THE IDENTIFICATION OF SELF

Gustave Flaubert's fictional character Emma Bovary is read as a paradi gm capitalist self who exhibits the interplay in the identification of a self of identifying with a self and identifying something as a self . Emma is written more interactively than the self that can be adduced from Erving Goffman's theory of face-to-face interaction (Goffman's ' self' being taken as state of the art of theorizing an interactional s elf). But there is a problem, not solved by theorists such as Poland B arthes, Tony Tanner, Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Kaplan, and Pierre Bourdi eu, concerning the divisive analysis of self into identification with and identification ar. This problem-that a self such as Emma Bovary is identifiable as a self only insofar as he or she is first identified with-goes to the heart of interaction analysis. Stated simply it is th e analyst's dilemma ('Dial M for Emma') of creating a selfless detachm ent from phenomenon whose reality inheres phenomenological involvement . In this paper, the (false) solution of identifying with a detachment methodology over against the self is eschewed in favour of demonstrat ing the problem as a textual impasse that can be breached by the boot- strapping valorization of the author writing it in such a way as to in duce the reader to identify with the author. Consequently, implication s for future research into violent interactions, 'fundamentalisms' of self, TV consumption, and face-to-face interaction are explored from t he vantage of semiotically-vital selfhood.