A Confederacy of Dunces

Right from the opening sentence, the novel introduces clothing—and in particular, hats—as a recurring theme. The “green hunting cap” that squeezes Ignatius’s “fleshy balloon of a head” is the first image conjured, followed by a description of Ignatius’s outfit (6). The clothes are an example of the objective correlative; even before the character himself is introduced, the audience has learned about him through the absurd, out-of-place nature of his clothing. The flaps of Ignatius’s hat, which function like turn signals, provide important character insight: with both flaps raised, Ignatius is signaling that he is capable of turning in any direction at any time. He is unreliable, unpredictable, and clothed in the strangest fashion.

The motif repeats when Ignatius and his mother enter the Night of Joy. There, Ignatius raises and lowers the flaps of his hat to hear people better. He meets Darlene, whose ambition in life is to take her clothes off for a living. Most notably, however, they meet Dorian Greene. Dorian recognizes the strange nature of Mrs. Reilly’s hat and offers to purchase it from her. He buys it for $15, the equivalent of several days’ pay, because he recognizes its value as a comical item.