A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces

by

John Kennedy Toole

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Chapter 1, Part 1 Quotes

“Is it the part of the police department to harass me when this city is a flagrant vice capital of the civilized world?” Ignatius bellowed over the crowd in front of the store. “This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists. Antichrists, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, jades, litterbugs, and lesbians, all of whom are only too well protected by graft. If you have a moment, I shall endeavor to discuss the crime problem with you, but don’t make the mistake of bothering me.”

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly (speaker), Irene Reilly, Patrolman Mancuso
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

“In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly (speaker), Irene Reilly, Patrolman Mancuso
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 1, Part 2 Quotes

“How come you here, man?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don know? Whoa! That crazy. You gotta be here for somethin. Plenty time they pickin up color peoples for nothin, but, mister, you gotta be here for somethin.”

Related Characters: Burma Jones (speaker), Claude Robichaux (speaker), Ignatius J. Reilly, Patrolman Mancuso
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2, Part 1 Quotes

His vision of history temporarily fading, Ignatius sketched a noose at the bottom of the page. Then he drew a revolver and a little box on which he neatly printed gas chamber. He scratched the side of the pencil back and forth across the paper and labeled this APOCALYPSE.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly
Related Symbols: The Consolation of Philosophy
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

Ignatius thought smugly that on their yellowed pages and wide-ruled lines were the seeds of a magnificent study in comparative history. Very disordered, of course. But one day he would assume the task of editing these fragments of his mentality into a jigsaw puzzle of a very grand design; the completed puzzle would show literate men the disaster course that history had been taking for the past four centuries.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly
Related Symbols: The Consolation of Philosophy
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

As a medievalist Ignatius believed in the rota Fortunae, or wheel of fortune, a central concept in De Consolatione Philosophiae, the philosophical work which had laid the foundation for medieval thought. Boethius, the late Roman who had written the Consolatione while unjustly imprisoned by the emperor, had said that a blind goddess spins us on a wheel, that our luck comes in cycles. Was the ludicrous attempt to arrest him the beginning of a bad cycle? Was his wheel rapidly spinning downward? The accident was also a bad sign. Ignatius was worried. For all his philosophy, Boethius had still been tortured and killed.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly, Irene Reilly, Patrolman Mancuso
Related Symbols: The Consolation of Philosophy
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2, Part 3 Quotes

“The ironic thing about that program,” Ignatius was saying over the stove, keeping one eye peeled so that he could seize the pot as soon as the milk began to boil, “is that it is supposed to be an exemplum to the youth of our nation. I would like very much to know what the Founding Fathers would say if they could see these children being debauched to further the cause of Clearasil. However, I always suspected that democracy would come to this.” He painstakingly poured the milk into his Shirley Temple mug. “A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys itself.”

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly (speaker), Irene Reilly, Patrolman Mancuso
Related Symbols: The Consolation of Philosophy
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:

“Ignatius, what’s all this trash on the floor?”

“That is my worldview that you see. It still must be incorporated into a whole, so be careful where you step.”

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly (speaker), Irene Reilly (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Consolation of Philosophy
Page Number: 46
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3, Part 1 Quotes

“I refuse to look up. Optimism nauseates me. It is perverse. Since man’s fall, his proper position in the universe has been one of misery.”

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly (speaker), Irene Reilly, Patrolman Mancuso
Related Symbols: The Consolation of Philosophy
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3, Part 5 Quotes

For the first time in my life I have met the system face-to-face, fully determined to function within its context as an observer and critic in disguise, so to speak.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly (speaker), Irene Reilly
Page Number: 74
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4, Part 1 Quotes

If Levy Pants was to succeed, the first step would be imposing a heavy hand upon its detractors. Levy Pants must become more militant and authoritarian in order to survive in the jungle of modem commercialism.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly, Mr. Levy, Mr. Abelman
Related Symbols: The Consolation of Philosophy
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4, Part 4 Quotes

At last he closed the looseleaf folder and contemplated a reply to Myrna, a slashing, vicious attack upon her being and worldview. It would be better to wait until he had visited the factory and seen what possibilities for social action there were there. Such boldness had to be handled properly; he might be able to do something with the factory workers which would make Myrna look like a reactionary in the field of social action. He had to prove his superiority to the offensive minx.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly, Myrna Minkoff
Page Number: 101
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5, Part 1 Quotes

“Now look here, Darlene, don’t tell that Jones we suddenly got the whole force in here at night. You know how colored people feel about cops. He might get scared and quit. I mean, I’m trying to help the boy out and keep him off the streets.”

