Funerals as Performance: Goffman's Analysis

• American funerals are analyzed as carefully planned performances, using Erving Goffman's idea that life is like a stage.
• Funerals follow scripts and use symbols, helping people manage emotions, maintain social order, and reinforce cultural ideas about death and grief.
• Funerals, as performances, help individuals navigate loss in a structured way, making death a socially meaningful event.

Viewing Funerals as a Performance

• People present themselves in ways depending on the situation, similar to actors in a play.
• Funerals exemplify this, with roles like funeral directors, clergy, and mourners following expected behaviors.
• Funerals are public events reflecting cultural values and beliefs about death, not only private grief.
• The funeral setting acts as a stage where actions are planned and performed according to societal expectations, ensuring death is acknowledged respectfully.
• People manage their behavior to create the right impression, ensuring the funeral honors the deceased and maintains a solemn atmosphere.
• Caskets, flowers, and black clothing are props that strengthen the emotional and symbolic meaning of the event.
• Seating arrangement, ceremony pacing, and speaking order contribute to the funeral's theatrical nature, reinforcing its role as a structured ritual.

The Role of Funeral Directors

• Funeral directors act as stage managers, ensuring everything goes smoothly: taking care of the body, arranging the service, and guiding mourners.
• Funeral directors help families balance expressing their grief and keeping the ceremony dignified.
• They use specific words, actions, and settings to create respect and sadness, shaping how people experience and understand death.
• Funeral directors' blend of professionalism and compassion allows them to support grieving families while adhering to social norms.
• Funeral directors act as emotional guides, helping families during difficult moments like viewing the body or delivering eulogies, ensuring social expectations are met.
• "Deathwork" refers to the specialized labor by funeral professionals to manage grief, prepare the body, and maintain the emotional tone, shaping society's understanding and processing of death.

Symbols and Rituals in Funerals

• Funerals are full of symbols helping people make sense of death.
• Body display, music choice, eulogies, and religious or cultural rituals tell a story about the deceased's life and legacy.
• These elements aid grieving by giving mourners a way to say goodbye and feel connected to their cultural beliefs about death and the afterlife.
• Symbols act as emotional tools, allowing structured expression of feelings while reinforcing shared community values.
• Symbols shape how people remember the deceased, with burial location, attire, and religious readings sending messages about the person’s status, beliefs, and how they will be remembered.
• These elements influence public memory and provide emotional closure.
• Details like flower selection or eulogy phrasing contribute to the funeral’s overall meaning, reinforcing death as a collective event shaping social identity.

Emotions and Social Expectations

• Funerals shape people’s emotions; mourners are expected to express grief in a certain way, but not excessively.
• Extreme displays of emotion may be discouraged, while sadness is appropriate.
• Funerals create a structured setting where emotions are both displayed and controlled, allowing mourners to express grief acceptably.
• This emotional script ensures grief doesn't disrupt social stability, channeling it through ritual and tradition.
• Emotional management is especially important in interactions between mourners.
• People adjust how they express grief based on their relationship with the deceased and who is present.
• Funeral directors and clergy give subtle signals about appropriate emotion levels, reinforcing that grief should follow a social script.
• This expectation can pressure individuals to conform to socially accepted mourning, even if personal grief differs.

The Purpose of Funerals

• Funerals bring people together, strengthen social bonds, and reinforce traditions, in addition to helping people mourn.
• By turning death into a performance, society helps people process loss and maintain cultural beliefs about life and death.
• Funerals support the living as much as honoring the dead.
• The structured nature of funerals provides comfort by giving mourners a familiar framework, reducing uncertainty and reinforcing that life continues after loss.
• Funerals reflect larger social structures, including class, religion, and cultural traditions.
• Service type, attendance, and rituals performed show social identity differences.
• Funerals are a space where people reconnect with family, friends, and community members, even if infrequently.
• Funerals remind of social connections enduring after death, reinforcing community ties and cultural continuity.

Conclusion

• American funerals are shaped by society through performance.
• Viewing funerals as scripted events with assigned roles, rituals, and emotional expectations highlights how society deals with grief and mortality.
• Funerals are public performances maintaining cultural traditions and providing emotional support for the living, not just private ceremonies.
• "Deathwork" emphasizes the behind-the-scenes labor making this performance possible, showing how professionals guide individuals through mourning while ensuring societal norms around death remain intact.