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.
Character Analysis
Ignatius J. Reilly
Ignatius J. Reilly is not just the protagonist of A Confederacy of Dunces; he has also passed into the common cultural lexicon and become a beloved figure in literature. As an overweight, slovenly, prideful, lazy, but highly educated man, he is arrogant to the extreme and easily wounded by even the smallest collision or slightest insult. He possesses a huge ego and a fragile sense of self-worth. He lives at home with his elderly mother at the beginning of the novel, and the story shows how his situation slowly deteriorates until he is forced to confront his deepest beliefs and find a new way to exist in an ever-changing America.
Ignatius is introduced to the audience at the age of 30. At this point in his life, he exists on the fringes of society and contributes little to humanity. Seemingly helpless and terrified of real work, he spends his days watching television, arguing, and judging those around him. A ridiculous character himself, Ignatius finds regular people wanting. They fail to measure up to the high (and practically medieval) standards he sets for those around him, standards he does not meet himself. He is a deluded hypocrite, yet he is the main protagonist. This presents a difficult situation: If Ignatius is such a deeply unlikeable man, why should the audience feel any sympathy for him?
Sympathy and the pathos for Ignatius J. Reilly are derived from a number of sources. First and foremost, he is funny. Ignatius is occasionally witty, and many of his cutting remarks are absurd to the point of being humorous. But even when Ignatius is not trying to entertain or insult, his ridiculous existence makes the audience laugh. His refusal to sit in the front seat of a car, his constant lamentations about his valve, and his sincere belief that he is a model of fashion bind together to create a character so ludicrous that the audience can’t help but find his antics amusing.
Second, Ignatius does possess a real desire to help people. Though he has almost no social skills, he nevertheless cares about people’s situations. When he talks to Jones and the factory workers, he experiences a self-described affinity for people of color. Ignatius believes that they have been cast to the fringes of society, just like him. While the lived experiences of the African American community are in no way comparable to Ignatius’s perpetual laziness, it does create in him a sense of injustice and a determination to help. He tries to lead the factory workers against their exploitative bosses, but he fails miserably. Similarly, he tries to motivate the homosexual community to help him bring about world peace (a commendable goal), but succeeds only in angering everyone and getting thrown out of the party. Ignatius often does the right thing for the wrong reasons (and almost always fails). It’s easier for the audience to sympathize with a man who sympathizes with others, even if he is comically incompetent.
Third, Ignatius is erudite and informed. He is relatively well-read, even if only to criticize works that he does not like. Ignatius loathes the works of Mark Twain, but he has at least read them. He hates a great deal of modern music but acknowledges that it possesses some qualities that other people might enjoy. He is willing to learn, whether it is about the hot dog trade or the travails of African American factory workers. His desire to understand the world and his ability to vocalize his thoughts in a literary manner give him an aura of interest and intrigue.
Though Ignatius might seem eminently dislikeable and unsympathetic, his unique combination of attributes coupled with his strange and fascinating personality make him a sympathetic protagonist. Even when he is acting stupidly, wickedly, or when he has nothing but laziness on his mind, he is entertaining. As such, it is easy to see why he has become one of the most famous protagonists in 20th-century American literature.
Irene Reilly
Irene Reilly—otherwise known as Mrs. Reilly—is introduced to the novel through Ignatius. As a widow with a growing alcohol problem, a predilection for wearing too much makeup, and an increasingly stretched pension, she exists in the considerable shadow of her son. After the death of her husband, she saved everything she could to get Ignatius the best possible education and, based on the evidence before her, he has thrown it away entirely. Her lazy son dominates her life and dictates every facet of her existence.
They are not dissimilar characters. Both are fine living in a dirty, rundown home, and they do little to alter the cleanliness of their environment. Both are working-class Catholics, and neither could be considered a good cook or a competent housekeeper. When Santa introduces Mrs. Reilly to Robichaux to set them up on a date, Santa has to kick Mrs. Reilly beneath the table to try and prevent her from listing her many complaints and faults. In this moment, Mrs. Reilly emulates her son, launching into extended diatribes against the world, its inhabitants, and even their bodies for failing to keep up with society. Mrs. Reilly seems to genuinely love her son and share many of his characteristics, even if he is a failure.
