The Man He Killed

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The Man He Killed

• Thomas Hardy

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• Hardy reduces a killing on the battlefield simply
  to two innocent young men who have arrived at
  their present circumstances by trying to do the
  right thing. The narrator does not condemn the
  two young men in the poem for attempting to kill
  each other

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Explanation "The Man He Killed"

• Lines 1-4
• The poem is being set up the action in the poem
  has already taken place and the narrator of the
  poem is ruminating on this action. This is a
  technique that in contemporary literature would
  be considered a flashback. He imagines himself
  near "some old ancient inn," not a specific inn,
  but a cozy imaginary place. The diction of the
  poem (particularly "right many a nipperkin")
  suggests that the speaker is not a high brow
  sort, but a common bloke and this diction is
  important in establishing the persona of the
  narrator an educated philospher he is not.
  "Nipperkin" is a half-vessel that is filled, in
  this situation, one suspects, with alcoholic
  drinks.

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• Lines 5-6
• The speaker locates both himself and the other
  fellow on a battlefield, a far cry from the
  ancient inn he imagines in retrospect. The men
  are not distant from each other, but close enough
  to look into each other's faces.

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• Lines 7-8
• These lines are as jarring and sudden as a
  gunshot. Two people on opposing lines shoot and
  one is left dead and the other still enjoys the
  ability to be able to reflect on the actions.
  This is the plot of the poem and its climax.

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• Lines 9-10
• In these lines there is a justification for the
  killing and it is a simple justification, without
  deliberation.

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• Line 11
• The repetition of the concept of "my foe" and the
  "of course" in this line signify a need for the
  speaker to convince himself of his justification
  for the killing. The "Just so" which prefaces
  the repetition is similar to the modern phrase
  "That's it that's the ticket."

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• Line 12
• The "although" in this line serves as the pivot
  point for the following lines, in which the
  speaker deliberates his justification.

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• Lines 13-16
• In these lines the narrator begins deliberation
  speculating about the man he has just killed, and
  he begins to attribute his own motives to the
  dead man. Remember that in line 7, they shot at
  each other, and the narrator could just as easily
  have been the dead man. In fact, he imaginarily
  becomes the dead man. We as readers know this is
  a imaginary life he has placed the dead man
  within, but we learn something about the
  narrator's life that he enlisted ('list) in war
  because he was out of work, and had sold his
  "traps" which we can read as "possessions," not
  because of a cause he believed in, but as
  something to do. He did it off-hand, without much
  thought about the possible the consequences,
  including the situation he has just encountered.
  

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• Line 17
• Now the speaker gives some thought to the
  condition of war. The word "quaint" is an unusual
  one to use here. One can think of it as a word
  which describes antique shops, not a war, but it
  can also be taken to mean cunning. Still, the
  explanation point suggests a tone that is not
  dire but almost ponderingly wonderous and the
  word "curious" while suggesting perplexion does
  not suggest despair that another speaker in the
  same situation might have voiced.

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• Lines 18-20
• Here the narrator defines the curious nature of
  war you shoot a man, who under other
  circumstances you would act kindly toward, a man
  who could possibly become your friend.
  "Half-a-crown" is roughly about sixty cents, and
  it is probably not so much that the narrator
  imagines the fellow as a beggar as it is that he
  feels that his own character in a different
  context is one which would be willing to do a
  stranger who needed it, a kindness, and so by the
  end of the poem he has also arrived at a kind
  assessment of himself. He has done so with the
  presumption that his actions are universal,
  saying, "You shoot a fellow down / You'd treat"
  in lines 18-19, rather than using the first
  person as he did in "I shot at him..." in line 7.
  This movement from individual accountability to
  universal justification leads the speaker to a
  distance within himself and perhaps causes the
  use of the second person when the poet may still
  be speaking of himself.

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