The facade of the middle class: photographic record of grandmother's funeral

Abstract

This article addresses the photographic record of the wake of a middle-class woman at the Gayosso Funeral Home, in Mexico City. In this work, we analyze a series of photographs based on a Quadri dimensional model for the analysis of photographic images (Vázquez, 2017), returning to the semantic dimension to develop the theme of self (I and me) and two personal aspects, median façade and social façade proposed by Goffman (1959). Likewise, participant observation was used as a qualitative method for the interpretation of two visually recorded elements. It is concluded that, apart from belonging to the middle class, the two children of a deceased person construct their markedly ambivalent personal façade. On the one hand, at the personal level, as his performance was fulfilled or that was established at the social level, therefore, when he said goodbye to his mother, his modalities were of absolute respect based on the rules of conduct in funerals and funerals, not yet, not Compliance with the Gayosso funeral home's dress protocol, both on an individual level and in their behavior and actions during the wake, at times without any respect for the rules.