Goffman attempted to counter these criticisms by, in a sense, arguing the case
more strongly. Thus, in Frame Analysis(Goffman 19 74 ) there is
in a way, a reversal of the theatrum mundiimage around which he constituted
The Presentation of Self ...So Frame Analysisas a whole, as well as the
chapters in it devoted to the analysis of staged and scripted performance, is
in a separate world of discourse – something more than a new conceptual
framework – from that of The Presentation of Self. The distinction between
the two books is put quite bluntly. ‘All the world is not, of course, a stage’,
he says in the The Presentation of Self(p. 7 2). On page 12 4 of Frame Analysis,
on the other hand, we have ‘All the world is like a stage... ’ We know, of
course, that they are different. Life is real, whereas theatre... is not.
But how real is the life the ordinary individual experiences, or talks about?
The immediate answer is that it is both real and make-believe. Any individual’s
experience is made up of a great deal of action he is engaged in, or intends,
of other people’s action which involves him. All this is real enough. ‘On the
other hand, it is known, although perhaps not sufficiently appreciated, that
the individual spends a considerable amount of time bathing his wounds in
fantasy, imagining the worst things that might befall him, daydreaming about
matters sexual, monetary, and so forth. He also rehearses what he will say
when the time comes... ’. And the time comes very frequently. A great deal
of the day, after all, is spent in talk.
(Burns 1992: 313–31 4 )Sociological accounts
The second usage of the metaphor of performance is in a more straightforwardly
sociological account which relies on a wider metaphor of performance which
starts to go beyond the dramaturgical metaphor in order to argue that we live in
performative times:
derived from the Greek word for seeing and sight, theatre...is a...
term for a certain kind of special participation in a certain kind of event.
Performance, by contrast, though it frequently makes reference to theatricality
as the most fecund metaphor for the social dimensions of cultural production,
embraces a much wider range of human behaviours.
(Roach 1995: 4 6)^15One such variant of this account argues straightforwardly that performances of all
kinds have become a key moment in modern societies. For example, performance
is a key to the
development of the heritage and tourist industries, where costume drama- whether in the form of retro-dressing or the contemporary couture of
slick uniforms – is increasingly the norm. It can be detected as easily in the
associated industries of catering and travel, where the waiter and the air-host
are encouraged to add a flick of performative spice to the fire. It appears in
126 Part II