Even according to conventional Eurocentric standards, Pilate is the true hero: Odysseus wanders for ten years; Pilate wanders for twenty years and experiences a series of adventures that shape her character and free her to make hard choices concerning her role in society. From the moment she emerges from her mother's womb, she creates herself, improving her situation by working her way up from washerwoman to entrepreneur. Unlike her brother, Macon, who inherits his wealth from Ruth, Pilate creates her own way. And unlike Odysseus, whose journey is aided by gods and goddesses with supernatural powers, Pilate herself is endowed with supernatural powers; she completes her journey without the help of others' magic or divine intervention. She is a courageous woman who assumes full responsibility for her life and meets life head on, but because she is neither white and male nor young and beautiful, her accomplishments are discounted and her wisdom discredited — even by the black community.
Like her father, who rejected the biblical meaning of Pilate as "Christ killer" and chose it because the shape of the word itself reminded him of a tree "hanging in some princely but protective way over a row of smaller trees," Pilate refuses to be defined by the limiting perceptions of others and insists on creating her own reality. She delivers Milkman from his spiritually dead existence; the biblical Pontius Pilate delivered Jesus to his enemies. By creating herself, Pilate has crafted her own metaphorical wings that — as Milkman observes — enable her to "fly" while remaining grounded.
