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Chapter 1, Part 2
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
Evening begins to fall outside the Night of Joy and a few more customers join Ignatius and Irene. A young, sad looking woman named Darlene drinks alone at the bar. Elsewhere, a fashionable young man, Dorian Greene, drinks a cocktail. He spills his drink on his jacket and Irene calls the bartender for a cloth. She asks the young man what he is drinking, and he replies that Irene would not understand even if he told her. Ignatius takes offense to this and the two men begin to bicker. Irene, who is quite drunk, orders another drink and tries to buy one for Dorian as well.
Dorian is a fashionable character, which Ignatius despises this because he believes that care for one’s appearance equates to vanity. Ignatius views vanity as a problem in modern society, because it is not checked by a system of morality, as it was in the medieval period, of which Ignatius is a scholar.
Themes
Ignatius starts talking about the bus again, and Irene complains that she cannot listen to that story one more time. Ignatius is offended, but Darlene overhears and wants to know the story. Ignatius launches into it again. The bartender irritably serves Irene and makes a cocktail for Dorian. Irene tells Dorian about her and Ignatius’s run-in with the police and Dorian listens sympathetically.
Distrust of the authorities is clearly a widespread attitude in New Orleans, and in American society more generally in the 1960s. Dorian is not surprised to hear that Ignatius was almost been arrested for no reason, which suggests that people in this area are frequently incarcerates for no reason, despite the purported importance of American ideals about freedom.
Themes
Dorian suddenly asks Irene if he can buy her hat—he runs a vintage clothing business—and Irene drunkenly agrees. Dorian pays her and rushes off, and Irene complains to Ignatius that she is hungry. Ignatius is midway through the bus story and Darlene looks extremely bored. Ignatius irritably tells his mother to eat the cakes she bought, and Darlene gets excited when she sees the food and cuts Ignatius off.
Dorian’s character is associated with costume, disguise, and aesthetic appearance throughout the novel. He is the antithesis of Ignatius, who despises vanity and who, ironically, goes out of his way to appear scruffy in order to show the world that he is not vain.
Themes
The three of them begin to eat the cakes, and Irene tells Darlene that Ignatius has a master’s degree and that he “graduated smart.” Ignatius makes a sarcastic comment about his mother’s choice of words, but Darlene tells him off and says he is cruel to his mother. Irene begins to sob when she hears this and tells Darlene that Ignatius treats her badly. Ignatius says Irene is drunk and tries to persuade her to leave.
Ignatius has a superior and condescending attitude toward Irene. Although he believes that he looks out for his mother and protects her from herself (as when he tries to stop her from drinking), Ignatius merely wants to control his mother. His attitude toward Irene, therefore, is self-serving rather than charitable.
Themes
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A woman in a black leather coat bursts into the bar and asks the bartender what is going on. She looks at Ignatius and Irene and accuses the bartender of trying to ruin her business. The bartender insists that he has tried to get rid of them. The woman, Lana Lee, turns on Darlene and says that she shouldn’t encourage people like them. Irene and Ignatius indignantly get up to leave—Ignatius calls Lana a Nazi as he goes—but Lana screams at them to pay for their drinks. Irene pays but says that they will “take [their] trade elsewhere.” Lana says that this is good because people like them are “the kiss of death” to a business.
Ignatius is preoccupied with the idea that there are totalitarian forces at work within modern society, and that these forces want to take away his freedoms. He calls Lana a Nazi because she is controlling in the way she runs her bar and he feels he is being unfairly oppressed by her, despite him only reluctantly sitting at the bar in the first place. Furthermore, Ignatius views anything which restricts his behavior as an authoritarian force because he is not willing to compromise in any way to fit in with society. Ignatius also loves movies and associates Lana’s style of dress with portrayals of Nazis in 1960s film.
Themes
Irene and Ignatius stumble down the street towards their car. Ignatius asks Irene where her hat has gone, and Irene tells him that she sold it to Dorian. Ignatius is upset—he says the hat was a memento from his childhood—and wants to stop at a hot dog stand to cheer himself up. Irene refuses and leads Ignatius firmly to the car.
Ignatius’s obsession with the past and aversion to change supports his deeply conservative nature. He is a medieval scholar and believes that the past is superior to the present. The hot dog stand foreshadows Ignatius’s interaction with a hot dog vendor later in the novel.
Themes
Irene tries to drive out of her parking space. Ignatius pressures her to hurry up and Irene accidentally smashes the fender of the car behind her. When she finally maneuvers out of the space, the car shoots forwards and crashes into a nearby building. The balcony overhead collapses on top of the car, covering them with rubble. Irene whirls around to see if Ignatius, who is in the back seat, is okay. Ignatius is unhurt but vomits out of the rear window.
This scene showcases Irene’s relationship with Ignatius, who bullies her and treats her as though she is incapable. Although Ignatius pretends that he does this for Irene’s own good, he is really concerned about his own comfort. Irene is so preoccupied with appeasing Ignatius that she accidentally causes him suffering. This reflects the co-dependent nature of their relationship, which holds them both back.
Themes
Patrolman Mancuso is on his way home from work dressed as a ballerina. His sergeant has put him in charge of arresting “suspicious characters” on the condition that he must wear a different costume to work every day. As he passes Chartres Street, Patrolman Mancuso hears a crash and rushes around the corner, where he is confronted with Ignatius vomiting out of the car window.
A fateful accidental brings Irene, Ignatius, and Patrolman Mancuso together again and sets many of the novel’s plot strands in motion. Fate is a major theme throughout the novel—Ignatius, as a scholar of philosopher Boethius, believes in the medieval concept which stated that every person’s destiny was controlled by a blind goddess, Fortuna, who spun a wheel of fortune to control people’s lives.
Themes
