Man He Killed

In “The Man He Killed,” Thomas Hardy writes about a soldier who is conflicted due to his actions during war. The soldier is trying to bring himself to think that his actions were not wrong. Thomas Hardy uses this soldier’s thoughts about his actions in the war as well as the setting of the poem to show that at a personal level, soldiers are not enemies, and war is meaningless conflict. In the beginning of “The Man He Killed,” The soldier is in an inn which he talks casually about, which gives off a warm emotion to the setting. The setting of the inn is highly contrasted once the soldier starts talking about the battlefield, which is a setting of death and gives off negative emotions. These settings give off the first impression of how

If the soldiers first met in the inn, they could have been friends, but because the soldiers met on the battlefield during the war, they were enemies. This shows how the setting of the poem shows how that at a personal level, soldiers are not enemies.

In war, people believe that soldiers dislike each other and are enemies due to their own personal conflict. The soldier in “The Man He Killed,” says otherwise. The soldier is shown to feel a special type of bond with his victim. In Poetry for Students, it is said that “the poem opens with an air of regret: if we had only met in a tavern like this one, we would have had a fine time together and we might have become friends.” The soldier is thinking about this in the opening stanza of the poem. The soldier and the soldier he killed never had any personal conflict with each other. They were just doing their duties as soldiers, so it brought the soldier to think that if they would have met each other in some other way than the battlefield, they could very well have been friends. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and the soldiers had the roles of being enemies in the war. Poetry for Students also says

In Poetry for Students, the soldier “remembers very clearly what happened: ‘I shot at him and he at me...And killed him in his place.’” The soldier is describing his action of him killing the other soldier. When he goes to explain why this happened, he couldn’t give a good answer. He faltered a little when explaining why he did it, but he then justifies it by just saying that “I shot him dead because-- Because he was my foe.” The soldier doesn’t sound confident saying this because he has to reassure himself after he says this. He says, “Just so: my foe of course he was; That’s clear enough; although.” (11-12). The soldier cannot give an explanation that makes him feel like what he did was not wrong. He cannot justify the murder of the other soldier. The soldier seems to feel a bit relieved after he gives his explanation, however, the way he ended this stanza with the word “although” makes it seems like the soldier has more to consider when thinking about the murder of the soldier. In Poetry for Students, they say that “he realizes the man he killed was as human as himself, he cannot see the logical implications.” When the soldier starts to think about how the other soldier was similar to himself, he starts to think of the logic behind the situation and the only thing the soldier concludes is that “Yes; quaint and curious war is!” (17). What the soldier