[Music] all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players they have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts the sociologist Irving Goffman took these lines from as you like it very seriously in his dramaturgical account of human interaction he argued that we display a series of masks to others enacting roles controlling and staging how we appear ever concerned with how we are coming across constantly trying to set ourselves in the best light according to Goffman we play a range of different parts determined by the situations we take ourselves to be in and how we think we are coming across we adapt what we are depending on who we are interacting with this is most apparent in awkward situations where we suddenly find ourselves trying to play two inconsistent roles as for example when we accidentally encounter friends from very different social groups and have to juggle masks the analogy with acting only goes so far for Goffman though because in his view there is no true self no identifiable performer behind the role roles the roles just are the performer he challenged the idea that each of us has a more or less fixed character a psychological identity at least in the role of author of The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life he [Music] did