The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy

The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy

"Had he and I but met

By some old ancient inn,

We should have sat us down to wet

Right many a nipperkin!

"But ranged as infantry,

And staring face to face,

I shot at him as he at me,

And killed him in his place.

"I shot him dead because —

Because he was my foe,

Just so: my foe of course he was;

That's clear enough; although

"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,

Off-hand like — just as I —

Was out of work — had sold his traps —

No other reason why.

"Yes; quaint and curious war is!

You shoot a fellow down

You'd treat if met where any bar is,

Or help to half-a-crown."

INTRODUCTION –

"The Man He Killed" is a famous poem by the British Victorian poet, Thomas Hardy. It was first published in 1902. The poem is a dramatic monologue where the speaker describes his memory of a man he killed during the war. He further says that if he had met that man in a different situation at any inn or bar, they would have become fast friends. But, the war forced them to be enemies. The poem consists of 20 lines divided into five quatrains. Each quatrain follows the rhyme scheme of ABAB. The poem highlights the senselessness and wasteful tragedy of human conflict.

POET –

Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 - 11 January 1928) was a Victorian British novelist and poet. He was a realist and his works, both in prose and in poetry, were influenced by Romanticism. His famous works include Tess of d' Urbervilles, Far From the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, etc.

SUMMARY –

The poem starts with the speaker describing to us a man. He says that if he and that man would have met in some old inn or bar, they would have sat down and shared many drinks. A friendship between them would have started without a doubt. But he met that man on a battlefield where both of them were from different troops and faced each other as enemies. He and the man both pointed their guns at each other's faces. They looked into each other's eyes and fired a shot at the same time. The other man missed his shot aimed for the speaker. The speaker, however, shot the man who died at that spot.

The speaker then explains his deeds saying that he had to kill that man as he was his enemy. That was the only reason. The other man had to be shot by the speaker. Further, the speaker thinks about the reasons the other man would have had to join the army. The speaker thinks that he must have enlisted in the army on a whim, just like the speaker. He would have had no job or work to do. He would have had to sell his belongings to sustain his life. All this would have forced him to start a career in the army. The speaker cannot think of any other reason for this.

At last, the speaker says that he agrees with the fact that war is a strange and odd thing. The reason behind this is that war forces us to make enemies. We end up shooting someone with whom we would have got along well within a bar. Someone who we would even give money if they needed it, had to be killed in the war.

THEME –

• The senselessness of war - In the poem, the speaker talks about the time he shot and killed a man during a war. The speaker imagines he could easily have been friends with this man but due to the circumstances of war, they had to be fatal enemies. The poem, then, argues that war is ridiculous, tragic, and brutal and that it ignores the common humanity between people on different sides of a conflict.

END –

The poem is one of the tragic and eye-opening works of Hardy. He shows the war as something personal. The experiences that Hardy had throughout his life did not give him a very optimistic view of mankind. Thus, his poetry reflects his feelings toward humanity, giving them a rather dark and pessimistic feel. The poem truly analyses and explains the absurdity and senselessness that we call war.