The poem's central situation
The poem's central situation
The speaker imagines meeting the man he killed in an inn rather than on a battlefield. He suggests that, outside war, they might have shared a drink and become ordinary companions.
Step-by-step lessons on Edexcel GCSE English Literature 2.2.4 The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy. Each one builds up to exam-style questions. Work through your set texts (Shakespeare, the post-1914 text, the 19th-century novel, and the poetry anthology) alongside regular unseen-poetry practice, since the unseen and comparison sections are usually the most time-pressured on exam day.