Read the poem, "The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy and the story, "The History of a Campaign That Failed", and answer the questions. Then, write an integrated essay about people's feelings about war as revealed in the selections. For each selection, explain how the author uses specific literary elements (e.g.setting, characterization, structure such as parable, fable, romance, satire, slap stick, farce etc., theme, point of view, plot, tone, irony) and techniques (e.g. figurative language such as metaphor, simile, understatement, personification, hyperbole etc., imagery, pun, diction, allusion, allegory) to convey his feelings about war.
Guidelines:
Text 1 :
The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy
"Had he and I but met
At some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
"But put as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me.
And killed him in his place.
"I shot him dead because--
Because he was my foe,
Just so; my foe, of course, he was;
That's clear enough; although
"He thought he would sign up, perhaps
Off-hand like-just as I;
Was out of work, had sold his traps-
No other reason why.
"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."
Text 2
Excerpt from The History of a Campain That Failed by Mark Twain
Our scares were frequent. Every few days rumors would come that the enemy were approaching. The rumors always turned out to be false. But one night we heard that the enemy was truly in our neighborhood. Up to now e had been having a very jolly time. We were filled with horse-play and schoolboy fun. But that cooled down now. Our company became silent. Silent and nervous. And soon uneasy--worried.
An almost noiseless movement presently began in the dark of our barn headquarters. We all crept to the front wall. And there we were with our hearts in our throats. We stared out toward where the forest footpath came through.
It was late, and there was a deep woodsy stillness everywhere. There was a veiled moonlight, which was only just strong enough to enable us to mark the general shape of objects.
Presently a muffled sound caught our ears. We recognized it and the hoof-beats of a horse or horses. And right away a figure appeared in the forest path. It could have been made of smoke, its mass had so little sharpness of outline. It was a man on horseback, and it seemed to me that there were others behind him.
I got hold of a gun in the dark, and pushed it through a crack between the logs, hardly knowing what I was doing. I was dazed with fright. Somebody said, "Fire!" I pulled the trigger. I seemed to see a hundred flashes and hear a hundred reports. Then I saw the man fall down out of the saddle.
My first feeling was of surprised gratification. My first impulse was an apprentice-sportsman's impulse to run and pick up his game. Somebody said, hardly audibly, "Good--we've got him!--wait for the rest."
But the rest did not come. We waited--listened--still no more came. There was not a sound, not the whisper of a leaf. Just perfect stillness. It was an uncanny kind of stillness, which was all the more uncanny on account of the damp, earthy, late night smells now rising. Then, wondering, we crept stealthily out and approached the man.
When we go to him, the moon revealed him distinctly. He was lying on his back, with his arms abroad. His mouth was open, and his chest heaved with long gasps. The thought shot through me that I was a murderer. That I had killed a man--a man who had never done me any harm.
That was the coldest sensation that ever went through my marrow. I was down next to him in a moment, helplessly stroking his forehead. I would have given anything then--my own life freely--to make him again what he had been five minutes before.
And all the boys seemed to be feeling the same way. They hung over him, full of pitying interest, and tried all they could to help him, and said all sorts of regretful things. They had forgotten all about the enemy. They thought only of this one forlorn unit of the foe.
Once my imagination persuaded me that the dying man gave me a reproachful look out of his shadowy eyes. It seemed to me that I would rather he had stabbed me than done that. He muttered and mumbled like a dreamer in his sleep about his wife and his child. I thought with a new despair, " This thing that I have done does not end with him. It falls upon them too, and they never did me any harm, any more than he".
In a little while the man was dead. He was killed in a war; killed in fair and legitimate war. Killed in battle, as you may say. Yet he was as sincerely mourned by the opposing force as if he had been their brother. The boys stood there a half-hour sorrowing over him and recalling the details of the tragedy. Wondering who he might be, and if he was a spy. They all said that if it were to do over again they would not hurt unless he attacked them first.
It soon came out that mine was not the only shot fired. There were five others. This division of guilt was a great relief, since it in some degree lightened and diminished the burden I was carrying. There were six shots fired at once. But I was not in my right mind at the time, and my heated imagination had magnified my one shot into a volley.
The man was not in uniform, and was not armed. He was a stranger in the country. That was all we ever found out about him. The thought of him got to preying upon me every night. I could not get rid of it. I could not drive it away. The taking of that unoffending life seemed such a wanton thing. And it seemed an epitome of war. All war must just it---the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity. Stranger whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it.
My campaign was spoiled.
Answer the multiple- choice questions:
a) theme b)genre c)mood d)characterization
a) a friend b)a countryman c) a family foe d) a stranger whom he could have made friends with in other situations
a) accomplished b) excited c) justified d) sad and remorseful
a) was a hero b) was a murderer c) missed d) was not responsible for anything that had happened.