The Man He Killed Flashcards
‘By some old ancient inn’
Hardy opens the poem anecdotally contrasting the actual circumstances of the two men with the possibility that in some other reality, they might have met in a pub. Highlights how Hardy is perhaps criticising the cruel news and irrationality of war
‘nipperkin’
This is informal Dorset dialect - ‘nipperskin’ can refer to a container of alcohol or an unit of measurement- this whole stanza refers to the ide that these two men could easily be friends if they weren’t faced with killing each other in a war
‘infantry’
Immediately, the second stanza introduces the theme of war, and the use of enjambment accelerates the pace of the poem, perhaps reflecting the lack of time the speaker had to make his decision as to whether to kill the soldier or not
‘I shot at him as he at me’
The balance of this line - four syllables and words apportioned to the speakers action and four to the subjects action - further reinforces the idea that the men are fundamentally equal, this continues the sentiment of the first stanza
‘because - Because’
The speaker stumbles her - all the more noticeable since poetry is characteristically elegant. His hesitation suggests his inability to find a sufficient justification. This inability to justify his actions signalled by the repetition ‘he was my foe’ which is in turn heightened by the simpler sounds ‘foe’
‘Although’
The stanza ends with enjambment, reflecting the fact that his thoughts are unresolved. Unlike the two previous stanzas, the stanza doesn’t conclude neatly like but runs on. Placing ‘although’ at the very end of the stanza makes it visually prominent- the speaker’s ambivalence and lack of assurance is clear to the reader
‘Was out of work’
The speaker is pondering over the reasons the solider may have enlisted to fight. The reasons he comes up with pretty arbitrary. The speaker doesn’t imagine it’s patriotism that pushed him to fight - it’s simply poverty that caused him to enlist
‘Yes; quaint and curious was is!’
The speaker is now reflecting on war in the more general sense. The line well may be ironic - ‘quaint’ means ‘pleasingly’ or ‘strikingly old-fashion’ and its connotations are positive, whereas war is devastating in every respect, including psychologically as the poem in question demonstrates
‘You’d treat if met’
The speaker expresses how strange he finds war, considering that if he met the other men in any other context they would treat each other with respect. This sentiment is a variation of the sentiment in the first stanza, and contributes to the poem’s cyclical nature
‘where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown’
The nine-syllable penultimate line leads the listener to expect a longer final line, the final line is only six syllables and this inequality produces a sense of deflation which is at one with the speaker’s melancholy train of thoughts
