In my new paper, "A Theory of Humor (Abridged) and the Comic Mechanisms of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces," just published as a book chapter in Theology and Geometry: Essays on John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, I point out that there are three times in the plot where one character damns another character, and those curses seem to carry weight. Here is the endnote:
In this regard, the act of damning seems to be significant, as only the blocking characters in the book are damned. Gonzalez damns Mrs. Levy, George damns Lana Lee, and Ignatius’s mother eventually tells him to go to hell. Toole, Confederacy, 112, 190, 365.I argue that Toole uses the device of the blocking character, who prevents other characters in the story from developing and rising in status within the social group. There are three blocking characters who through comic comeuppance are displaced from their social blocking posts, and in all three instances, another character tells them to go to hell or says, "Damn you!" I interpret this to mean that Toole took the act of uttering the curse "Damn you" to be important.
