eal life; for example, when students try to cheat in a test, they tend to conceal for, or even help, each other and pretend they are doing the test normally. Men all concern their appearances on stage, share staging problems in terms of both an individual and a team performance, feel shame when there is a bad performance, and are secretive about their backstage towards the audience. As Goffman says, these are some of the dramaturgical elements of the human situation (Goffman, P. 237). Despite the differences in Eriksons approach and Goffmans approach to understanding human identity, and American identity in particular, they both agree that the change in identity is closely related to the change of social settings, that is, the environment. Erikson uses the John Henry Hero myth to demonstrate how American identity changes from the cowboy period to the modern business scene. He concludes that John Henrys fate will be different if Momism is not only forced on the child but the entire family, namely asserted by the church and politics instead. Also, role diffusion in the adolescent and the increase in automation and autocrats in the society contributes significantly to the change in social surroundings, which results in the transformation of identity. Goffman employs the dramaturgical approach and describes how an individual, in different stages, will have to perform according to a script for his social role and try to convince his audience about his role. Goffman notes that there are times where individuals will have to work together as teams in order to convince the same audience. Nonetheless, these teams change as the stage changes. Therefore, as a conclusion, American identity changes through time as the environment changes foreigners may very likely to think of America based on the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal instead of the Statue of Liberty!...
