“Had he and I but met, / By some old ancient inn” (1-2). The opening line of Thomas Hardy’s “The Man He killed” is a sketchy and interesting beginning. Why? The reason why I say it is sketchy and interesting is because it seems like somebody is trying to get a hold of a person, or a person is trying to capture another person back in the ancient times. As stated before it seems like somebody is trying to capture somebody, but they say “Had he and I but met”, in the long person one of the two people would have not got possibly killed. “We should have sat us down to wet” (3). In this line, it makes me think that maybe the two of individuals were possible drinking alcohol, and they both were having trouble standing, so they thought they should just sit down and continue to drink their alcoholic beverages. “Right many a nipperkin!” (4), as I can gain information from this line, a nipperkin is a vessel of liquor; which means obviously one or both individuals are drinking. As stated “Right many a nipperkin!” (4), they possibly have had too much to drink. To summarize the first stanza, “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). In this stanza I realize there is rhythm and rhyme. Lines 1, 2, and 4 are written in iambic trimester, and line 3 is written in iambic tetrameter. The word met rhymes with wet, as in inn rhymes with nipperkin, which is an ABAB rhyme scheme. As I can read the stanza, I gathered somebody is possible shot in a battlefield, as if that person would have went to a bar, he would no have been shot.
“But ranged as infantry, / And staring face to face” (5-6) It seems to me that both of guys made have been possible enemies of each other. When they...
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...ying to find a job.
“Yes; quaint and curious war is” (17). That line makes me think that the speaker used the words quaint and curious to maybe describe they way the war was. I feel like that the speaker chose those words because he maybe also did not have any other words or did not know vocabulary to chose more better words. The poem ends with the lines, “You shoot a fellow down/ You’d treat if met where any bar is, / Or help to half-a-crown” (18-20). It ends with the speaker going straight to the point and saying what I have guessed all through the poem. People do not see it, but in war you will end up killing a man that you would buy a drink for or actually drink with. You kill men you would happily have as best friends. You kill your fellows.
Works Cited
Hardy, Thomas. The Man He Killed. Student ed. 2012. Michael Rosenberg, n.d. Print. Lyn Uhl. 30 Mar. 2014
...veryone else. He wakes up every day ready to crow his symbol to bring on that day. In the poem he is ready to protect all the female chickens, from another cock that could be in there house. He is ready to battle to the death for what he thinks is his. In this poem he uses ridicule, when he is talking about the old man in a terminal ward, and he also uses connotations. Some example of connotations are when he uses words like; enraged, sullenly, savagery, unappeased and terminal.
O'Neill, Laurie A.. Chapter 8: The Massacre. The Millbrook Press, 1993. eLibrary. Web. 23 Dec. 2013.
Dubus, Andre. "Killings." Meyer, Michael. In The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 107 - 120.
Wilson, David. “What Makes A Born Killer?” The Mirror. 3 Star Edition. The Mirror (2011). Print.
revisions the poet made as he struggled to understand the devastating effects of war, both
In the novel, The Things They Carried, the chapter The Man I Killed tells the story of a main character Tim who killed a Viet Cong solider during the Vietnam War. The author Tim O’Brien, describes himself as feeling instantaneously remorseful and dealing with a sense of guilt. O’Brien continues to use various techniques, such as point of view, repetition, and setting, to delineate the abundant amount of guilt and remorse Tim is feeling.
Through reading this poem several times I decided that the message from the poem is that war is full of horror and there is little or no glory. Methods which I found most effective were Full rhyme and metaphor.
Sartwell, Crispin. "The Genocidal Killer in the Mirror." Writing and Reading for ACP Composition. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Custom, 2009. 252-54. Print.
Ultimately, we have two poems which can be compared on the grounds of their subject, but are poles apart regarding their message. The structure of these poems is not what would be typically expected from a war poem, but are structured on the basis of these typical structures in order to create some sense of familiarity. Brooke’s poem expands on this familiarity while Owen attempts to deliberately sabotage it. In regards to content, Brooke shows throughout his perception of the nobility of dying for one’s country, whilst Owen uses all of his poetic techniques to show the opposite.
Stanza one is a ballad that uses symbolism as a technique, ‘grinned at life in empty joy’, this symbolises the boys’ youth when he was pleased by anything, and life was easy, he had no worries, as he would grin at anything. This phrase gives an outlook at life before joining the war, it is demonstrating the boys’ life when he was contented with anything. Another symbol is found in the first stanza, ‘whistled early with the lark’. The phrase suggests the boys’ youth in the early days, oblivious to the future laying ahead oh him. The lark symbolises cheerfulness and the beginning of the day. The boy whistling with the lark shows how he is excited for every new
3. Lawrence, John, page 69," A History of Capital Punishment," The Citadel Press, New York, 1960.
6. Hallett, Charles A. and Elaine S. The Revenger's Madness. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press. 1980.
Orel, Harold, ed. Thomas Hardy's Personal Writings: Prefaces, Literary Opinions, Reminiscences. Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1966.
Royko, Mike. “Death to the Killers.” Patterns Plus: A Short Prose Reader with Argumentation, Fifth Edition. Ed. Mary Lou Conlin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1995. 353-356. Print.
A man or novelist Thomas Hardy was a very successful man who had an interesting birth, the schools he attended, Hardy’s career, his personal life, death, and Thomas’ appreciations.