stories. All of these stories start with a presentation of the self, or a sort of setting the stage/introduction of the actor. The reader is told the names, majors, and summer jobs at the beginning of each story. In Matt’s story, after he presents himself, he explains a typical day as a fly-fishing guide. This can be what Goffman called dramatic realization, Matt has a role to play as a guide and he is explaining what that role involves on a typical day. During explaining his role he mentioned a story about scaring away bears. This is Matt using the idealization performance type. He is talking himself up in his role showing how good of a job he did as a guide, protecting his group from danger and showing them a good time. Matt’s quote at …show more content…
With this perspective, it is important to understand what the theory is trying to answer. In any given situation we must stop and ask: and what about the woman, why is this the way it is, how can this be changed, and what about differences among women. Right away in Matts story the question can be asked, and what about the woman? He says he has always enjoyed fishing with his dad and brother. Where was his mom during this? Why is she not mentioned? This introductory statement actually makes feminist theorists ask all of the essential questions. Combined with information obtained later in the article that all the guides were male and even female visitors were rare, we find out the answer to some of the questions. We find out about the women, we start to assume that women can’t be fishing experts because if there are no female guides it is because women just can’t fish like men. This is the essentialist argument that women see as oppression. The answer of why is basically just because of the patriarchal organization of social institutions. Finally we are shown differences in woman, even though there weren’t many, there were some clients who were women showing a difference among women because while most women do not fish, at least some do. Even though some women do fish the male dominated structure of fishing guides made it so the men are the ones teaching fishing. This shows a clear masculine bias in the fishing world