The man he killed
2. Answer the following questions in 30-40 words.
a) The poem ‘The Man He Killed’ is told to us by an unnamed speaker (a man in the inn) who overhears a one-sided conversation (a kind of dramatic monologue) made by a soldier who killed a man- who was an enemy soldier. There are three persons in the poem: the soldier who killed a man, the man he killed, and the speaker. Hence the title of the poem is in the third person and the poem (the soldier’s monologue) is in the first person.
b) The speaker- the soldier who is alive would have been friends with the soldier he killed. They ‘could have sat down’ and chatted ‘by some old ancient inn’ and shared a drink. The phrase ‘right many a nipperkin’ refers to a small drink, of which they would have had many times on many occasions. He would have also helped the man- help to half-a-crown, should the need have arisen. The idea of having a drink together suggests a sense of brotherhood between the ordinary soldiers.
c) They two men were not enemies. The two were pitted against each other in the battlefront. They did what they were told to do. In other place or time they would have behaved differently. They are either from working class or out of work so they were compelled to enlist in the army. It is these men who will suffer in the war, and are more likely to be killed.
d) There were two people with two guns who met each other face to face. The instance of two men dying at the same time was unlikely; there was just a single chance of one dying. No one could predict who would die and who would survive. It was only by chance that the narrator walked away after surviving, and the other man died.
e) The narrator is uncomfortable with what he has done because he tries to reason with himself, to convince himself that he had done the right thing in shooting the man. The fact that he was at war was not reason enough for the speaker. He felt that he must have a deeper reason, but he could not find one.
3. Answer the following questions in 100-120 words.
a) The poet is against any sort of war and killing. He believes that war is nothing but mass slaughter with legal sanction of society and conscience. With such convictions and his getting listed in the army and his act of killing another man, he finds war quaint and curious. Apart from this, he thinks that the same man whom we shoot on the war front gets different treatment and concern if met in a bar without company or on the roadside, seeking our help.
b) The poem brings the reader’s attention to the meaningless nature of war. War is caused by the disagreement of two administrations but affects people throughout the country. The poet speaks of the man he killed as his foe, but he is unconvinced that belonging to warring nations makes two men enemies. Had the poet met the man he killed at an inn, he would gladly have shared a few drinks with him. Had the other man been in trouble, he would happily have helped him out in any way he could. The two men had joined the army because they lacked jobs and did not care why their countries were at war. They were forced to kill each other without knowing or understanding why, just because they stood on opposite sides of a battlefield.
c) The narrator speaks directly to the reader: ‘You shoot a fellow down You’d treat if met where any bar is.’ Hardy has placed the entire poem in quotation marks to emphasise that the narrator is talking directly to us, as if it is us having a nipperkin with him in an ancient inn. The language the narrator uses, such as ‘fellow’ and ‘treat’, is simple and informal. Hardy is using the voice of the narrator to make his point that ordinary, simple men do not want to fight and kill; they only do it because they are told to.
d) The speaker thinks that the man he killed and he himself enlisted in the army in an ‘off hand’ way, almost casually because he was ‘out of work’ and needed the money and had ‘no other reason why’ again making it seem as if they had a casual attitude to the war, not really knowing quite what it was they were letting themselves in for. Perhaps if he had known then he would not have joined. They are ‘ranged in infantry’ which hints that they have been set face to face ‘ranged’ almost like two guns pointed at each other. The men have almost become dehumanised by the process of war. The lack of conviction in the speaker’s voice about the necessity of killing the enemy man emphasises the idea that the soldiers who fight just follow orders, rather than knowing what it is they are doing.
