Joseph Patrick Nannetti Character Analysis

Nannetti is the Freeman newspaper’s foreman and a rising Dublin politician. During the events of Ulysses, he is a Member of Parliament representing part of Dublin, and he is also running for mayor. (Nannetti is a real person—and he really did serve as mayor in 1906-7.) When Bloom visits the Freeman offices to place Alexander Keyes’s ad, he sympathizes with Nannetti over their shared foreign origins (Nannetti’s father was Italian). Nannetti essentially ignores Bloom, who can’t tell if Nannetti dislikes him or is just a man of few words because he works next to the loud printing presses. Later, Nannetti goes off to London to speak about cattle foot and mouth disease, and Bloom feels betrayed because he never got to place Keyes’s ad. Nannetti’s indifference to Bloom reflects Bloom’s powerlessness in the face of real national and imperial politics.