A Confederacy of Dunces

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What do you know about capitalism? Discuss the pros and cons of this economic and governmental system.

Teaching Suggestion: Encourage students to engage in a congenial debate on the subject of capitalism, talking through the benefits and problems associated with a capitalist economy. If students tend to lean one way, be prepared to offer up the counterargument to keep the discourse going. Have students read the articles at the links below beforehand so the class has a shared understanding of how we define “capitalism,” as well as some of the major critiques. You may also steer the discussion toward how capitalism specifically has affected the social/cultural life of modern-day New Orleans

• “What ‘Capitalism’ Is and How It Affects People”  is a foundational piece from Teen Vogue to help define capitalism.
• “How Power Profits from Disaster” is an opinion piece in The Guardian discussing capitalism in the wake of Hurricane Katrina with an emphasis on New Orleans.
• “The Legacy of Post-Katrina New Orleans’ Political Theater on Today’s Climate Crisis” is a New Orleans-focused piece on LitHub that shows the relationship between disasters and capitalism.
• “I Was Once a Socialist. Then I Saw How It Worked” is a pro-capitalist argument from the New York Times.

2. In your opinion, do both the American Dream and fate co-exist within modern-day society? If yes, how? And if no, in what ways are they at odds with one another?

Teaching Suggestion: To help students understand the concept of the American Dream and how pervasive it was in the decade leading up to the setting in A Confederacy of Dunces, have students view the following video artifact from the 1950s, which is the decade the concept of the American Dream was born. The artifact is a brief clip called “Living the American Dream,” a 2:40-minute video created by real estate developers to sell homes at the time. Encourage students to think about the cultural and social values embedded in the video (home ownership, cleanliness, the nuclear family, etc.). Then, have students watch the following additional clips (both roughly 4 minutes each) before beginning your discussion on the notion of fate and the American Dream. As the second clip points out, the American Dream promotes the “illusion of choice,” which supports the messaging the students will read about in A Confederacy of Dunces – that the American Dream is a myth, and that fate is mostly random. 

• “The American Dream of the 1950s” from Daily Dose Documentary gives a sweeping overview of the birth of “The American Dream.”
• “Capitalism and the American Dream Are a Myth, According to Denise Hearn” discusses the “illusion of choice” in this NowThisNews video.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

Consider your own consumerist behaviors. Do you see yourself as a participant of “consumer culture”? What detrimental effects has it had on your life, if any? Are there any positives to consumerism?

Teaching Suggestion: To engage them personally in the ideas of Capitalism and Consumerism, encourage students to think about the variety of things they consume, in the loosest sense of the word. From food to clothes to content on social media, guide them to think of all of these activities as a kind of “consumption.” Especially encourage students to speak/write freely about how they feel about their relationship to social media. Ask them to consider the types of content they ingest on these platforms, considering a range of apps from Facebook to Instagram to Reddit to TikTok, and how often.

• “History of Ideas – Consumerism” from the School of Life can help create a shared understanding about the definition of “consumerism” among students.
• “Why do we buy what we buy? A sociologist on why people buy too many things” from Vox is an article exploring an anti-consumerist position.
• “Consumerism isn’t a sellout—if capitalism works for all,” originally published in The Guardian as part of their series on broken capitalism, is a pro-consumerism position.

Differentiation Suggestion: A differentiation strategy for quieter classes, where it can be difficult to have lively group discussions, is to break students up into smaller groups (or even pairs) to discuss.