The Third Policeman: 3

Explain the difficulty of life yet stressing its essential sweetness and desirability. What sweetness? Flowers in the spring, the glory and fulfilment of human life, a bird-song at evening--you know very well what I mean.

Importance
This dialogue, between the narrator and his soul, Joe, exemplifies the tone throughout the book. The conversations that the narrator has with his soul are completely nonrealistic and even humorous, and that idea is repeated throughout. When the narrator talks to the police officers for the first time and when the narrator talks to the mysterious man beside the road (Martin Funnicane), the conversations are all bizarre yet entertaining. This passage shows that the narrator has no objection at all to the idea of basically talking to himself. His nonchalant attitude is indicative of the mood of the novel.

Analysis
Joe asks the narrator to talk about what he calls the "sweetness" of life. His description of this supposed sweetness, however, is said in a robotic tone that is ironic. Joe describes things that can be appreciated by humans and can be exclusively perceived by human senses, yet he says these things as if he were a machine. This shows that Joe is not an organic part of the narrator but instead one that is artificial and purely fictional; he does not have the same capabilities of a human so he will always be inferior to the narrator.