106 pages • 3 hours read
John Kennedy TooleA Confederacy of Dunces
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1980A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Capitalism and Consumerism
The novel contains many damning indictments of America’s economic system. There are the explicit criticisms, often voiced by Ignatius or Jones, and there are the more subtle portrayals, many of which form part of the mise-en-scène of day-to-day life in New Orleans.
The plot begins in the shadow of one of the city’s cathedrals of consumerism. The department store, D. H. Holmes, is a local institution, a store designed to sell everything to everyone. Right in the center stands Ignatius J. Reilly, who is scrutinizing the shoppers and searching for anything to confirm his contempt for each and every one of them. He condemns their taste, driven to anger by the poor choices he believes they have made. He believes each item purchased is an expression of their innate character, and it reflects poorly upon them to have made such poor choices. Ignatius himself laments any kind of fashionable, modern, or socially desirable item. Ignatius views himself as being dressed “comfortably and sensibly” (6), though the number of eyes that turn to look at him would suggest otherwise. His dress sense is ludicrous and unique, a far cry from the outfits draped on the store’s mannequins and an expression of his flamboyant character. The novel’s introduction establishes Ignatius as being separate from consumerist practices and critical of their existence, though not necessarily as separate as he might like to believe.
At home, the Reillys live in relative poverty. While the neighborhood has grown up around them, their home has remained ramshackle and impoverished. There is a dog buried in the front yard, plus a number of aesthetically unpleasing decorations. Despite this, they own the hallmark of American consumerism: the household television. Ignatius spends many hours staring at the screen, shouting his dissatisfaction with the images presented to him though never turning away. The television was the vehicle through which the advertising industry of the 1960s took flight. Though he may loathe consumerism, Ignatius continues to bask in its presence. As with his continued attendance at the cinema (where he watches movies that he hates), he willfully engages with a culture that he believes is beneath him.
The homes of other characters are similarly infected with consumerism. Dorian Greene, for example, gives Ignatius a tour of his home and brags about it being featured in magazines. These same magazines are then given to Jones by Darlene, and Jones covets the images inside, hoping to change his economic circumstances to be able to afford a home such as Dorian’s. Due to the contemporary economic system, however, Jones is disenfranchised and marginalized. It is unlikely that he will ever be able to afford anything he sees in the magazines, as the color of his skin limits the opportunities available to him.
While Jones’s situation is echoed by several other African American characters, his only white ally seems to be Ignatius. In the Levy Pants factory and in his conversations with Jones, Ignatius offers support to marginalized workers and—though he may be ideologically misguided—he does seem to possess a genuine desire to affect change in the lives of those he feels are less fortunate. Ignatius recognizes that there are flaws in the prevailing economic system, even if the flaws in his character prevent him from making any significant changes to the capitalist and consumerist world around him.
Society and the Outsider
One of the novel’s defining themes is Ignatius’s outsider status. Though Ignatius is an educated man (he takes pride in his master’s degree), he still believes that he is apart from society. He feels that he has been “forced to exist on the fringes of its society” (106), though he later admits that this is voluntary. He appoints himself as an observer of society, and he’s introduced to the audience doing exactly that: scrutinizing shoppers for any minor flaws so that he can write about them later in the day. This detachment is partly due to his education, which separates him from many working-class people, and partly due to his belief that he was born in the wrong century and that humanity has been on a steady decline for centuries. He hates modernity (whether in literature, music, or art) and reverse authoritarianism (whether the papacy or a monarchy). Much of this disillusionment builds toward the political party he invents, the Divine Rights, which argues for drastic societal changes based on his outsider status.
But Ignatius’s outsider status is not just ideological. Many of his lifestyle choices leave him unsuited to most social gatherings. Whether it is the gaseous nature of his valve, his constant disparaging remarks, or his total aversion to any kind of labor, Ignatius is not suited to engagement with most elements of society. This is why he finds it difficult to make friends and find (and hold) a job. When attempting to integrate into society, Ignatius finds a way to remove himself from the situation and return to his status as the perpetual outsider. This commitment to being disengaged from society reaches back to his student days, as Dr. Talc (his professor at the time) is still scarred by being forced to interact with Ignatius on a daily basis.
But Ignatius is not the novel’s only outsider. Myrna experiences many of the same problems, though she constantly tries to find friends and fellow believers in her various causes. Almost always, those people whom she describes to Ignatius turn out to be charlatans or liars, or they possess some other flaw that makes them suitable for her companionship, and Myrna is once again forced to the fringes of society. The novel culminates in a moment when Myrna and Ignatius are united. Both driven to the edges of society, the two outsiders find comfort in one another. Though their relationship has always been combustible, they recognize in one another a similar disenfranchisement that causes them to seek each other’s help. They write to each other, even when they disagree. Ignatius may well be a man out of time and a perpetual outsider, but Myrna is the closest thing he has to a friend. They are not united by their common interests but by their common enemies.
Fate
Ignatius blames many external forces for his continued failures. But one of the most abstract and common of his complaints is about the notion of fate. He references fate, fortune, and luck on many occasions. This stems partly from his decidedly medieval ideology and partly from his desire to blame anyone but himself for his constant lack of success. One of the most frequent of his laments is against Fortuna, the goddess of fate. Ignatius believes Fortuna and her wheel control the course of his life. When things are going well, he thanks Fortuna. When things are going badly, he curses the goddess’s existence. This provides him with a nice, easy excuse for his failures and—in the rare event that he succeeds—allows him to indulge his strangest beliefs. By attributing everything to fate, Ignatius divorces himself from responsibility.
This provides a degree of comfort that is essential to Ignatius’s lack of effort. Due to his idleness, he lacks the desire to do anything remotely constructive. But if fate is responsible for everything (good and bad), then his laziness is not an issue and he can sit around and watch television to his heart’s content. This position is totally at odds with the contemporary working world. It is the reason Ignatius is unable to find a job. When he states that employers fear his views, he is right, but for the wrong reasons; he believes himself a formidable thinker who will force them to reevaluate their lives, while in truth he is simply a lazy person who causes more trouble than he is worth due to his laziness.
But that is not to say that a strong work ethic guarantees success. Mancuso is at the opposite end of the spectrum; he works very hard and is desperate to please his boss. He is the embodiment of everything Ignatius is not. He is slim, hardworking, and employed, though he is not particularly educated. But due to his circumstances, success eludes him. When he eventually does succeed and brings in a big arrest, Mancuso is rewarded for his hard work. But the nature of the arrest owes more to fate than hard work. The time Mancuso spent in the bus station restroom is only a small part of why he succeeded. In truth, it was the strange machinations of every other character that lead to one strange and ridiculous moment. Mancuso did not train the cockatoo to attack Ignatius’s earring, and he did not rile the lesbians at Dorian’s party. He did, however, take advantage of the situation as it manifested. While Ignatius is harmed by fortune in this situation, Fortuna seems to smile upon Mancuso. For all his hard work, fate and luck play a large role in his eventual success.
So it seems that Ignatius is proven right, at least to some degree. The successes and the failures of the book’s characters are very often due to fate and circumstance. Those characters who work hard (Mr. Gonzalez, Darlene, and Mancuso) are either rewarded by sheer chance or are not rewarded at all. Meanwhile, characters like Mr. Levy benefit from absurd strings of circumstances that occur through no action of their own. Likewise, Ignatius manages to escape the medical staff due to pure fate and fortune. While Ignatius often uses the idea of fate as a coping mechanism, it does reveal the absurd nature of life in New Orleans, and it exposes the fundamental flaws in the traditional American work ethic.
