The “Pilate’s Wife’s Dream,” is originally taken from the Pilate’s wife’s dream in the Bible in which the wife tries to stop her husband from killing Jesus. So the theme is purely religious represented in looking for the way to God and for affirmation of faith as appears in the final stanza. The technique of the poem is the internal monologue. Bronte is using internal monologue by using a speaker who speaks to himself.
There are many critics who commented on Bronte’s poem. For example, Thais Morgan said that Charlotte Bronte was not fully aware of the original story in the Bible and so there was wrong adaptation of the original dream in the poem (205). In addition Cornelia Pearsil argued that Bronte was not successful in her poetry in general and in this poem in particular. She added that in this poem Bronte was extremely romantic and sensible, and her main aim was to emphasis the negative fate of Pilate (18).
However, it seems that both Brown and Froula exaggerated the criticism of the author. Bronte was aware of the Bible and her other works show this. The deviation from the original story is meant to emphasize the theme she wanted to put. In addition, Bronte was successful both as a novelist and as poet. As Angel Leighton asserts, Bronte was an influential poet in the nineteenth-century, especially as she enhanced the use of the technique of internal monologue in poetry (87).
