The Man He Killed

Everything You Need To Know About: The Man He Killed

About the poet:

Hardy lived from 1840 to 1928. He was the son of a mason, from Dorset, in the s.w. of England. He studied to be an architect, and worked as one for many years. He also began to write prose fiction. Hardy eventually published many novels, such as Jude the Obscure and Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

When Hardy no longer needed to write prose fiction for a living - the royalties from his work gave him plenty of money – he started writing poetry. He had always preferred poetry and believed that he was better as a poet. He wrote verse throughout his life, but did not publish until 1898. Hardy certainly made up for lost time, eventually publishing six collections of verse.
Hardy died in 1928, aged 87. He had asked to be laid beside his first wife, Emma, but his body was buried in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey. Only his heart was placed in Emma's grave.

About the poem:

This poem was written at the time of the Boer War, but there is nothing in it that refers to any particular conflict - it could refer to any war. The poem appears as one half of a conversation. The speaker tells about how he killed another man in battle, and reflects on how much he and his victim had in common, and how little reason they had to fight each other.

The title is slightly odd, as Hardy uses the third-person pronoun "He", though the poem is narrated in the first person. The "He" of the title (the "I" of the poem) is the soldier who tries to explain (and perhaps justify) his killing of another man in battle.

The poem in detail:

In the 1st stanza the narrator establishes the common ground between himself and his victim: the two could have shared a lot with each other. This idea is in striking contrast to that in the 2nd stanza: the circumstances in which the men did meet. "Ranged as infantry" suggests that the men are not natural foes but have been "ranged", e.g. set against each other. The phrase "as he at me" indicates the shared circumstance.

In the 3rd stanza the narrator gives his reason for shooting the man. The conversational style of the poem enables Hardy to repeat the word "because", which gives the impression of hesitation and doubt, on the part of the narrator. He cannot think of a reason to kill him, but when he does ("because he was my foe") it is utterly unbelievable. "Of course" and "That's clear enough" are blatantly ironic: it is not "clear" to the reader, and the pretence of assurance on the narrator's is destroyed by his admission beginning "although..."

The real reason for the victim's enlistment in the army, like the narrator's, is far from being connected with patriotic idealism and belief in his country's cause. The soldier's joining was "Off-hand like" and possibly the result of economic necessity: he was unemployed and had already sold off his possessions. He did not enlist for any other reason.

The narrator concludes with a repetition of the contrast between his treatment of the man he killed and how he might have shared his time with him. He says war is "quaint and curious", as if to say, a funny old thing. This tends to show war as more acceptable, but the events narrated in the poem, as well as the reader's general knowledge of war, make it clear that conflict is far from "quaint and curious". Hardy uses the words with heavy irony, knowing full well how inaccurate the description is.

This is a rather bitter poem showing the stupidity of war, and demolishing belief in the patriotic motives of those who confront one another in battle. The narrator finds no good reason for his action. The short lines, simple rhyme scheme, and everyday language make the piece almost nursery rhyme like in simplicity, again in ironic contrast to its subject.

The first thing to note about the poem is that it is written as is spoken - like Browning's My Last Duchess, it is a monologue. It is not just colloquial (like speech) in style and vocabulary. It even has inverted commas (speech marks) to show that it is meant to be spoken.

The vocabulary is very simple - most of the words are familiar or everyday terms, apart from dialect expressions, like "sat us down", "nipperkin" (a small measure of drink) or "traps" (possessions), and the abbreviation "'list" for "enlist" (join up, become a soldier in the army).

The poem is written in a simple metre and a tight ABAB rhyme scheme. Most of the lines are end stopped - but Hardy suggests the soldier's doubt at one point by using "although" to run on to the next line.

The structure of the poem is clever - the speaker ends up with the same comment he makes at the start: that war makes people fight when their natural behaviour would be to share a drink together.

Responding to the poem:

Does Hardy share the views of the speaker in the poem? Why does the soldier say that war is "quaint and curious"? Does Hardy want the reader to agree with this view?
How different and how similar are the two men in the poem? What do they have in common?