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
The next day, an urgent letter arrives from Myrna. She is amazed that Ignatius plans to bring homosexuality into politics and thinks this is a very unhealthy expression of his sexuality. She wonders what has happened to the “divine right” party they had planned and begs him to write to her. Ignatius is delighted. He tells Irene that Myrna wants to kill herself because of him, and Irene says that this is terrible. Ignatius explains that he has become involved in politics and Irene suspiciously asks if he is a communist.
Although Myrna claims to be progressive, she does not view homosexuality as a healthy expression of desire. This suggests that Myrna is a hypocrite and that, because her progressivism gives her a superiority complex, she sets herself up to fail because society will inevitably change and render her ideas outdated.
Themes
Ignatius ignores Irene and she worriedly suggests that he might like to go to the mental institution for a rest. Ignatius tells her that he is perfectly fine, and that the modern world imprisons anyone who does not fit in. Irene says that this is not true, and that psychiatry really helps some people. Ignatius scoffs and says that those who are locked up in hospitals are the martyrs of the modern age. He asks his mother for money; he plans to leave the hot dog wagon with George and go to the cinema again.
Ignatius does not believe in modern medicine and feels that the medieval period, before the discovery of modern scientific methods, was a far superior time to live. Although many of his beliefs seem strange, he is right when he says that society locks up those who do not fit in. For example, Irene does not really believe Ignatius is insane but dislikes his unconventional behavior and is encouraged by her friend Santa, who is very bossy and wants everyone to fall in line with her idea of what is right and respectable.
Themes
Ignatius puts on his pirate costume and makes to leave the house. When Irene sees what he is wearing she loses her temper (she cannot believe Ignatius goes out in public like that) and tells him he cannot wear it. Ignatius dashes from the house, pursued by Irene, and escapes in a taxi. He orders the taxi driver to take him to Dorian Greene’s house and directs him with his cutlass.
Irene is very concerned about what people think of her and how she looks to the neighbors. She feels that Ignatius’s costume is visual proof that he is mad and that this will disgrace her.
Themes
Dorian Greene’s house is a beautiful apartment building in the French Quarter. Ignatius rings the bell and Dorian answers, and asks where Ignatius has been. Ignatius is dismayed to see that Dorian is drunk and hopes the party has not lost its political purpose. Dorian says that several people “will be ruined” after the gathering and Ignatius tells Dorian that his house is horribly “flamboyant.” Dorian sighs and says that his family from the Midwest pay for him to live there.
Dorian is associated with beauty and appearance—something Ignatius views as shallow and frivolous. Dorian feels “people will be ruined” by the party because the gathering is fancy dress and Dorian knows that people shed their inhibitions while in costume and will behave in ways that they would be ashamed of in their everyday life.
Themes
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As they reach the door of the apartment, Ignatius hears noise from the party and fears it has grown out of hand. Ignatius hopes the gathering has not been infiltrated by opposing political forces. As they enter, they hear screams from the “slave quarters” out on the deck. Ignatius rams the glass paneled doors with one shoulder and discovers that Timmy has been chained up inside. Dorian stares in horror at the shattered door.
New Orleans has a history of slavery and was home to many plantations owned by white families who used black slaves to work their land. The legacy of slavery is reflected in the presence of the “slave quarters” (a cabin outside where a slave could live) in this historical building.
Themes
Ignatius demands to know who chained Timmy. Timmy replies that it was a prank. Dorian snaps at Timmy that it is his fault that the door is broken, and Timmy wails to be released. Ignatius watches Timmy and Dorian argue and feels that their political cause is going rather off track. Timmy is drunk and cries out to be punished. Ignatius confusedly hits him with his cutlass and Dorian sets him free.
Timmy’s literal bondage reflects the many different types of incarceration which take place throughout the novel and represent a small-scale, carnivalesque version of the struggle undertaken by many of the characters to retain their freedom is a restrictive society, which, although it claims to be free, persecutes those who do not fit in.
Themes
They enter the party and Ignatius is unnerved to see a huge crowd of fashionable men waving cocktail glasses and cigarettes, talking loudly over a record playing Judy Garland. In the center of the room, a man teaches guests how to use Judo holds. Ignatius sneers at the décor and Dorian tells him that he talks too much. He takes Ignatius to the kitchen to meet the “ladies auxiliary.”
Ignatius is homophobic and is uncomfortable in a group of gay men because their behavior at the party reinforces many of his stereotypical ideas about gay people. Ignatius is uncomfortable with human contact in general, and dislikes the gathering because it is emotionally expressive and filled with people who touch and show affection for each other. This suggests that, although Ignatius pretends that he is above the need for human contact, he secretly desires it but is uncomfortable with this desire because he associates it with weakness and vulgarity.
Themes
In the kitchen, three burly women are seated at the table drinking beer. Dorian introduces them to Ignatius as Liz, Betty, and Frieda. The ladies greet Ignatius roughly—one of them nearly breaks his hand with her handshake—and offer him a beer. Ignatius declines and the ladies begin to argue among themselves. This argument soon descends into a brawl and Dorian screams at the ladies to stop. Ignatius comments on their crude behavior and one of them throws a beer can at him.
Dorian’s party is associated with Carnival and role reversal. Carnival in the medieval period, which Ignatius studies, was believed to a time in which the normal order of life is reversed. New Orleans is also associated with Carnival because it is the home of Mardi Gras. At Dorian’s party, men act in a stereotypical feminine way, while the women are stereotypically masculine, and this suggests that the party is a free space in which conventional norms do not apply.
Themes
Dorian and Ignatius hurry out of the kitchen and Ignatius asks why Dorian invited these people to his party—he worries they will sow seeds of descent among the others. Dorian says that he had to invite them, because otherwise they just break in anyway. The ladies have recently been in trouble with the police and are annoyed about it. Dorian and Ignatius return to the living room and Ignatius looks around in disgust. He complains that the party is an orgy of hedonism and that they must return to their true political purpose.
Ignatius has an extremely reductive view of gay people: he believes they all think the same and, therefore, will all be swayed by his argument. He worries the women will sew descent because they are not gay men and, therefore, may react differently. This suggests that Ignatius dehumanizes gay people—rather than view them as autonomous individuals, he views them as an inferior group that he can use for his own self-interested ends, just as he did the black workers at the Levy Pants riot.
Themes
Dorian seems bored by Ignatius’s talk of politics and thinks the party is going well. Ignatius demands that Dorian turn off the record player so that he can make his speech and Dorian wearily agrees. A great outcry occurs when the music stops, and Ignatius tries to grab the attention of the crowd. He makes a plea for world peace, but the guests are disgusted by him and cannot understand why Dorian would invite someone so “unattractive” and “depressing.” Dorian puts the music back on and Ignatius is left alone and ignored.
Ignatius wrongly believes that gay people are inferior and that they will be easily convinced by his superior intellectual ideas. Dorian immediately upsets this idea and has an autonomous reaction to Ignatius’s politics: he finds them boring. Ignatius’s plan is clearly based in his desire to gain political control and impose his own order on society, not to help society, as he claims. Although Ignatius feels that gay people are naturally more peaceful than other groups, the gay men at Dorian’s party are just as capable of cruelty as anyone else, and end up rejecting Ignatius based on his appearance and demeanor just as he prejudged them.
Themes
The guests begin to dance, and Ignatius is reminded of a day at school when his chemistry experiment exploded in class. He was startled and wet his pants, and everybody in the class ignored him for the rest of the day. Now, in the middle of the party, Ignatius pretends to fight an invisible person with his cutlass to hide his embarrassment.
Ignatius is shut out from physical affection and human connection, which is represented by the dancing guests. This has been a theme throughout Ignatius’s life and suggests that his strange worldview may be a defensive reaction to a lifetime of alienation, which he has not always brought on himself but has been foisted on him because he has always been different and unable to fit in.
Themes
Betty, Frieda, and Liz leave the kitchen and join Ignatius is the corner of the room. They tease Ignatius and assure him that someone will ask him to dance. Ignatius is insulted and says that he never dances. Timmy wanders in from outside and asks Ignatius to waltz with him. Ignatius refuses, and Betty, Frieda, and Liz attack Ignatius for causing trouble. The brawl throws Ignatius onto the dancefloor and he knocks over a man dressed as a cowboy, who has been dancing with Dorian.
Ignatius claims to dislike human contact and is homophobic. Therefore, he refuses to join the group and is attacked as a result of his failure to conform. This suggests that, even if Ignatius secretly wants to join in, these desires are repressed under a veneer of superiority because Ignatius fears rejection.
Themes
The crash, as Ignatius and the cowboy tumble to the floor, causes the music to stop. The guests recoil in horror and scream for Ignatius to be removed from the party. Dorian hisses at Ignatius that he has ruined everything. Betty, Frieda, and Liz throw him out onto the sidewalk. Furious, Ignatius shouts that their political movement is doomed. Another attempt to foil Myrna has failed.
Ignatius is presented as a disruptive force in society because he causes chaos wherever he goes. He is expelled from the party for this and this represents his interactions with society in general. The party also supports the idea that societies—or even small groups of like-minded people—generally expel those who do not fit in or conform.
Themes
Ignatius looks at his watch and realizes that it is still early. He does not want to go home to his mother and decides, instead, to go to the Night of Joy and watch Harlett O’Hara’s opening night. He hopes that news of this will sufficiently upset Myrna and sets off towards the club. Ignatius does not notice that he is being followed by a man in a silk suit.
