Performances and funerals

While he at first may seem to be insensitive, Goffman’s comparison of a funeral to a performance actually has merit. Tradition says that funerals are supposed to evoke raw emotion in their participants, and no doubt that those affected by the death, even friends and family only marginally connected to the deceased feel this emotion. However, rarely does a funeral occur in which every single attendee feels the same grief that they show. While it is proper to pay respects, everyday life has to go on; performers merely mask there true feelings for the sake of conforming to the image of an ideal. As a setting of such strong emotion, a funeral also has to be the setting of strong performances.

Some of the most interesting performances come from children attending funerals. At the end of funeral services, the kids in attendance are the first to start showing emotions other than grief and solemnity, and their jokes and laughter open the floodgates for other attendees to begin chatter and laughter of their own. Goffman’s final example of performance at a funeral points out the acting done by the undertaker, and funeral director. These people, among all the others, will be affected least by the funeral process. Their constant exposure to death and grief will numb them to the emotional impact of funerals, as well as the fact that they best know the deceased through the bizarre and gruesome embalming processes.