Who is Robert Neville from I Am Legend and what is their importance?

The novel's protagonist, Robert Neville, is a 36-year-old blond-haired, blue-eyed man who is the sole survivor of a plague that has killed or transformed the rest of humanity to vampires. He has lost his wife and only child to the disease, and he has responded by barricading himself in his house and escaping through art, classical music, reading, drinking, and gallows humor. It is not clear what profession Robert was in, but he seems to be well educated and well rounded; he enjoys the arts, is a capable medical researcher as well as a carpenter and all around handyman.