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 Lee goes out on an errand and leaves Jones to mop the floor. Before she leaves, Lana warns him to stay away from the cash register and the cabinet underneath it. When Lana has gone, Jones sits down to read the copy of Life magazine that Darlene has given him. Lana returns and yells at Jones. The floor is still dirty, she says. Jones has left streaks of dirt all over the place. Jones knows this—he plans to ruin Lana’s business.
Lana demonstrates her racist worldview, as she believes that Jones is likely to steal from her while she is out merely because he’s black. Lana’s attitude embodies more widespread racist attitudes in places like the American South, which have a history of slavery and racial prejudice. Jones knows that he cannot quit his job (Lana will have him arrested for vagrancy if he tries) so he does his best to ruin Lana’s business and regain some power in the limited ways available to him.
Themes
Jones tells Lana that when she pays him properly, he will clean properly. It is not easy, he says, living on less than minimum wage. After all, he’s got to feed himself. He asks Lana why she doesn’t give him some of the money for the orphans now that George no longer visits. Lana ignores Jones and puts the receipt for the chalk into her ledger. She has a globe, too, and now only needs a book to complete the little collection. She will get George to bring her one.
Lana knows that she can exploit Jones and pay him as little as she likes because, if Jones tries to quit, she will have him arrested for vagrancy. Lana has all the power in this relationship because she knows that the authorities will side with her, as a white woman, against Jones, and therefore Jones cannot protect himself.
Themes
Lana feels that her luck has changed for the better. The undercover policemen have stopped coming into the bar, which means she can rehire Darlene as a bargirl and cancel her performance with the bird, which will be more expensive for Lana to pay for than having Darlene work on commission.
Lana wants to exploit Darlene and pay her as little as possible, and it costs Lana more to pay Darlene as an exotic dancer than to have her work on commission. Lana’s attitude toward luck suggests that Ignatius is not the only character who believes human life is largely a product of luck and chance. Although Ignatius believes this literally and to the extreme, other characters in the novel also subscribe to this general way of thinking, suggesting that this worldview may not be as incompatible with modernity as Ignatius likes to assume.
Themes
Darlene enters the bar, carrying her cockatoo with her in its cage. She pulls the cover off the cage and reveals the huge, scruffy bird. Lana tells Darlene that her bird act is cancelled, and Darlene pleads with Lana to give her a chance. She has trained the bird to tear her clothes off during her dance. Lana says that it’s not safe to have a big bird in a club. Darlene counters that if Lana will not let her perform, she will tell the police about the “you know what’s.”
Lana pretends that she wants to cancel the bird act for the safety of Darlene and her customers. This disguises Lana’s true intentions, which are mercenary motivated by profit. Darlene clearly knows that Lana’s supposed charitable donations to the orphans are a front for criminal activity and tries to blackmail Lana to remind her that her freedom may be in jeopardy.
Themes
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Jones senses an opportunity for sabotage and joins in. He tells Lana that she must give Darlene’s act a chance. He tells Lana that there is another club in town that has an eagle and Darlene joins in and begs Lana to let them try. Eventually, Lana agrees.
Jones wants to sabotage Lana because Lana essentially keeps him prisoner. Although he is an employee and not a slave, Jones cannot quit his job without being arrested. This suggests that, although slavery has long been abolished in the South, institutional racism means that black people are often in similar circumstances to their slave ancestors. They, too, are forced to work for virtually nothing and will be imprisoned under discriminatory vagrancy laws if they are not productive.
Themes
