Dramatic Effect

Dr. Arlie Russell Hochschild (professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, author of The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (1983), and former student of Canadian-born sociologist Erving Goffman [who studied everyday social interaction, i.e., how people perform roles, manage impressions, conceal information, and interpret one another's behavior, and who was best known for his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life]) visits Richard Ramirez, aka "the Night Stalker," at the Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles, where he will be held until 1989, when he is transferred to San Quentin Prison's death row. After a series of two-hour conversations with Ramirez, Hochschild writes an article for the American Journal of Sociology, which will never be published. In the article, Hochschild makes the case that after spending time with Ramirez it is almost impossible to know who he really is or what he wants you to think of him. "The more certain one is about who Ramirez is," says the article, "the less certain one is about whether this recognition amounts to knowledge." Hochschild also tries to make the case that giving Ramirez the name "the Night Stalker" provides him with a character to play that he may not have been playing when he may or may not have allegedly committed the crimes he's been accused of committing. "Would his smile really signify depravity if I didn't already know what I knew about him?" says the article. "Would his silence confirm his lack of remorse if I hadn't already been apprised of his callousness? For the record, I can find no evidence of that callousness, as during the time I spent with him he was nothing but polite and accommodating. Indeed, can Ramirez really be the monster the press makes him out to be?" Hochschild also wants to know if there is a single instance of Ramirez's behavior which could count against our pre-masticated interpretation of him. Hochschild surmises that perhaps Ramirez depends on the character we have cast him as, that his sense of a coherent identity is wrapped up in performing that identity, and that he really doesn't understand that his suffering is wrapped up in how others absorb the information about him, all of which has been mediated and shaped to fit a specific public narrative. "My identity," says the article, "is nothing more than a description of myself that has been confirmed so frequently that I find myself preceding myself, experiencing my conduct as if it belongs to someone else." Hochschild goes on to hypothesize that under the right circumstances she too could have been an alleged murderer, as could any of us. Furthermore, Ramirez amounts to nothing more than a mirror, according to Hochschild. "He made me notice how eagerly I accept reassuring evidence about myself," says the article. "After meeting Richard Ramirez, I can describe the woman I believe I am. I have begun to wonder how much of my conduct I understand simply because it has never forced me to revise that description." When asked by William L. Parish, the editor of the American Journal of Sociology, about Ramirez's victims and what role they play in her portrait of Ramirez, Hochschild says, "What difference do they make?"