The War Photographer
The unnamed protagonist of this poem is the war photographer, who relives his traumatic experiences while developing his photographs in a darkroom. He is severely impacted by his experience photographing different wars and is haunted by the "half-formed" ghosts of the people he encountered. The photographer is both the subject of the poem and the thematic center: not only is the poem about the war photographer’s experiences, but he is used as a vehicle to explore broader themes about war, trauma, and the relationship between the public of a particular country and global conflict that may not impact the audience directly.
The Stranger
The speaker describes how the war photographer had encountered an incredibly traumatic scene, where a man was dying in front of his wife. These characters appear in the photographs, representing the fact they are ingrained in his memory.
The Speaker
The speaker of the poem describes the photographer as he develops his photograph. This third-person speaker provides a vessel through which Duffy can ask some important questions about the nature of war and the documentation of warfare. The speaker is also a stand-in for the reader, who can imagine themselves observing the war photographer through the speaker's perspective.
The Stranger's Wife
Unlike the removed readership, the stranger's wife observed the scene that the war photographer captured in real life and was presumably traumatized by it. The audible "cries" of the stranger's wife that the photographer remembers contrast with the silent, still image that he is developing. The photographer also communicated with the stranger's wife "without words," silently acknowledging the complex relationship between her trauma and the image he had to take as part of his job.
The Children
The photographer remembers "running children in a nightmare heat." These children may specifically represent the children depicted in Nick Ut's 1972 photograph of a bomb exploding during the Vietnam War. They also represent the innocent victims of war more broadly.
The Newspaper Editor
The newspaper editor will "pick out five or six" of the photographer's images to be published in "Sunday’s supplement" of the newspaper. Like the photographer himself, the editor is forced to interact with traumatic imagery as part of his everyday work. However, he is more removed from the photographer and adds another layer of interpretation and distance to the raw images taken during the war.
The Readers
The photographer imagines the readers of England's newspapers encountering his photographs. While their eyes "prick with tears," they also have to integrate the horrors of what they see with their everyday life. The photographer juxtaposes the visceral images he has taken and the readers' emotional reactions with their daily routine outside of the war zone—they only glance at the photographs in-between "the bath and pre-lunch beers."
