The Man He Killed

By Thomas Hardy

“The Man He Killed” is Thomas Hardy’s 1902 poem, written during the Boer War, in which an ordinary soldier tries to explain why he shot a man he might otherwise have bought a drink. In 20 short lines that sound like talk across a bar, he stumbles over his own reasons and cannot find a good one. It was first printed in Harper’s Weekly on November 8, 1902.

Our reading: the poem’s argument against war is carried almost entirely by punctuation. Every dash marks a place where the speaker’s explanation breaks down, and by the end, the man who did the killing has talked himself into the same doubt the poem wants its readers to feel.

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Summary · The Poem · Background · Analysis and Themes · Form and Technique · Notable Lines · Themes · FAQ
Glossary · In Popular Culture · Related Poems

Summary

A former soldier reflects that if he and the enemy he killed had met at an old country inn, they would have sat down and shared a good many drinks. Instead, they met as infantrymen, lined up face to face, and he shot the other man dead.

He tries to explain why: because the man was his foe. But the more he repeats it, the less convincing it sounds, and he guesses that his enemy probably enlisted for the same reasons he did, because he was out of work and had nothing else to do. He ends by calling war “quaint and curious,” since it makes you kill a man you would have treated to a drink or lent a coin.

The Poem

Hardy’s poem is given here in full, following the text of Time’s Laughingstocks and Other Verses (Macmillan, 1909), where the whole poem is set in quotation marks as the soldier’s own speech.

“Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

“But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

“I shot him dead because—
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That’s clear enough; although

“He thought he’d ’list, perhaps,
Off-hand like—just as I—
Was out of work—had sold his traps—
No other reason why.

“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.”

Background

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was already famous as the novelist of Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure when he gave up fiction for poetry in the late 1890s. He wrote “The Man He Killed” in 1902, as the Second Boer War, fought between Britain and the two Boer republics of South Africa, was coming to an end. It was first printed in the American magazine Harper’s Weekly on November 8, 1902, and collected in Time’s Laughingstocks and Other Verses in 1909.

Hardy had little sympathy for the war, and it drew from him some of his first war poems, including “Drummer Hodge,” about a young English soldier buried in an unmarked grave on the South African veld. Many of the men who fought were volunteers from the working class, who enlisted for pay as much as for patriotism. That is the voice Hardy gives his speaker: plain, colloquial, and full of the country idioms of the Wessex villages Hardy wrote about all his life.

Analysis and Themes

The poem looks simple, a soldier talking the way he might over a drink, but it is built with great care. Three things repay attention: the gap between the inn and the battlefield, the speaker’s failing explanation, and the irony of the final stanza.

Two Ways to Meet a Stranger

The first two stanzas set up a contrast. In the first, the two men meet “By some old ancient inn” and drink together, the natural fellowship of ordinary men. In the second, they are “ranged as infantry,” lined up by others, and they meet “face to face” only to shoot. The line “I shot at him as he at me” makes the two men mirror images. Nothing separates them except the uniforms and the ranks they have been placed in.

Hardy keeps the killing strangely flat: “And killed him in his place.” There is no heroism and no horror, only a plain statement of fact. That flatness is the point. The speaker has done something enormous, and the language he has for it is small.

An Explanation That Falls Apart

The third stanza is where the poem turns. “I shot him dead because—” The dash is a hesitation, and when the reason comes, it is only a repetition: “Because he was my foe, / Just so: my foe of course he was.” Saying it three times does not make it more convincing, and “That’s clear enough” sounds like a man trying to persuade himself. Then the stanza ends on “although,” and the sentence runs over into the next stanza, where the doubt pours out.

What follows is broken up by dashes, as if the speaker is thinking aloud. The other man, he guesses, enlisted “Off-hand like—just as I,” because he “Was out of work—had sold his traps.” The enemy, it turns out, was another poor man who joined up for a wage. The speaker has discovered that the man he killed was himself.

Quaint and Curious

The last stanza reaches a conclusion that is almost comic in its understatement: “Yes; quaint and curious war is!” “Quaint” and “curious” are words for an odd custom or an old curiosity, far too mild for killing a man. The speaker cannot say that war is wrong, because he has no language for that, so he says it is peculiar. The understatement leaves the real judgment to the reader.

