"By this still hearth, among these barren crags, matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws into a savage race-.
Ulysses' character seems to be based almost on the ideas of escapism, as during the Victorian period individuals were extremely sceptical with regard to escapist beliefs. His character strikes me as one that has no ounce of being able to give up in life and that the only belief he has, is one to keep on fighting for what he believes in till the end. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield-. Ulysses' character can be representative in many respects as being a role model for people to look up to during times of hardship throughout the Victorian era and Industrial Revolution, whereby allowing them to develop a sense of striving and never yielding. .
Tennyson places Ulysses in a situation where he is caught between two states of being, namely: the tension between duty and pleasure. (Ibid, 1946:p.303). The ideals of duty, respectable living and doing the right' thing were imposed upon Victorians through their education and culture, whereby women were encouraged to be pure and men industrious and act according to rigid and powerful class boundaries.
Ulysses has the belief to strive and not to yield which is honourable in many respects, but he also wishes to break the monotony of life which is inevitable with old age.
Instead his honourable beliefs become selfish and centred, and it appears that Ulysses lacks any attachment to his aged wife'.
Tennyson uses adjectives such as aged' and savage' in the degradation of his loving wife and loyal subjects, illustrating Ulysses' developed sense of isolation and detachment towards characters that a sense of duty should be felt for. This indicates to me that Ulysses no longer desires a life of duty, but one of pleasure and fulfilment which he tries to accomplish by living his life to the lees'.
In contrasting between Tennyson and Ulysses, ideas of subjectivity versus objectivity arise, indicating that Tennyson expressed a need to face lift and grapple with his personal factors and problems through a self expressive voice.