Judith Wright's poem `The Killer' explores the relationship between Humans and Nature, and provides an insight into the primitive instincts which characterize both the speaker and the subject. These aspects of the poem find expression in the irony of the title and are also underlined by the various technical devices employed by the poet.

The construction of the poem is in regular four-line stanzas, of which the first two stanzas provide the exposition, setting the scene; the next three stanzas encompass the major action; and the final two stanzas present the poet's reflection on the meaning of her experience.

In the first stanza, the poet seems to be offering a conventional romanticized view of Nature:

The day was clear as fire

the birds sang frail as glass

when thirsty I came to the creek

and fell by its side in the grass.

The consistent pattern of metrical stresses...