A Confederacy of Dunces draws largely upon medieval culture and philosophy. In particular, the novel focuses on Ignatius J. Reilly’s interest in the medieval philosopher Boethius, who wrote The Consolation of Philosophy. Ignatius feels deeply connected to Boethius: in his lifetime, Boethius was imprisoned by the Ostrogoths, who were widely believed to be a barbarous people compared to the civilized Romans, and Ignatius feels that he, too, is surrounded by barbarians. A scholar of medievalism, Ignatius has absorbed his academic work so thoroughly that he allows it to rule his life, and builds his own personal philosophy around Boethius’s ideas—like the idea that fate is determined by a wheel of destiny manned by the goddess Fortuna or his belief in the divine right of kings. Ignatius’s life takes on farcical dimensions when his old-fashioned ideas clash with the modern world, which generally holds that people as responsible for their own actions and views democracy as a favorable system of government. However, although Ignatius’s worldview may seem strange, Ignatius feels that he and Boethius are sane while, really, it is modern society which is confused.
Ignatius’s belief that he cannot control his own destiny means that his life feels out of control and he does not learn from mistakes or from the consequences of his actions. Boethius believed that the goddess Fortuna controls a wheel of destiny, which affects the fate of each individual, as well as the fate of society, and that this wheel can spin either up or down, bringing either good or bad fortune. This was a common belief in medieval culture, and individuals were believed to have their own place on the wheel of fate. Ignatius believes that he, too, relies on fortune’s influence and that he must succumb to Fortuna’s fickle whims. Ignatius uses this medieval belief to avoid responsibility for his actions. He feels that he is not in control of his life and, therefore, he does not see a cause-and-effect relationship between his actions and their consequences. While Ignatius works at Levy Pants, a textile factory, he writes a rude letter to a client named Mr. Abelman and signs it from Mr. Levy, the owner of the factory, rather than with his own name. Later in the novel, Mr. Abelman tries to sue Mr. Levy, who then tracks down Ignatius to make him take responsibility for the letter. However, Ignatius does not view this as a consequence of his own actions but as a mere accident of fortune based on the random direction of the wheel. This suggests that Ignatius uses philosophy to make excuses for himself and to avoid changing his life. While he feels validated by the fact that he relates to Boethius, Ignatius often laments that he is helpless to prevent his own suffering at Fortuna’s hands. This suggests that Ignatius is, to an extent, limited by his own beliefs. The end of the novel, when Ignatius’s ex-girlfriend, Myrna, arrives to rescue Ignatius from incarceration in a mental institution (which his mother, Irene, has orchestrated) does not suggest any lasting change in Ignatius’s perspective. As Ignatius sees it, fate has once again come to his aid—and prevented him from taking responsibility for or really understanding the consequences of his actions.
Beyond his antiquated beliefs in Fortuna, Ignatius also despises the modern world and sees it as inferior to the medieval period. Throughout the novel, Ignatius occasionally works on his own philosophical diatribe, which he hopes will pave the way for future societies. This is another example of the way in which Ignatius emulates Boethius and uses The Consolation of Philosophy as a manual to determine the course of his own life. In this work, Ignatius describes the post-medieval period, when Boethius’s work fell out of fashion, as a “low” era in which Fortuna’s wheel “turned against” humanity. In comparison, Ignatius describes the medieval period, during which Boethius’s work was widely revered, as a period of “order” and “tranquility.” This suggests that Ignatius views the whole of modernity, from the medieval period onwards, as a negative, chaotic, and uncivilized time. Ignatius is extremely conservative and bristles at anything that is considered progressive. For instance, he believes that America should have a king rather than a democracy, claiming that democracy is vulgar and common because it allows ordinary people to participate in politics. As Ignatius’s conservatism is taken to farcical extremes for the purpose of parody, it’s clear that his worldview is wildly outdated and totally at odds with contemporary thought.
However, while the novel pokes fun at Ignatius’s perspective, it does not dismiss it entirely. Many of the novel’s twists are based on chance and fate. For example, it is pure chance that after Ignatius lends his copy of The Consolation of Philosophy to Patrolman Mancuso, it is stolen and used as a prop in a pornographic photograph taken by corrupt nightclub owner Lana Lee. This, in turn, leads Ignatius to the club, which helps Jones, Lana’s porter, sabotage the establishment. As the characters are not aware of how these minor decisions affect their fate, the novel suggests that humans are not fully in control of their own destinies and, to an extent, are at the whims of fate. Furthermore, Ignatius’s belief that he is a great thinker who is unappreciated in his own time cannot necessarily be proven wrong, since this has been the case with so many famous thinkers who have only come to be accepted many years after their deaths. Even Boethius died unknown and persecuted, but his philosophy determined the direction of much of western culture in the following centuries. Although Ignatius’s worldview is objectionable by modern standards, the novel suggests that what is considered popular and moral in one period may be considered repugnant in another. This, too, supports the idea that humans are at the mercy of fate—the course of history is mysterious and unfathomable, and it is impossible to predict how people in the future will interpret and emulate the past.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Medievalism, Modernity, and Fate ThemeTracker
Medievalism, Modernity, and Fate Quotes in A Confederacy of Dunces
“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.”
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
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.
