ABSTRACT
The literature on the stranger exhibits four distinct areas of confusion. First, Simmel's concept of the stranger has been equated periodically with the "marginal man," which signifies a quite different social type. Second, his concept has often been identified with the newly arrived outsider, another distinctly different type. Third, his analysis of the role of the individual stranger has been taken indiscriminately to refer to ethnic communities as well. Fourth, the significance of the variety of ways in which Simmel used the metaphor of simultaneous closeness and remoteness has been obscured. In an extended study of marginal men, Park's student Everett Stoneq-uist indicated his awareness that Park's marginal man was not identical with Simmel's stranger. The stranger relationship, Simmel tells us, involves a distinctive blend of closeness and remoteness: the stranger's position within a given circle is fundamentally affected by the fact that he brings qualities into it that are derived from the outside.
