Point of View

An anonymous, omniscient narrator unrelated to any of the characters tells A Confederacy of Dunces primarily in the past tense. There are, however, a series of first-person entries in the protagonist Ignatius' self-serving and pretentious "Journal of a Working Boy" and strident letters between him and his activist former girlfriend, Myrna Mirkoff. These serve to show Ignatius and Myrna's personal reaction to events and characters dealt with neutrally by the narrator.

Setting

A Confederacy of Dunces is set in New Orleans, Louisiana. References to television programs and movies demand its action take place no earlier than 1963, but references to political events like the Kennedy assassination or civil rights marches and inner city riots are carefully avoided by the author. Ignatius is adamantly opposed to the breakdown in Catholic discipline, which suggests a somewhat later dating, to allow time for the reforms of Vatican II to take...