Although Ignatius claims to despise Myrna, he spends most of the novel trying to find ways to get her attention and to annoy her. In this scene, he seems to want to make Myrna jealous, which suggests that Ignatius may be more attracted to Myrna than he is willing to admit.
Themes
Outside the Night of Joy, Ignatius finds Jones dressed up like a plantation slave. Jones tells Ignatius that there is table waiting for him and that Lana Lee is away on business. Jones asks Ignatius why he is still dressed like a pirate, and hurries Ignatius inside. Ignatius stumbles through the dark club to a table by the stage and sits down. He plans to sit close so that he can give Miss O’Hara a sign, or whisper to her about Boethius.
Lana, who employs Jones and pays him less than minimum wage because he is black, thinks of him as her slave and has literally dressed him as one for the opening night. This suggests that Lana is totally insensitive to the way that she exploits Jones and to the insulting message she sends by making him dress as a slave in a city that has a long history of slavery, and in which Jones’s ancestors were probably slaves. Ignatius thinks that Harlett O’Hara is a fellow medieval scholar because he has seen her with a copy of his favorite book, The Consolation of Philosophy. This suggests that Ignatius is keen to find someone who relates to his worldview despite generally shuns human connection.
Themes
Ignatius tries to signal to the bartender for a drink, but the bartender ignores him. Instead, a Latin woman approaches Ignatius and he orders a Dr. Nut. The woman goes back to the bar and returns with a bottle of champagne. She says they have no Dr. Nut and that Ignatius must pay for the champagne. Ignatius refuses and tries to pull away from the woman, who has bad breath. Lana Lee appears onstage and Ignatius realizes that Jones has tricked him.
Lana exploits all her staff, not just Jones, at the Night of Joy. This exploitation is evident when the bartender tries to trick Ignatius into buying champagne. The bar girls at the club are paid on commission, based on how many drinks they sell, and this incentivizes them to trick customers so that they can make more money.
Themes
Darlene makes her entrance with the cockatoo. Ignatius is horrified to discover that this is Harlett O’Hara. Her dress is covered in hoops for the bird to pull. The bird, however, notices Ignatius’s earring, swoops down on him, and fastens its beak to his ear. Ignatius flails around, trying to get the bird off, and knocks over several tables. Lana Lee begins to shriek as Ignatius destroys her club and tumbles out into the street. He lurches past Jones and almost faints into the street, where a bus is approaching. Jones seizes him by the collar, however, and tugs him back. Ignatius falls unconscious on the sidewalk.
Ignatius believes that Harlett O’Hara is a fellow intellectual who shares his interest in the medieval period, and is disappointed when he sees Darlene, who he has met before and who he thinks of as intellectually inferior. Darlene also represents sexuality throughout the novel and Ignatius is disgusted by the open portrayal of sex. Darlene, therefore, is the opposite of what Ignatius hoped for. Ironically, this also mirrors the ruse that Lana has made Darlene adopt for the act, to hide the sexual content of the original performance, and suggests that other people in the club are like Ignatius: they believe that sex is impure, but want to enjoy it without feeling impure themselves, and so hope to see a pure woman perform sexually—something which is logically impossible. Jones proves himself to be the real hero of the novel here, as he saves Ignatius purely for the sake of doing a good deed and with no benefit to himself.
Themes
Lana and Darlene rush out of the club. A crowd has gathered around Ignatius and the man in the silk suit drives them back and checks if Ignatius is breathing. The cockatoo returns to Darlene’s arm with Ignatius’s earring in its beak. Jones looks at the man in the silk suit and thinks he looks familiar. Lana fires Jones, Darlene, and the Latin woman, who still insists Ignatius needs to pay for the champagne.
Lana does not take responsibility for her dreadful treatment of the staff—especially Jones, whom she has exploited because he is black. Her shock and anger in the midst of this chaos suggests that, although one may not acknowledge it, there are consequences to one’s actions.
Themes
The man in the silk suit approaches Lana and asks to use her phone to call for an ambulance. Lana thinks the man looks soft and decides to try and make some money. She pulls out a pornographic photo and offers it to the man. The man tells Lana she is under arrest—it is Patrolman Mancuso in disguise. Just as this happens, Betty, Frieda, and Liz appear among the crowd.
Lana tries to use the situation to her own advantage because she is mercenary and always thinks about how to get ahead. However, in this case, her behavior backfires, and Lana is ultimately punished for her consistently selfish and hypocritical actions. Patrolman Mancuso finally wins out and his hard work to adapt to his disguises is rewarded. He has temporarily managed to blend in and lose himself despite his conspicuous costume.
Themes
