Speaker
The poem's speaker, as the title specifies, is the wife of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. She is trapped in a marriage to a man she detests. Moreover, in Jerusalem, she is stationed far away from her home in Rome. An encounter with Jesus prior to his execution jolts her out of her unhappiness while also, by sparking her awareness, deepening it. She is sexually awakened as well as morally galvanized by Jesus, and even exercises what little power she has to advocate on his behalf. However, her husband ignores her pleas and allows him to be killed nevertheless, leaving her all the more resigned to Pilate's weakness. This speaker is strong-willed and tough, expressing critical opinions bluntly, but her position as a mere wife to a powerful man leaves her with little real agency.
Pilate
Pontius Pilate, the speaker's husband, is a well-known figure in the Christian faith, alternately revered and detested by various traditions. In both this poem and the New Testament, Pilate is a Roman governor in the province of Judaea. Though he does not believe that Jesus should be executed, he ultimately follows the opinion of the crowd and allows the execution to occur. In this poem, that decision is depicted as one of utter moral weakness and lack of conviction. Duffy symbolizes this weakness through the symbol of Pilate's hands, an oblique reference to a biblical scene in which Pilate claims to wash his hands of guilt for Jesus's death. In this work, Pilate's hands are described as soft, fragile, weak, and pale—a reflection of his deeper, moral infirmity.
Jesus
In her characterization of Jesus, Duffy makes a series of choices that vividly evoke the founder of Christianity, allowing him to be understood as a real individual—albeit a charismatic and fascinating one—despite the countless artistic, religious, and folkloric renderings of him that have accrued since the time at which the poem takes place. Here, the speaker describes Jesus as having an ugly face, yet nevertheless thrilling the speaker. The speaker is especially struck by the way he looks at her, suggesting that he has unusual powers of insight and observation. In contrast to Pilate's pale hands, Jesus's are brown, suggesting that he has a more rugged past than the powerful governor. In fact, Jesus's plight is parallel to that of the speaker: each one is doomed, by forces outside their control, to suffer at the hands of people with little conviction or decency.
Barabbas
In the Bible, Barabbas is a prisoner alongside Jesus. He is pardoned by public opinion, with the crowd choosing mercy for him over Jesus. Here, he appears only in a flash, when the speaker observes the crowd "baying" for him. The choice of a word often associated with wolves or other predators suggests that, though Barabbas survives this encounter, even the crowd's mercy has an undertone of menace and threat.
The Maid
The speaker's maid is one of her few sources of relief from boredom, loneliness, and disempowerment. She is also the only other woman mentioned in the poem, suggesting that the speaker and the maid offer one another a certain female solidarity of which they are otherwise deprived. The maid and the speaker sneak out together in disguises out of sheer boredom, which hints that the maid, like the speaker, has a mischievous or daring side. Moreover, at the close of the poem, the speaker does not describe the execution of Jesus. Instead, she merely explains that her maid knows the details of the event. This distressing moment, in other words, remains a secret between the two women, cementing the maid's status as the speaker's trusted companion.
