e. CE 101 - The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy
Channel: Ishan Marvel
Date: 2020-12-07

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTSoWRKkWJTZHH9sr7bmr37Wd16TTbRbr
From 'The Blossoming Mind'

Industrial Revolution (approximately 1760 - 1830s)
* When new manufacturing processes revolutionised life and trade in Europe and the US through newly mechanised factories, chemical processing, use of steam and hydel power, etc.
* The movement was led by the British Empire, thanks to the resources and man-power gained from its numerous colonies, and it brought vast changes to how the world lives and functions in terms of the rise of urban culture, global trade, etc.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
*Famous post-industrial writer known for his novels such as Far From the Madding Crowd (1874), The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1887), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1896), where he often captured the ways of life that were fading away with industrialisation and urbanisation.
* After bitter criticism of his later novels, which present a deeply tragic view of life, he wrote only poetry which was his first interest. His poems often provide precise descriptions of nature and local landscapes, combined with significant thoughts and emotions of the time.

The Man He Killed (1902)
* This poem was written in the context of the Boer War (1899-1902), where British settlers fought for the control of the diamond and gold mines in South Africa.
* The usual theme of modern and humanist war-related literature is followed here, wherein Hardy raises the age-old question: What exactly are the soldiers fighting for?
* Thus, Hardy brings out the senselessness and insanity of war, where individual soldiers -- who have no personal enmity -- kill and attack each other for abstract ideas and unknown motives decided by their higher-ups.
* For if the opposing soldiers had happened to meet somewhere in peacetime, they would have treated each other as human beings, and maybe even talked and helped each other. However, war turns these human beings into unthinking killing machines.
* The 'unthinking' aspect being particularly necessary since a soldier who thinks too much will not be able to follow orders and kill someone recklessly. Thus, he must become an unthinking killing machine if he wants to become a 'good' soldier.
* The poet conveys all this through the words of a soldier who talks about the 'enemy' he killed on the battlefield. That other soldier too had probably joined the army of his country simply because he was unemployed and had no other means of livelihood in wartime. Thus, the speaker is acutely conscious of their common bond of humanity, which was forgotten when they had to fight as soldiers of opposing armies. And so, he must repeatedly convince himself that he had, after all, killed an 'enemy'.