ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Indeed, the speaker imagines he could easily have been friends with this man! The poem, then, argues that war is senseless, tragic, and brutal, and that it ignores the common humanity between people on different sides of a conflict.

Detailed explanation-2: -The speaker finishes by evaluating the nature of war. He points out that soldiers kill each other even though they could have been friends if they met under different circumstances. The Boer War was fought between the British Empire and two states in South Africa.

Detailed explanation-3: -The story and scene are easy to understand: it is 1902, and we are in a pub somewhere in Dorset. We are overhearing a man who has returned from fighting in the South African War (the Boer War) describing his experience of killing one of the enemy.

Detailed explanation-4: -Answer: Hardy shows a critical attitude toward war in “The Man he Killed.” Rather than having his narrator talk about the man he kills in battle as evil or justify killing him as necessary for a heroic cause, Hardy’s speaker simply sees the other man as person like him.

Detailed explanation-5: -Explanation: The poem brings the reader’s attention to the meaningless nature of war. War is caused by the disagreement of two administrations but affects people through out the country. The poet speaks of the man he killed as his foe, but he is unconvinced that belonging to warring nations makes two men enemies.