The Man he Killed

Thomas Hardy1902

Thomas Hardy 1840-1928Hardy lived in the Victorian Age The Victorian Age is characterized by :• Industrial growth• Rise of power of the Middle Class• Tendency of the New Science to undermine deeply

held religious convictions (Darwin)• Military and political changes, expansion of the

British Empire• Poetry reflected the sensibility , intellectual and

moral values• Contemporary social problems were often a topic

Queen Victoria ( 1819-1901), Empress of India

Form & Content

• Form : Dramatic Monologue• Speaker : I-form, a young soldier• Topic : speaker tries to explain to himself and

to others why he killed another soldier from the opposing side

• Tone : conversational; he is addressing us personally in an informal way, pleading with us to understand his action, but also pessimistic; reflects dark side of man: his capacity for violence and cruelty

A young soldier

half-a-crown

Theme(s) and Background• Senselessness and futility of war• Anti-war sentiment “organized inhumanity”• He rationalizes his killing, conversational tone, he’s

pleading as it were with us to understand his action• The killed man is a mirror image of himself• Humans are often victims of sheer circumstances

and fate• Which war ? 1st Boer War 1880-1881 or 2nd Boer

War 1899-1902 (Both The British versus Transvaal and Oranje Vrijstaat)

The Second Boer War ( 1899-1902)