Post on 11-Jan-2016
transcript
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)