A Confederacy of Dunces

In January 2021, Tom Bissell wrote an article for The New Yorker entitled “The Uneasy Afterlife of ‘A Confederacy of Dunces.’” In the article, Bissell says that, in revisiting the novel 40 years after it was published, the main character Ignatius reads differently to him. Now, Bissell sees Ignatius as the prototype for the modern-day “internet troll.” Bissell goes on to say: 

Early in the novel, Ignatius tells us, “I am an anachronism. People realize this and resent it.” In 1968, Toole’s hero mystified one of the country’s finest editors of fiction. In 1980, he seemed harmless. Forty years later, this red-pilled malcontent calling for a theofascist revival seems something else entirely. Ignatius J. Reilly—the godfather of the Internet troll, the Abraham of neckbeards, the 4chan edgelord to rule them all—was no anachronism. He was a prediction.

The internet troll, like Ignatius, often sees themselves as an Outsider in Society. What other modern-day comparisons may we make, particularly around the themes of Capitalism and Consumerism? 

Teaching Suggestion: Draw the discussion to consumerist tendencies in social media. You may also want to have students discuss the nature of Ignatius’s activism and how that might tie in to modern-day online activism.