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Chapter 2, Part 5
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
Ignatius enters his house and is greeted anxiously by his mother, Irene, who says that he looks “terrible.” Ignatius complains that he became ill on the bus, and Irene asks if he got the job. Ignatius says that he did not, and Irene asks if he wore his hunting cap in the interview. Ignatius replies indignantly that he did because the office was cold. The manager was an inferior being, he says, and the place did not suit Ignatius at all.
Irene recognizes that Ignatius’s refusal to compromise his individuality to be professional will hamper him when it comes to getting a job. Employers require a degree of flexibility so that workers put personal quirks aside in order to adopt a professional persona, which often hides or tempers their true personalities. Ignatius’s cap symbolizes his individuality, and his refusal to remove it reflects his unwillingness to compromise.
Themes
Irene tells Ignatius that he must look on the bright side, and Ignatius asks her who has filled her head with this drivel. Irene says that Patrolman Mancuso tells her to stay optimistic, but Ignatius claims that optimism is a perversion and that the “Mancusos of the world” are a scourge and refuse to accept that it is humanity’s place to be miserable. Irene tells him to cheer up and says that they should look in the paper to see if there are any job openings listed there.
Religion in the medieval period (of which Ignatius is a scholar) was largely based in concepts of suffering and original sin, and it was considered a devotional act of faith for humans to suffer. However, in modern society, which is highly convenient compared with medieval life, Ignatius’s attitude seems out of place.
Themes
Irene spreads a newspaper and comes across an advertisement for a “clean, hard-working, quiet” type. Ignatius snatches the paper off her and reads the rest of the ad, which is for an office worker at a factory called Levy Pants. Ignatius says that he is not cut out for this and that he would rather be a paper boy, but Irene insists that he must apply.
Ignatius is not clean or hard-working, but Irene is adamant that he must change to impress a potential employer and get a job. Ignatius, by contrast, wants a job in which he will be left alone and will not have to alter his attitude for mainstream society.
Themes
