Point of View

“The Man He Killed” is written, upon first glance, from a first-person singular perspective. In some ways, Hardy’s poem reads as a dramatic monologue, with his first-person speaker presumably speaking before a silent listener and gradually revealing his own character through his speech. Yet rather than the speaker’s point of view becoming grotesque or suspicious – as is often the case with this genre – his point of view is sympathetic. For example, there is a sense of humble, small-town relatability that emerges from his initial admission that had he and the man he killed simply met in peaceable circumstances, a companionship would have formed between them – “We should have sat us down to wet / Right many a nipperkin!” (2-4).

Worth noting is how Hardy, simultaneous to creating a first-person point of view based on sympathy, undermines this first-person point of view throughout the body...