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.
Introduction
A Confederacy of Dunces
- Genre: Fiction
- Originally published: 1980
- Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 800-899L; Grades 9-12
- Structure/Length: 14 numbered chapters; approx. 13 hours and 30 minutes on audiobook
- Setting: New Orleans in the 1960s
- Protagonist and Central Conflict: The adventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, a scholarly but torpid 30-year-old man living with his mother in New Orleans in the early 1960s. Forced to find a job, he encounters a string of colorful characters endemic to the city of the time.
- Potential sensitivity issues: Racism, homophobia, emotional abuse, mental illness, misogyny, cursing
John Kennedy Toole, Author
- Bio: 1937-1969; A New Orleans native who studied English at Tulane University and Columbia University; he suffered from severe depression and died by suicide at the age of 31.
- Other works: The Neon Bible
- Awards: Posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981 for A Confederacy of Dunces
CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:
- Capitalism and Consumerism
- Society and the Outsider
- Fate
STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:
