Buried in the Endnotes, part 4: Patteson and Sauret's Three Versions of Ignatius

Because readers often do not study the endnotes to a paper, I want to highlight information buried in the endnotes. This is the fourth post in this series.

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 discuss in the text the comic contrast between how Ignatius portrays himself and how others see him. In the endnote, I explain that Patteson and Sauret describe three Ignatius's. Here is the endnote:

Patteson and Sauret perceptively argue that Ignatius’s situation is more complex that a simple contrast. To them, there are three versions of Ignatius in the book. First, he sees himself as a crusader against corruption; second, the other characters see him as a selfish buffoon; however, the third Ignatius has retreated into a world of illusion after a painfully awkward childhood in order to avoid being humiliated by rejection and alienation. Ignatius’s outrageously childish behavior insulates the reader from feeling too much pity for him, but this third Ignatius gives the reader some sympathy for him, even as the reader laughs at his humiliations.

The second Ignatius is a comic rebuttal of the false facade of the first, but the third explains how Ignatius became the person he is. This third Ignatius creates in the reader sympathy for him and tinges him with tragedy.