Being a newbie to sociology I’m finding most of our topics
mind-blowingly thought provoking (if that can actually happen). This week was
no exception, in that I walked away from the tutorial with my brain overloading
with information and thoughts.
So what does Goffman have to say, and what is this idea of
the self? Essentially everyone is fulfilling a role to everyone, with their feelings
and obligations governing which role they play and when. Further, Goffman
reinforces this, and states that these roles are dictated to us by society. For
example, to my parents I am a son, to my tutors/lecturers I am a student, to my
close friends, I’m someone completely different to the aforementioned. However,
this is only an extremely basic understanding of the concept itself.
This basic idea is reinforced and built upon by Zussman (2005,
p. 48), who suggests that the ‘self’ differs from ones ‘personality’, stating
that the ‘self seems to refer to something more permanent, independent of behaviour’.
In saying this, Zussman (2005, p. 48) referred to questions that he had asked
his students, relating to situations in which they can be themselves. He states
that the questions are generally answered in two ways: when they are alone, or,
when they are with a close group of friends or family. This, for me,
demonstrates how ones ‘true’ self can emerge when there are no expectations on what
you are to be, however, this could be countered with the argument that even
sitting alone in our rooms, there still
are those expectations. For example, sitting in my room alone at home, I am
expected to be a ‘son’ and not make any excess noise.
I wish I could elaborate more on the topic, but I think I could
write for ages! This will have to do, well, for now! The referenced article also contains much debate over the meaning of the self which is extremely useful.
Reference
Zussman, R, 2005, 'The Self', Contexts, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 48-50
