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The Phenomenon Of The Public Wife: An Exercise In Goffman's Impression Management *
Author(s) -
Gillespie Joanna B.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.1980.3.2.109
Subject(s) - impression management , wife , politics , symbol (formal) , loyalty , sociology , morality , aesthetics , public opinion , perspective (graphical) , symbolic interactionism , social psychology , social science , psychology , political science , law , art , philosophy , linguistics , visual arts
Approaching the topic of American leader‐image from the perspective of politics‐as‐theater (political communication as exchange of symbols), this paper examines a taken‐for‐granted visual symbol which a national political leader is invariably expected to present: a wife. Her contributions to her husband's “impression management” techniques (Goffman, 1959) are studied in Goffman's “defensive” categories of dramaturgical loyalty, dramaturgical discipline, and dramaturgical circumspection. This analysis suggests that the visible presence of a wife in public leadership rituals offers the public voter or viewer important reassurances or symbolic guarantees about her husband's “morality”—and, therefore, his appropriateness for public trust. She has become a necessary partof his public performance because of our everyday need for “cultural absolutes” (Furay, 1977) in the image of our leadership figures.