These laws were the result of the centuries-long history of slavery and resulting racism in the U.S. Up until the 1950s, segregation laws had been in place in the South, which meant that black people could not use many public services alongside white people and were treated as second-class citizens. Similarly, Dunces addresses the legacy of slavery in the American South. A Confederacy of Dunces deals with the aftermath of these tensions in American society in the 1960s, showcasing the political paranoia which existed among the older generation who had lived through the Cold War. Tensions between the two countries reached their peak in the 1950s. In the mid-20th century, America was engaged in the Cold War-a large-scale nuclear stand-off-with Russia, a communist country which America viewed as a significant threat to democratic freedom. Toole was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1981.Ī Confederacy of Dunces is set in the American South in the 1960s and deals with several cultural and political issues of the period, such as racism and paranoia about communism. Toole’s mother had the novel published in 1980, after several unsuccessful attempts. Unfortunately, after Dunces was rejected, Toole entered a period of mental ill-health and took his own life in 1969 at the age of 31. Toole took a teaching position at a Catholic college, where he was known as a popular and witty professor. He completed the novel after his return to New Orleans and tried to get it published several times without success. Toole was soon promoted and given a private office, where he began work on A Confederacy of Dunces. He was drafted into the army in 1961 and stationed in Puerto Rico, where he taught English to the Spanish recruits. Toole then took a job as a professor at Hunter University in New York. Toole later completed a Master’s degree at Columbia University in New York and was then offered a job as an assistant professor at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. The area was considered disreputable and Toole’s relatives disliked him spending time there.

During his time at university, Toole worked as an editor for the college newspaper and spent a lot of time in the French Quarter of New Orleans with his friends, who were musicians. At 17, Toole received a scholarship to attend Tulane University, where he studied English Literature. Throughout school, Toole excelled academically and wrote his first novel, The Neon Bible, when he was only 16.

Toole was a bright child and his mother, Thelma Ducoing Toole, had extremely high hopes for his future success. John Kennedy Toole was born in 1937 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

A confederacy of dunces