Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Confederacy of Dunces, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Medievalism, Modernity, and Fate
The Legacy of Slavery
Sexuality, Attraction, and Repulsion
Freedom
Appearance, Identity, and Disguise
Hypocrisy and Self-Interest
Summary
Analysis
George struggles to find somewhere to store his packages from Lana in the afternoons. He can no longer leave them at the bus station and hiding out in the cinema makes him nervous. He sits in a church for a few hours, but all the time he has the packages on him, he worries that they will break open in the street and that he will be arrested. He sees Patrolman Mancuso skulking around and is amazed that the police always seem to know where he is.
George has a guilty conscience because he is involved in criminal activity, but feels that he is unjustly persecuted by the police. He does not realize that his run-in with Patrolman Mancuso in the bus station bathroom was simply the result of chance and, instead, believes that Mancuso is onto him. Unlike many of the other characters in the novel, George does not resign himself to a predetermined destiny—rather, is fully aware that his actions have real consequences.
Themes
George darts down Pirate’s Alley to avoid Patrolman Mancuso and sees Ignatius’s fight with Dorian Greene. George thinks Ignatius is crazy and wonders why he is dressed as a pirate. George gets on a bus and rides around for a while. The bus passes the Night of Joy and George sees Jones and Lana Lee arguing outside. Jones flicks a cigarette at Lana, which narrowly misses her, and George thinks that he and his friends should go out and throw some eggs in a black neighborhood. As he rides the bus, he suddenly has an epiphany: he should store the packages in Ignatius’s hot dog cart.
From George’s perspective, Ignatius and Dorian’s fight has an absurd, pantomime-like quality, although to the individuals involved it makes perfect sense. This suggests that things cannot necessarily by judged from a distance and ties into Ignatius’s very literal belief that much of life is the result of blind fate.
Themes
