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: