The Likeable Protagonist

Thus far we have been presented with characters that exist in extremes. Whether or not we see their struggle with this depends on whose head Joyce takes us into. Most of the characters we have been shown have not been depicted as people a reader feels for. From Stephen's point of view, the people around him are base and insensitive, while he himself comes off as confused, contrived and incredibly insecure. Our next protagonist, Mr. Leopold Bloom shows us the Irishmen around him and they become stereotypes of themselves and at first he himself appears spineless.

I say spineless because he knows about his wife's infidelities and yet he allows it and waits on her hand and foot. However, as we get into his section of the story, we begin to see a pathos develop. In this way, I feel that Joyce has given us what a novel such as this one needs, a likeable protagonist. Through Bloom's trina of consciousness we are given a character that mimicks Stephen in some of his connotations, thinks or acts like Buck Mulligan at times, and a truley outside perspective, from an outsider.

Maybe, what I am currently feeling is pity or sympathy for the way that Bloom is treated while going to the funeral for Dingam, but more than that I am allowed to commiserate with him in a way that, as of yet I cannot with Stephen. In many ways Stephen thinks big but acts little and is so lofty and disconnected that the death of his mother, while acknowledged and appearing as a complex issue for him, cannot yet be defined. Contrary to this is the death of Bloom's son, which is given so much bodily detail and so many repeated images connecting back to the crucifixtion and the idea of the Son, that we begin to get a full understanding of Bloom's psyche and why he embodies an impotence when it comes to his wife.

The themes of life and death, the sacred and profane, have been strongly addressed throughout Ulysses with most everything else coming back to them. All images and actions seem to circle around the idea of what gives life, what takes life and if it matters. Being given the middle ground character of Bloom at this point in the book allows this theme to present itself clearly and gives the reader a little something solid to hold on to.