Related Characters: Lana Lee (speaker), Burma Jones, Darlene
Related Symbols: The Night of Joy
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5, Part 4 Quotes

The original sweatshop has been preserved for posterity at Levy Pants. If only the Smithsonian Institution, that grab bag of our nation’s refuse, could somehow vacuum-seal the Levy Pants factory and transport it to the capital of the United States of America, each worker frozen in an attitude of labor, the visitors to that questionable museum would defecate into their garish tourist outfits. It is a scene which combines the worst of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis; it is mechanized Negro slavery; it represents the progress which the Negro has made from picking cotton to tailoring it.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly (speaker), Myrna Minkoff, Mr. Levy, Mr. Gonzalez
Page Number: 118-119
Explanation and Analysis:

In a sense, I have always felt something of a kinship with the colored race because its position is the same as mine; we both exist outside the inner realm of American society. Of course, my exile is voluntary. However, it is apparent that many of the Negroes wish to become active members of the American middle class. I cannot imagine why. I must admit that this desire on their part leads me to question their value judgments.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly (speaker), Myrna Minkoff, Mr. Levy, Mr. Gonzalez
Page Number: 122
Explanation and Analysis:

I must admit that I always suspected Myrna of being interested in me sensually; my stringent attitude toward sex intrigued her; in a sense, I became another project of sorts, I did, however, succeed in thwarting her every attempt to assail the castle of my body and mind.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly (speaker), Myrna Minkoff
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:

The subsidiary theme in the correspondence is one urging me to come to Manhattan so that she and I may raise our banner of twin confusion in that center of mechanized horrors […] Someday the authorities of our society will no doubt apprehend her for simply being herself. Incarceration will finally make her life meaningful and end her frustration.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly (speaker), Myrna Minkoff
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6, Part 1 Quotes

“I’m workin in modern slavery. If I quit, I get report for bein vagran. If I stay. I’m gainfully employ on a salary ain even startin to be a minimal wage.”

Related Characters: Burma Jones (speaker), Lana Lee, Mr. Watson
Related Symbols: The Night of Joy
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7, Part 1 Quotes

She described to Ignatius the courage of Patrolman Mancuso, who, against heavy odds, was fighting to retain his job, who wanted to work, who was making the best of his torture and exile in the bathroom at the bus station. Patrolman Mancuso’s situation reminded Ignatius of the situation of Boethius when he was imprisoned by the emperor before being killed.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly, Irene Reilly, Patrolman Mancuso
Related Symbols: The Consolation of Philosophy
Page Number: 160
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9, Part 2 Quotes

“I know this business. Stripping’s an insult to a woman. The kinda creeps come in here don’t wanna see a tramp get insulted […] Anybody can insult a tramp. These jerks wanna see a sweet, clean virgin get insulted and stripped. You gotta use your head for Chrissake, Darlene. You gotta be pure. I want you to be like a nice, refined girl who’s surprised when the bird starts grabbing at your clothes.”

Related Characters: Lana Lee (speaker), Darlene
Related Symbols: The Night of Joy
Page Number: 220-221
Explanation and Analysis:

Like a note in a bottle, the address might bring some reply, perhaps from a legitimate and professional saboteur. An address on a package wrapped in plain brown paper was as damaging as a fingerprint on a gun, Jones thought. It was something that shouldn’t be there.

Related Characters: Lana Lee, Burma Jones, Darlene, George
Related Symbols: The Night of Joy
Page Number: 224
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9, Part 4 Quotes

Some musk which my system generates must be especially appealing to the authorities of the government. Who else would be accosted by a policeman while innocently awaiting his mother before a department store? Who else would be spied upon and reported for picking a helpless stray of a kitten from a gutter? Like a bitch in heat, I seem to attract a coterie of policemen and sanitation officials. The world will someday get me on some ludicrous pretext; I simply await the day that they drag me to some air-conditioned dungeon and leave me there beneath the fluorescent lights and soundproofed ceiling to pay the price for scorning all that they hold dear within their little latex hearts.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly (speaker), Burma Jones
Related Symbols: The Consolation of Philosophy
Page Number: 230
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10, Part 2 Quotes

“Color peoples cain fin no job, but they sure can fin a openin in jail. Coin in jail the bes way you get you somethin to eat regular. But I rather starve outside. I rather mop a whore floor than go to jail and be makin plenny license plate and rug and leather belt and shit. I jus was stupor enough to get my ass snatch up in a trap at that Night of Joy. I gotta figure this thing out myself.”

Related Characters: Burma Jones (speaker), Lana Lee, Mr. Watson
Related Symbols: The Night of Joy
Page Number: 240
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10, Part 3 Quotes

“That’s what’s so wonderful about New Orleans. You can masquerade and Mardi Gras all year round if you want to. Really, sometimes the Quarter is like one big costume ball. Sometimes I can’t tell friend from foe.”

Related Characters: Dorian Greene (speaker), Ignatius J. Reilly, Patrolman Mancuso
Page Number: 256
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11, Part 2 Quotes

When we have at last overthrown all existing governments, the world will enjoy not war, but global orgies conducted with the utmost protocol and the most truly international spirit, for these people do transcend simple national differences. Their minds are on one goal; they are truly united; they think as one.

Related Characters: Ignatius J. Reilly (speaker), Dorian Greene
Page Number: 269
Explanation and Analysis:
No matches.