Who is Leopold Bloom?
The everyman hero of Ulysses
Leopold Bloom is the unlikely hero of Ulysses (1922), James Joyce’s monumental interpretation of Homer’s epic. Funny, kind, gentle, unfailingly polite in the most trying of circumstances, he is one of the most endearing characters in modern fiction.
Bloom is at least partly based on Alfred Hunter, a man Joyce met while attending a funeral in 1904. This is the year in which the story takes places — and there is also a clear link with the Hades episode, in which Bloom attends the funeral of business associate, Paddy Dignam.
Another models include two men Joyce worked with and admired in Trieste, where most of the book was written. One, Italo Svevo, was a close friend and went on to become one of the key modernist writers.
Another was Leopoldo Popper, the father of one of Joyce’s pupils. Popper was Jewish and the manager of a company called Popper and Blum.
That Bloom is Jewish is central thematically. Though Irish by birth, upbringing and inclination Bloom is not fully accepted by many of those around him. He experiences direct, visceral anti-Semitism from the Citizen and more subtle forms of exclusion by those like Mr Deasesy, who wrap bigotory in pseudo-history.
Interestingly, the author seems to identify more closely with Bloom than with his younger self, the earnest intellectual Stephen Dedalus. Joyce, the eternal outsider, has an instinctive empathy for the Bloom’s plight
Everyman
On the surface, Bloom, a middle-aged Dublin salesman, is severely under-qualified to play the swashbuckling Odysseus. His public life is undistinguished and his private affairs problematic.
Unswervingly devoted to his wife, Molly, Bloom is aware that she is having an affair with the flashy Blazes. He is also haunted by the death of their only son, Rudy, who died after only eleven days. Even Milly, his teenage daughter is a cause for concern, as he worries about meeting the costs of her horse-riding and social activities.
In crucial respects Bloom is an outsider in a very insular society. Though he has converted to Catholicism in order to marry Molly, he is never allowed to forget his Jewish origins.
“Force, hatred, history”
Bloom’s finest hour is his moral victory over an anti-Semitic nationalist (the Citizen) in the Cyclops episode. Bloom enters a raucous pub, Barney Kiernan’s, looking for his friend Martin Cunningham. Joining some acquaintances at the bar, he joins in a conversation about capital punishment.
Bloom’s thoughtful remarks incite a bellicose response from the Citizen. Drunk, and spoiling for a fight, he chooses to take them as a slur on the ‘martyrs’ executed by the British over the centuries. Bloom responds with a quiet condemnation of all violence:
Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s not life for men and women, insult and hatred. It’s the very opposite of that that is really life”.
The scene ends with Bloom’s hurried exit and the deranged Citizen throwing a biscuit tin at his departing stagecoach. It’s a typically ignominious outcome for Bloom.
It’s also an emphatic moral victory. The anonymous narrator underlines by describing what is essentially a bar-room scuffle in terms of Elijah being called to Heaven in his own chariot.
What happens in Ulysses? (5 min read) * Mary Kenny’s Ulysses Cheat Sheet
For a brief introduction to the autobiographical elements of Ulysses see this New Yorker review .
