Erving Goffman Theatre Report

In Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956), the imagery of theatre is used to portray how social life resembles a presentation given to an audience. In this report, I will apply Goffman’s concepts about front and backstage on the interactions between the kennel workers and greyhound trainers at my workplace, Greyhounds WA (Cannington), before every race to highlight the groups’ different social status. The observations were made on a Saturday race night (7 March 2015).

Goffman refers to ‘front’ as the performance’s expressive tool seen by the audience (Goffman 1956, p. 13). Front includes setting and appearance. Setting involves the props, scenery and location of the interaction. At my workplace, the setting is the kennel area, where a long table is adjacent to the dog kennels. A race book, microchip scanner, the rugs for each dog and their papers for identification are found on the table. For every race, I fold the rugs and lay them neatly above the greyhound’s papers. In my observations, being organised depicts a sense of professionalism towards the trainers. In relation to Goffman’s concept about setting, I cannot begin my work

From my observations, kennel workers and trainers can be distinguished by their clothes and actions. Both groups wear similar black shirts, but the trainers’ are designed with yellow sides while the workers have green. Workers are more uptight and careful since making mistakes are unacceptable. Hence, even though we are friendly towards the trainers, we still have certain limitations. Thus, front can indicate our social status (Goffman 1956, p. 16). As workers, we are inferior to the trainers since they can act more freely and their opinions count more than ours do. For example, a trainer can request for a better rug if I’ve given the greyhound a stretched one and as a worker, I would have to follow their