Symbolic Interaction In Shakespeare's All The World Is As An Old Man

Tiasia DavisOctober 9, 2014 SociologyThe Roles That We PlayShakespeare wrote the phrase “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.” What Shakespeare was describing was the seven stages of man, which is actually a form of symbolic interaction. If you refer to what Goffman said about line and place in symbolic interaction, it describes the Shakespeare quote perfectly. Anderson’s story used symbolic interaction and roles the same way that Shakespeare used them. What Goffman, Anderson, and even Shakespeare said all show that we as people manage our roles in life, which is the basis of symbolic interaction.Shakespeare’s “All the world is

It all ties back to Shakespeare saying that the man and women are players (actors) If an actor had a set role in a play, like an old man, and he came on stage behaving like the role of schoolboy, he would not only lose credibility as an actor, but he would confuse the other actors, and they would not know how to play their roles in response to his role. You must play the appropriate roles because if not, no one would know who to be I each situation Goffman’s ideas about line and face are used in the same way that Shakespeare uses the idea of the stage and the players, both describing symbolic interaction. Goffman describes line as “The pattern of verbal and nonverbal acts by which he [man] expressed his view of the situation and through this his evaluation of the participants, especially himself.” (Goffman, p.185). Lines are basically the verbal and nonverbal messages that you send out into the world to be interpreted by other people. Goffman was using line in the same way that Shakespeare was using it; as the said and unsaid cues that man uses to access and respond to a

Since lines and face are just terms used to describe symbolic interaction, Goffman was just trying to say that people use symbolic interaction as a means of having a relationship with each other. Anderson used a story to show symbolic interaction and roles in the same way that Shakespeare used them. Anderson chose to focus on the roles and symbolic interaction that men of different races and ages used in “the Village”. Anderson talked about how the residents of the village, including the black men “are likely to defer to unknown black males, who move convincley through the area as though they ‘run it’, exuding a sense of ownership” (Anderson, p171). Those men were playing the role of ownership, acting as if that they "run it" [the Village] to give newcomers the idea that they were more than what they really were. They were also using symbolic interaction when they made the assumption that they needed to present themselves in a "run it" manner to the newcomers. The symbol that they were using was the fact that the newcomers were