The final lines bring the poem back to the inn where it began. War makes you shoot a man you would have treated “if met where any bar is,” or lent “half-a-crown.” The kindness is small and specific, a drink or a loan, and that is exactly what makes the killing so senseless.

Form and Technique

The poem is a dramatic monologue of 20 lines in five quatrains rhyming ABAB. Most lines are iambic trimeter, with three beats, “had HE and I but MET,” but the third line of each stanza stretches to four: “we SHOULD have SAT us DOWN to WET.” The short lines and jingling rhymes give the poem the feel of a ballad or a drinking song, which clashes pointedly with its subject.

Hardy’s real technique is his use of speech. Country phrases such as “sat us down,” “Right many a nipperkin,” and “Off-hand like” make the speaker a real working man, not a poet’s mouthpiece. The comic double rhyme of “war is” with “bar is” mimics a man reaching for a rhyme in conversation. And the one run-on between stanzas, from “although” into “He thought he’d ’list,” is the only place where the poem’s tidy form gives way, just as the speaker’s certainty does.

Notable Lines

Three passages show how the poem moves from fellowship to killing to doubt.

“But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

Lines 5 to 8

The killing, told in four plain lines. The two men are mirror images, and the only thing that divides them is the order they are standing in.

“I shot him dead because—
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;

Lines 9 to 11

The heart of the poem. The dash, the stammered repetition, and the anxious “of course” show a reason collapsing as it is spoken.

“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.”

Lines 17 to 20

The conclusion, in the mildest possible words. The speaker cannot condemn war, so he calls it odd, and the reader is left to supply the stronger word.

Themes

Four ideas shape the poem, all of them about the ordinary men who fight wars.

The absurdity of war. Two men with no quarrel kill each other because they were placed on opposite sides.

A shared humanity. The enemy is a mirror of the speaker, a poor man who joined up for a wage, not a villain.

Guilt and self-justification. The speaker’s hesitations reveal a conscience he cannot quite put into words.

Class and poverty. Both men enlisted because they were out of work, so the poem hints that wars are fought by the poor.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions readers most often ask about Hardy’s poem.

What Is “The Man He Killed” About?

It is about a soldier who killed an enemy in battle and now struggles to explain why. He realizes that the other man was just like him, and that in peacetime they would have been friends.

When Was “The Man He Killed” Written?

Thomas Hardy wrote it in 1902. It was first published in Harper’s Weekly on November 8, 1902, and collected in Time’s Laughingstocks and Other Verses in 1909.

What War Is “The Man He Killed” About?

It was written during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), fought between Britain and the Boer republics of South Africa. The poem never names the war, which lets it speak about any war.

What Type of Poem Is “The Man He Killed”?

It is a dramatic monologue, a poem spoken by a character rather than by the poet. It has five rhymed quatrains, mostly in iambic trimeter, with the rhythm of a ballad.

What Is a Nipperkin?

A nipperkin is a small drinking measure, holding about half a pint or less. “Right many a nipperkin” means a good many drinks.

Glossary

These words and phrases capture the speaker’s country voice.

• wet (line 3): Moisten, meaning to drink; “wet a nipperkin” is to have a drink.
• nipperkin (line 4): A small measure of ale or spirits.
• ranged (line 5): Drawn up in ranks for battle.
• ’list (line 13): Enlist, join the army.
• traps (line 15): Personal belongings or tools.
• treat (line 19): Buy someone a drink.
• half-a-crown (line 20): A British coin worth two shillings and sixpence, a small loan to a friend.

In Popular Culture

Though written about the Boer War, the poem has been borrowed to speak about other wars.

The Civil War (1990): The poem is recited by the former U.S. Representative James Symington in Ken Burns’s PBS documentary series about the American Civil War.

Related Poems

These poems look at war from the ranks, and at what it asks of ordinary soldiers.

• Channel Firing by Thomas Hardy: Hardy’s 1914 poem in which naval gunfire wakes the dead, who learn the world is as warlike as ever.
• Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen: A soldier’s account of a gas attack, and the most famous attack on the idea of glorious death.
• Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen: A sonnet asking what funeral rites exist for soldiers who “die as cattle.”
• The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson: A Victorian tribute to soldiers who obey without asking why, the opposite of Hardy’s questioning speaker.
• The Soldier by Rupert Brooke: The patriotic 1914 sonnet that sees a soldier’s death as a gift to England.