The Night of Joy is a strip club which represents Ignatius’s idea of modern vice and impurity throughout the novel. Ignatius views the modern world as inherently corrupt and overly focused on sex. The strip club, which is associated with criminal activity such as gambling and pornography (both prohibited in New Orleans in the 1960s, when the novel is set) is a literal place in which all the things Ignatius despises about the modern world come together. It is significant that shortly after the reader is first introduced to Ignatius, he and his mother, Irene, flee from the police and escape into the Night of Joy to hide from them. This Night of Joy comes to symbolize Ignatius’s clash with modernity and represents his reluctant descent into modern life, as Irene gets drunk at the club and crashes their car as they leave, which sets off a chain of events in which Ignatius must go out into the world and look for a job to pay the fine for the crash.
The Night of Joy is also the place where the disastrous conclusion of Ignatius’s escapades takes place, and the club symbolically both opens and closes the narrative, which mainly revolves around Ignatius’s conclusion to successfully find work and become a respectable citizen in New Orleans. As the strip club is a place where performances take place, it is also connected to the theme of appearance, identity, and disguise throughout the novel and suggests that, with his entry in the Night of Joy, Ignatius enters a temporarily altered state, where the normal order of things is reversed—indeed, Ignatius’s life is turned upside down by the aftermath of his evening in the Night of Joy.
The Night of Joy Quotes in A Confederacy of Dunces
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
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.
“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.”
The Night of Joy Symbol Timeline in A Confederacy of Dunces
