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
At the Night of Joy, Lana complains to Darlene that the only people they get in the club are undercover policemen. Lana worries that Darlene can’t recognize them and might try to sell them drinks. Darlene says that she can’t see who’s who because the bar is so dark, and Lana tells Darlene not to tell Jones about all the policemen because she knows how black people feel about the police. Lana says she is trying to help Jones and keep him off the streets, so she doesn’t want him to quit.
Darlene is a good-hearted person who takes people at face value. She does not judge people on appearances and does not suspect that people pretend to be what they are not, because she would not do this herself. Lana, on the other hand, pretends that she cares about Jones’s welfare, but is only thinking about herself. She knows that she exploits Jones and does not want him to try and get revenge by tipping off the police about her criminal activity, which is especially deplorable because she also disguises her illicit scheme under the façade of charity.
Themes
Jones passes by with his mop, and Darlene says to Lana that all the other nightclubs have shown that involve animals. Darlene thinks the Night of Joy should get an animal, too, and suggests that they use her cockatoo; she has taught the bird a dance routine. Lana is reluctant and snaps at Darlene that she is not the manager. George enters and Jones jokes that he is not an orphan. Lana dismisses George and says she has nothing for him today. After he is gone, Darlene warns Lana that George does not look like a real orphan.
Lana is dictatorial in the way she runs her club: the staff are not free to give her input or to make creative suggestions. Jones wishes to intimidate Lana because she forces him to work at the club for very low pay and threatens to call the police if he quits—a threat which genuinely has weight because Jones is black and will be subject to racist vagrancy laws if he is unemployed. Jones wants Lana to feel that he could incriminate her, too, for her criminal behavior, because this gives Jones a degree of power in the relationship.
Themes
Lana follows George outside and tells him that they can’t exchange packages in the bar because Jones is watching. Lana thinks that Jones suspects something. George tells Lana to fire Jones, but Lana says that she can pay him hardly anything because he thinks she can turn him into the police. Lana tells George that he will have to collect the stuff earlier, while Jones is at lunch, and George complains that he will have to carry it around all afternoon because he can’t deliver it until 3:00. Lana tells George to leave it at the bus station and says she will see him the next day. Back inside, Darlene pleads with Lana to give her bird routine a chance. Finally, Lana agrees and says that Darlene and the cockatoo can have an audition.
Lana currently has power over Jones: she can have him arrested if he quits because it is illegal to be unemployed. As Jones is black, the police will look for an excuse to arrest him because the American South had a history of racism and segregation, and the laws are applied more harshly to black people than white people. However, Lana recognizes that Jones is not stupid despite society’s perception of him, and that he will take revenge on her if he can find anything incriminating at the club. Lana does not care what might happen to George if he is caught and only thinks about herself.
Themes
