The satirical newspaper The Onion once ran a story with the headline "Man Reading Pynchon on Bus Takes Pains to Make Cover Visible." The story went on to describe a bus passenger who was reading a book by the critically acclaimed, but difficult and confusing, author Thomas Pynchon. Instead of holding the book on his lap, he held it directly in front of his face so that the cover was visible to everyone and occasionally glanced around to see if anyone noticed. What would Erving Goffman say about this?

Any good answer should start by pointing out the ways in which this is an example of Goffman's theory of impression management. Like an actor in a play, the literary bus rider is using all of his communicative resources (in this case, mostly nonverbal) to present a particular impression of himself to other people. Good answers might also mention that the bus is the man's front (the setting that helps establish a particular meaning) and that the book is part of his region (the elements that help establish the boundaries of interactional context). He is clearly using a so-called prop to help establish a context for his performance.