Consumer behavior often becomes a form of communication. When this occurs, the mere act of consumption is eclipsed by consumption as symbol. For example, the mere act of owning a watch may be eclipsed by the symbolism of owning a Rolex watch. Morris Holbrook takes this thinking a step further in his (1996, p. 142) review of Nancy Barr's Mrs. Cage, in which he contends that the play "makes a case for the centrality of consumption as the essence of the human condition." He goes on to argue that consumer behavior "is the fundamental stuff of everyday lived experience" (p. 142). He concludes that the play's central message is that "sometimes the consumption is the communication" (p. 142). His analysis of the main character Mrs. Cage, a woman who goes shopping every day, justifies this rather startling view. OK, perhaps "sometimes the consumption is the communication." But why? Why is symbolic consumer behavior so important? How does it relate to basic human motives? How do individual differences affect how symbolic consumer behaviors are used? These are important questions for marketing, and Barr's play affords a powerful lens through which to examine them. By placing symbolic consumer behavior in the deeper psychological context of selfpresentation (as explained by socioanalytic theory), this reanalysis of Mrs. Cage casts fresh light on the place of consumption in people's lives. In this review, we use socioanalytic theory to link symbolic consumer behavior to self-presentation and show that self-presentation is fundamental to human nature. We illustrate individual differences in self-presentation styles using the main characters in the play. Thus, Mrs. Cage is used as our lens for better understanding symbolic consumer behavior.