The Occasional Series of Ideas for Papers on John Kennedy Toole, Part 16

Thesis #16: Toole, Homosexuality, and Carnival

There have been several critics that have investigated the theme of homosexuality and queering in Confederacy. Hardin examines several passages that can be interpreted as double ententres in the book. Pugh discusses the general queerness of the narrative, and he claims that the book "queers medievalism." (see the Other Works Cited section from my "Annotated Bibliography of Obscure Toole Research" for complete citations).

On the one hand, Toole does include gay and lesbian characters in his novel. On the other hand, gays and lesbians are negatively stereotyped in Confederacy. The lesbian characters are not even two dimensional. In my own study on Toole's use of Neoplatonism ("The Dialectic of American Humanism"), I conclude that Toole used the novel's lesbians to represent the furies who punish Lana Lee ("Dialectic of American Humanism," p. 208). And gay men are not treated much better. The only reason not to view the book as gay-bashing is because all of the characters, not just the gay ones, are preposterous and the main character is even more ridiculous than the gay characters he dislikes.

That having been said, no one in the scholarly literature has pointed out that the gay theme ties into the Carnival theme. The first gay ball in New Orleans history occurred in 1959, two years before Toole began to plan Confederacy. The New Orleans police raided gay Carnival balls in the early 1960s.

The biography of Toole Ignatius Rising discusses in detail Toole's interactions with fellow soldiers in Puerto Rico who were gay, but Fletcher (Ken and Thelma) and others have criticized that biography as poorly researched and unscholarly. Use that biography with extreme caution or not at all. Cory MacLauchlin's biography of Toole, (Butterfly in the Typewriter), is well-researched and scholarly, and it discusses the possibility of Toole being gay, but MacLauchlin does not have the same stories of gay activity in Puerto Rico. Perhaps he could not corroborate them.

In my "Dialectic" paper the long footnote (number ten) has a discussion (point four) of homosexuality in Confederacy related to the writings of Marsilio Ficino.

Thesis: Discuss the role of homosexuality in A Confederacy of Dunces against the background of the history of homosexuality and transgender behavior associated with New Orleans Carnival, especially in the late 1950s and early 1960s.