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This article is an attempt to evaluate the contribution of the late Erving Goffman to the field of Sociology. In doing so I have attempted to document some of the main commentaries upon Coffman's work — especially those of A. Dawe and A.W. Gouldner — and to evaluate their validity. This paper is presented within the framework of a general overview of Goffman's work and an elaboration of some of the salient themes within it. The intention of the author is to free Goffman from some of the crude overgeneralizations that his colleagues have used in evaluating his writings. In particular, I have attempted to show, in general terms, how Goffman's work is sensitive to ‘structural’ as well as ‘situational’ concerns and also to class, hierarchy and power. It is argued that Goffman's importance has been underestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies the cognitive bases for exasperated, enthusiastic and ambivalent reactions are identified, by way of an examination of one of his most influential ideas, the concept of the total institution. In the Weberian definition the modern state is identified as a compulsory association with a territorial basis in which the system of order is binding to a very large extent over all action taking place in the area of its jurisdiction. For K.R. Popper, the criterion for a totalitarian state is that its might must permeate and control the whole life of the people in all its functions. Yet S.I. Benn and R.S. Peters, in referring to the democratic state as an umpire deciding between conflicting claims, describe it as the only association exercising an all-embracing jurisdiction within a given territory. What is thus implied is that same place, same authority and all aspects of life are ambiguous phrases. In practice, E. Goffman so defines same place as to accommodate prolonged solitary confinement on the one hand, and enjoying the sunshine in the extensive grounds of a T.B. sanitorium on the other.