Tom Hardy The Man He Killed Essay

The similar theme is that war changes people and tears them apart due to the pain and suffering of the war. “Cursing the war, cursing himself, cursing everybody”(O’Flaherty 208). The quote helps show that the war may cause you to curse things you never would've before, like, yourself. And from the poem “He thought he’d list perhaps/ Off hand like just as I/ Was out of work, had sold his traps/ No other reason why”(Hardy 16-20). This tells how war can force people to make erratic decisions, it changes your attitude and morals about any situation including joining the army and going to war. The difference between the two stories is that in “The Sniper” it turns him against his family and in “The Man He Killed” it turned the soldier against his friends. To prove this, “Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother's face”(O’Flaherty, page 208). Again this tells of the shock the sniper received when he saw it was his brother he had killed. But in the opposing story “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”(Hardy 17-20). It explains of how he killed a man that the soldier would have befriended in any other situation. All in all, you can see both the similarities and differences in both stories

In the middle of the poem, the speaker arrives at the number of casualties from the war. When he reads this number he can’t believe that he is still alive. As he reads down the names he uses the visual imagery and simile to describe how he expected to find his own name in “letters like smoke” (line 16). This helps the reader understand how lucky the speaker felt about somehow escaping the war still alive. As he goes

Though the men reacted in violent ways in different situations, O’Brian’s violent act was something that stayed with him for the rest of his life and completely changed who he was as a person. “The Man I Killed” describes in detail the man and his life Tim O’Brien killed on a path in the jungle, even though he obviously did not know the man’s personal background, but mimicked it after his own. This description shows O’Brien’s life came to an end at his first act of violence, mirrored in the loss of the man’s life. After O’Brien’s incident on the pathway, he became cold and exemplified this new disposition after Jorgenson almost allowed O’Brien to die from a bullet wound, and in turn O’Brien needed pay back by scaring him in the middle of the night. The war may have physically killed many, but in this sense it damaged every soldier mentally.

The second stanza, though only two lines in length and undifferentiate by lack of punctuation, carries a powerful message. the cowboy's virtue is directly compared to the dangerous, criminal potential of a bullet in a simile

The poem was written to show that war is a waste of human life as the soldier knows he will die one day as well as the men around him, just some quicker than others. This can be evident in stanza four of the poem: “I know I’ll join them somewhere, one day.” The language used is more casual than formative, this is effective as it shows the personal feelings and thoughts of the soldier during the time

Copious bullets, like that of torrential downpour, reign over the battlefield; a setting in which man created through dispute, engulfs each and every individual caught within it. Some are immediately spun into a downward spiral, while with others, it hits them in the midst -- even if they have built an immunity to war’s ways. Two fictional characters, both sharing a similar atmosphere, experience the true affects to war in their own ways. Although war never changes, the individuals do, no matter the situation. This is exemplified through the fictional tales, told by Liam O’Flaherty’s “The Sniper,” as well as Tim O’Brien’s “Where Have You Gone Charming Billy,” and as the main characters are to each their own story, they bear contradistinction to one another in the aspect of war, personality, and the emotional reactions to war.

The title of the poem automatically shifts the reader's mind to expect a poem about war and death. However, after reading the title and seeing how clear it is, when taken literally, line one of the poem is very confusing. If we try to understand the poem at a basic literal level, here’s what's happening: There is a gunner in the ball turret, underneath a bomber plane. It is so cold up high that the lining of his wet jacket is being

These two men were at one time friends. Again during the war, officers make a realization about the war.

The first stanza is addressed to ‘old men’ and how they should not simply slip away and die quietly, they should fight death until the end. Poetic techniques

In the first line of the stanza he hesitates in his reasoning for killing the man. Hardy writes, "I shot him dead because —/ Because he was my foe” (9-10). The use of a dash to separate the lines shows his hesitation. He does not know why he killed the man, so in line seven, he resorts to the explanation he has been trained to use. This is crucial to the theme of the poem as it shows that there is no correct reason to kill another man; the expectation is for soldiers to do so solely because their country considers the opposition a foe. In the second half of the stanza, he writes two lines alike to express the soldier’s need to reassure himself that the man he killed was truly a foe instead of someone similar to himself. Hardy’s choice of syntax in the line, “Because he was my foe /Just so: my foe of course he was” (10-11) indicates that the soldier has second thoughts as to if the man he killed was an enemy and needs to reassure himself that he is. This also ties in to the hesitation that the soldier felt previously in the stanza. The heavy syntax in this stanza shows the soldiers hesitation to believe that killing his opponent was the correct thing to

causes the poem to flow, and thus lightens up the dark and serious issue of war. The lines "But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place." are easy to read; however, their meaning is extremely

In this poem, ‘The Man He Killed’, the poet Thomas Hardy explores a complex theme, which is war, using the simplest language. Throughout this essay I will be discussing the thoughts and opinions Hardy has on war.

While reading “The Man He Killed”, by Thomas Hardy, I knew the speaker was talking about his past experience during war. He has killed a man,and that this man still lingers in his thoughts from time to time. The conversational tone, along with the simple language highlight many of Hardy’s ideas concerning war. The dialogue itself portrays the overwhelming consequences inhumanity can have on the soul, ultimately destroying anything man has ever know.

The first poem; “The Soldier” is focused on the different meanings and aspects of dying for your country in a foreign land, or behind-enemy-lines. In a war as brutal and tragic as the Second World War, the death of a mere soldier is often neglected and cast aside. Therefore, the

The first stanza connotes a slight sense structure as the phrase “ and his buddies did too” is repeated after stating each action the soldier does. Moreover, the lines themselves are structured in such a way that suggests a deliberate organized form- especially in comparison to how the rest of the poem is written. Most interesting about the