This article proposes the notion of “rite of everyday life” by linking Goffman’s analyses on “the presentation of self in everyday life” to his reflection, inspired by Durkheim, on “rites of interaction”. After recalling the Durkheimian analysis of ritual, we show how Mead’s pragmatism allows Goffman to refuse some postulates of Durkheim’s sociology. We then show that the reference to theatrical mise-en-scène allows Goffman to detach himself from Mead’s normativism, and to propose an analysis of selves that goes back to the heart of Durkheim’s thought, that which will be at the center of Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism and takes its roots in a reflection on law. The conclusion proposes a new comparison between Goffman and Foucault starting from the domain of biopolitics.