The document provides context and analysis of the poem "The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy. It includes a summary of each stanza of the poem, which tells the story of a soldier reflecting on the man he killed in battle who he realizes could have been a friend under different circumstances. The document also discusses Hardy's point of view in writing the poem to showcase the pointlessness and human cost of war by focusing on the perspective of ordinary soldiers forced to kill one another. Figurative language like tautology and inversion used in the poem are also analyzed.

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Subject: English
Grade: VIII
Topic: The Man He Killed
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1. What do you think is happening in the above scene?
2. Which words would you use to describe the scene?
3. How are the common people (farmers, labourers, and so on)
affected?

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a. What do you think is happening in the above scene?
A war, battle, conflict, and so on.
b. Which words would you use to describe the scene?
War, peace, soldiers, guns, cannons, arms, bullets, hurt, shot, killed,
maimed, fire, shelling, bombing, bleeding, ceasefire, dead, destruction,
pollution, fear, emergency, flag, truce, and so on.
c. How are the common people- farmers, workers, families, etc. affected?
positive or negative
Victory, capture land, defeat the enemy, national pride, and so on.
Lose crops, water contamination, shortage due to crops destroyed,
fields used for fighting, common people made to fight, no work, living
with fear of death and attack, markets not open, shortage of food,
water, clothing, violence, people loose family members, bread-winners
of the family, fathers, brothers sent to war, children orphaned, women
widowed, made destitute and beggars, destruction of buildings, roads,
schools, public utilities, and so on.

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Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
English Novelist and Poet
Thomas Hardy was born in Dorset County,
England, where he studied architecture,
but he later quit to pursue a literary career.
In order to gain financial stability, Hardy
first published novels, including classics
such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude
the Obscure. Once he was well known and
well off financially, he returned to poetry,
his first love. Hardy’s dark, bleak verse was
at odds with his Victorian contemporaries
who tended to present more optimistic
perspectives on life.

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Prelude to the Poem, ‘The Man He Killed’
• The Second Boer War was fought from 1899-1902 between the British
Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking settlers of two independent Boer
republics, the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic) and the Orange
Free State.
• It ended with a British victory
and the annexation of the
republics by the British
Empire.
• Many factors contributed to
the war, but the most
compelling cause was the
struggle over control of the
rich gold reserves at the
Witwatersrand.
British Colony
Dutch speaking
Boers

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Summary of Stanza 1
“Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
The speaker begins by talking about an unnamed man. By the title of the
poem The Man He Killed, the readers can assume that he is talking about
the man whom he has killed. The readers can easily picturise two men
meeting up by chance and sitting down for a drink together.
The speaker is saying that if he had met that unnamed man under normal
circumstances, rather than on the battlefield, at places such as an inn or bar,
they probably would have shared drinks many times and would have had an
impressive old time. Nipperkin in the last line refers to a liquor vessel or
container having a capacity of a half pint or less.

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Summary of Stanza 2
“But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
In the stanza, we finally become aware of that unnamed man. He was a
soldier and both the speaker and this unnamed soldier were on the
opposing sides of a war. The word ‘But’ in the first line brings the reader
back into the reality where the speaker locates himself and the other
soldier on the battlefield.
The words ‘ranged and ‘infantry’ clearly tell us that both these men have
the lowest ranking in the army and are lined up in ranks by their
superiors for the battle in a way that they could look right at each other.
The speaker describes how both of them shot at each other at the same
time but it was the soldier from the opposing side who succumbs to the
bullet which means the speaker shot his opponent down.

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Summary of Stanza 3
“I shot him dead because —
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That’s clear enough; although
In this stanza of the poem ‘The Man He Killed’, the speaker says that he
killed the other man because he was his enemy but the break in the first
line indicates the speaker’s hesitation and doubt about his action. The
repeated use of ‘because’ indicates that the speaker is trying to come up
with a reason or an explanation for why he killed the other man.
It appears that the speaker is not really comfortable with what he has
done and so is trying to convince himself that he has done the right
action by shooting the man as he was his foe. The word ‘although’
indicates that the speaker wants to consider all possibilities rather than
settling for his unconvincing justification.

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Summary of Stanza 4
“He thought he’d ‘list, perhaps,
Off-hand like — just as I —
Was out of work — had sold his traps —
No other reason why.
In this stanza, the poet says that he had enrolled himself in the army just
like that without too much thinking. Similarly, he feels that the soldier he
shot could have joined the enemy army maybe because he was out of
work, maybe he was in real need of money or just like that.
This stanza shows that killing, injuring or fighting was not there in the
minds of both these men and the speaker didn’t go for a war with a
desire to kill the man.
However, he has now killed the man and is not able to explain this to
himself why he has done it.

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Summary of Stanza 5
“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.”
In this stanza, the speaker talks about the pointlessness of the war and its
effect on the people who fight. The speaker calls war quaint and curious
because it changes you as a person.
The same fellow whom you would have otherwise befriended, offered a
drink or loaned money to, becomes your enemy on the battlefield.

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Hardy’s Point of View
The Man He Killed deals with the
futility, or pointlessness, of war. It
is told from the point of view of an
ordinary working-class soldier,
who is reflecting on the idea that
the man he killed in battle
probably had a lot in common
with him. The idea of having a
drink together suggests a sense of
brotherhood between the ordinary
soldiers. The lack of conviction in
the narrator’s voice about the
necessity of killing the enemy man
emphasizes the idea that the
soldiers who fight just follow
orders, rather than knowing what
it is they are doing.
It is generally thought that the
speaker is a soldier who has
just returned from the Boer
War, and that he is talking in
the pub with his friends. The
poem was originally published
with a line setting the scene in
a particular inn in Dorset.

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Hardy’s Point of View
• By focusing on one soldier's story, Hardy forces us to confront the fact
that, in war, one man has to look another man in the face and kill that
man. That's what's at stake here, and for Hardy that's what really matters.
• That may sound obvious, but it's an easy fact to forget in this day and age,
when we don't always have to look each other in the face.
• Wars are often fought in far off places, and with new technology like
drones, satellites, etc., it's often hard to remember that war always has and
always will have a human cost. Men and women die at the hands of other
men and women. Somewhere, someone made a choice that made that
happen.

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Figurative speech: Tautology
• Tautology is a repetitive use of phrases or words which
have similar meanings. In simple words, it is expressing the
same thing, an idea or saying two or more times.
• The word tautology is derived from the Greek word “tauto”
(the same) and “logos” (a word or an idea).
• It lays emphasize or stress- it brings out the importance of
an idea or theme.
• Examples from the poem-
Some old ancient inn
We… us..
… ranged … infantry
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
Quaint, curious: strange

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Figurative speech: Inversion
• Changing the order of words for rhyming or other
dramatic, or poetic effects.
• Interrogative sentences and exclamatory sentences are
often inverted with the verb placed before the subject.
• Examples of inversion in the poem:
Had he and I but met
…..sat us down….
My foe of course he was
….. If met where any bar is