After Doran "had confessed his lust for Polly" he was "almost thankful at being afforded a loophole for reparation" (Rosenberg 46). God made a loophole for man in that He sent Jesus on our behalf. .
Bob Doran is the main character in which Joyce uses symbolism, and throughout "The Boarding House" Doran symbolizes Jesus. Just as Bob had to make reparation, it is ironic in that after he sees the priest, he is no longer taking it, but is giving reparation to Mrs. Mooney. Rosenberg states that "surely the facts of Bob Doran's life and of his sad affair with Polly loosely parallel yet are an inversion of, the life of Christ" (Rosenberg 49). "Bob Doran may be seen as a diminished Jesus. What happens to the Son of God happens, in a debased and trivialized form, to this modern Dublin son of man; they are both, in their own ways, crucified" (Rosenberg 47). Doran is "crucified" when his single life must be given up unwillingly and he decides to marry Polly. Doran thinks of Polly as a "perverse Madonna: an anti-Madonna or virgin inverted, the reverse and opposite of what the virgin was and means" (Rosenberg 49). When Doran is going through this situation, he is about thirty-four or thirty-five years old, which is about the same age Jesus was when he was crucified. The length of time Bob Doran lives his life in a regular way is in accordance with the length of time Jesus lived "conventionally." When Doran went to confession the night before, it reminds one of "the questioning of Jesus by Caiaphas prior to His execution" (Matt. 26:57). These are a few of the relations of Doran to Jesus, but there are others that not only symbolize Doran as being Jesus, but also compare other characters to scriptural figures.
Polly and the servant also symbolize religious people. There are two Marys in the Story: the servant, and "Polly" which is a "diminutive" (Rosenberg 47) of "Mary", just as two Marys were present in Jesus death.
