Appearance, Identity, and Disguise Theme Analysis

Throughout A Confederacy of Dunces, characters don disguises to hide their true identities and to temporarily transform themselves. Patrolman Mancuso and Ignatius are both made to wear costumes or uniforms for their respective jobs, and these false personas enable them to behave in out of character ways. Disguises also allow characters like Jones and Lana Lee to protect themselves from undesired consequences, legal or otherwise. Disguises clearly have transformative power over individuals’ behavior and identities—these transformations are short-lived, however, and the novel thus suggests that it is difficult for people to change and unlikely that most will do so in any lasting or meaningful way. In spite of this, however, disguise can be a freeing experience and can make people behave in unexpected ways, for better or worse.

One of the most explicit examples of costume in the novel is Patrolman Mancuso, who must wear a different ludicrous disguise to work every day as a punishment for an incident in which he tried to arrest Ignatius for no reason. Although at first Patrolman Mancuso is morose about this, as the novel progresses, Patrolman Mancuso’s disguises improve his performance as a police officer and he finally apprehends a suspicious character (Lana Lee, a nightclub owner who distributes pornography) because he has become so successful at blending in while in disguise. This suggests that costume and disguise can enable people to inhabit situations or take risks that are otherwise out of their comfort zones. The same is true for Ignatius, who is forced to wear a costume when he works as a hotdog vendor. Mr. Clyde, Ignatius’s boss, makes him wear a pirate costume to attract tourists. Although Ignatius is resentful of this, while he is in this costume he engages in several behaviors which are out of character. Firstly, he attends Dorian Greene’s party, which is made up entirely of homosexuals—Ignatius is homophobic and would not usually attend such a gathering. He is explicitly invited by Dorian because of his costume, which Dorian finds amusing. Secondly, while in disguise, Ignatius visits the Night of Joy strip club in search of a mystery woman, whom he has seen in a pornographic photo and with whom he hopes to spark a relationship. Given that Ignatius is so averse to human contact, this behavior is odd. It is significant that he is in costume when he embarks on this mission, as it suggests that costume and disguise are not only external things but also temporarily impact a person’s interior state.

Characters who are more self-aware, like Dorian Greene, recognize that fancy dress is a liberating experience. Dorian announces that he “loves fancy dress” because it reminds him of Mardi Gras (a carnival which takes place in New Orleans) and insists that his party will be fancy dress. Dorian loves fancy dress because he loves scandal and fun (he likes his parties to get out of control) and knows that people are likely to lose their inhibitions while in costume. This also ties into medieval Carnival—Ignatius is obsessed with the medieval era due to its relative conservatism and upright morality compared to modern society, yet during the medieval period the festive season of Carnival was considered a time in which the normal rules did not apply to society. Furthermore, medieval Carnival was viewed as an important psychological tool as it allowed people to express emotions and desires while in costume, which would be considered taboo in everyday life. Toole’s use of disguise in A Confederacy of Dunces seems to support this idea, as disguise imbues the repressed Ignatius with a rare desire to put himself in rowdy and sexually explicit situations.

Disguise can also be used to conceal one’s real identity. Some of the characters in the novel make disguise a permanent fixture in their lives so that they can disguise or conceal some central aspect of their identity or behavior. For example, Jones does not remove his sunglasses throughout the novel and even keeps them on inside the dark bar, the Night of Joy, where he works. Although Jones’s sunglasses are not a literal costume, they effectively disguise his true feelings and motives from the people around him—he is an extremely cool and inscrutable character who does not disclose his emotions. The fact that one of the most unflappable characters in the novel is also one whose face is always partially obscured suggests that Jones uses his sunglasses as a protective device to mask his true character and to put a barrier between himself and world that is hostile towards him (Jones is black and is a victim of racial prejudice throughout the novel). This further demonstrates the sense of power and freedom that disguise can provide. In a different way, Lana Lee uses disguise to mask her criminal behavior. Lana is a deeply immoral character, who does not care about subscribing to conventional morality. She is willing to create pornography to sell explicitly to children and uses a book to cover her face in these pictures so that her identity is not revealed. This suggests that disguises can be used to conceal someone’s true personality or intentions, which can be both beneficial and manipulative.

However, transformations of this type are usually short-lived and do not necessarily reflect a change in someone’s underlying disposition. Although Patrolman Mancuso’s professional life improves after his time in disguise, the end of the novel suggests that Mancuso, who is a timid and sycophantic character, has not become more assertive or confident because of this professional success. Instead the novel concludes with a scene in which Mancuso finally gets what he has always wanted: the approval of his sergeant. Although this is a positive ending for Mancuso, it suggests that he has not really changed and still wants to impress those in power, even if they humiliate him (as the sergeant does with his ploy to put Mancuso in ridiculous disguises). His confidence while in disguise, therefore, is only a temporary state brought on by his costumes and does not reflect a greater change in his character. Similarly, although Ignatius takes on different roles throughout the novel—he transforms into a “working boy,” a political activist, and a pirate—he is not really changed by his experiences and remains the same misanthropic and close-minded person underneath, despite the diverse experiences to which these new roles lead him. This reflects the idea that the transformations in the novel are carnivalesque and temporary, and do not amount to lasting changes in personality. Although disguise can be a freeing experience, it does not change the fact that how a person looks on the outside does not necessarily reflect who they are underneath, even if it can temporarily change how the world perceives them.