But as the novel progresses, her character develops. The introduction to Santa via Mancuso begins the process of change: She begins to venture out without Ignatius, taking on her own hobbies and pastimes. She goes bowling and enjoys it so much that she begins to wear her bowling shoes on a daily basis, much to Ignatius’s horror. As she grows increasingly distant from Ignatius, she begins to recognize his toxic behavior for what it really is. She begins to criticize him directly. At first she tells him to get a job, then she picks holes in his lifestyle, then she asks whether he is a communist, and—at the very end of the novel—she decides to have Ignatius declared temporarily insane for his own benefit. The more she grows as a character, the more distant she grows from Ignatius, and the closer she grows to Robichaux and Santa.
While Ignatius used to confuse and befuddle her with his literary and academic language, she stops caring and explicitly states that, while Robichaux does not possess the same academic credentials as Ignatius, she believes him to be a better person. This moment marks the end of their mother-son relationship as it once was. Irene Reilly will no longer tolerate her son’s foolish behavior and says so to his face. The moment has a profound effect on Ignatius, who sincerely pleads with his mother for assistance in returning to his old lifestyle. She refuses and, from that moment hence, even Ignatius knows that their relationship is irreparably damaged. Irene Reilly begins to exist in her own right and steps out from Ignatius’s shadow. In doing so, she brings about the novel’s climax.
Burma Jones
As one of the few African American characters given a considerable amount of narrative importance, Burma Jones becomes a focal point for the novel’s racial tensions. It is not accidental that he is introduced to the novel at the police station after being arrested on a charge of vagrancy, a charge that he vehemently contests. Once released from the station, Jones is forced into a corner. He has to accept the job at the Night of Joy, even though the wages are below the cost of living, because he does not want to be arrested for vagrancy again. Immediately, Jones finds himself in a difficult situation: take the low-paying job and barely afford to live or refuse it and face the possibility of being arrested again. Unhappily, Jones settles for the job but decides that he will sabotage the bar from the inside, undermining the entire business as a form of revenge.
Jones has been stuck in this predicament for his whole life. His mother was forced to work for very little money while trying to raise a son. Jones dropped out of school at a young age to support his mother and, as a result, received little to no education. This is what prevents him from moving up the social ladder, he believes, though this point is somewhat contradicted by the existence of Ignatius, who has a great deal of education and very little to show for it.
But that is not to say that Jones is not ambitious or clever. He demonstrates his ambition by flicking through the glossy pages of magazines Darlene gives him. Inside are photographs of the various trappings of consumerist America, and Jones covets them all. He hopes to one day live in a big house with all of the expensive furniture and commodities he sees in the magazines, but he feels trapped by society and unable to achieve his goals. Similarly, he is able to describe and analyze the nature of the system that oppresses him. Even with an education, Jones examines the structures of the American capitalist system and come to many of the same conclusions as Ignatius, including that the workers are oppressed and deserve better compensation. However, they decide to rebel against this system in different ways. Ignatius aims for the spectacular, while Jones aims for the subtle. Ignatius fails miserably, while Jones succeeds in getting Lana jailed and the bar shut down, even if this does rob him of his (low-paying and undesirable) job. Even without a master’s degree, Jones proves himself a more cunning and canny political operator than Ignatius.
In the end, however, Jones gets his reward. Though this is only promised by Mr. Levy, Jones is set to receive an award and a job in the Levy Pants factory (at a higher wage than in the bar). As a result, Jones receives a reward for his actions throughout the novel and is one of the few characters whose material condition theoretically improves by the story’s end. Since Jones is one of the novel’s most moral and commendable characters, this reward is fitting and a suitable prize for his ability to succeed where Ignatius failed.
