In the poem, “The Man He Killed,” that was written by Thomas Hardy, timeless appeal is quite evident in the fact that the circumstances in which these two men met could have been different. They became instant and unwilling foes because they met in a war scenario. The poem suggests that the speaker and his opponent become foes only because of circumstances in which they met.
When you meet someone the circumstances that you meet them in tend to reflect how you will view this person for future meetings. In this poem there are references to different ways that the speaker could have met his enemy. In the first stanza the speaker says, “Had he and I but met / By some old ancient inn, / We should have sat us down to wet / Right many a nipperkin,”(1-4). Here the speaker is saying that if these two men could have met at a pub they could have had a beer together as opposed to having become instant foes like they do in a war setting. In which your intent is not to befriend them but instead to kill them because they are your enemy.
The poem suggests that when you are at war with another you really do not have a choice about whether or not you want to kill another person. It is implied that the speaker will kill another person because
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the speaker has to not because the speaker wants to accomplish that task. In stanza two the speaker says, “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 fifth stanza the speaker says, “Yes, quaint and curious war is! / You shoot a fellow down / You’d treat if met where any bar is / Or help to a half-crown,” (17-20). In the third stanza the speaker says, “I shot him dead because-- / Because he was my foe. In this stanza the poem suggests that the solider only killed his enemy because he had to, and the solider understands that even though he may not have wanted to. They can see each other’s face which makes it harder to kill them but it has to be done so they do it without a fight. Here the poem is conveying the idea that the speaker and the man he killed both joined the army for the same reason. Neither of them was working and there is a suggestion that there was no other reason why both men joined the war effort. Due to the fact that this is where you have met them, in the battlefield, if you could have met them somewhere else where there was a bar, and you two men would go and you would treat him to some beers. / Just so: my foe of course he was; / That clear enough; Although,” (9-12). It is quite interesting but yet peculiar at the same time because when you shoot someone you don’t think anything of it except that it was your enemy. But since the circumstances were that of being in a war he really had no real choice about how he could really approach the situation.
In the poem there are repeated ideas about having to just deal with and accept what you do in a war.
Approximate Word count =
1032
Approximate Pages =
4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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