Hello everyone.

My name's Ms. Keller, and welcome to today's lesson.

I'm so glad that you could join me today because we are going to be analysing Thomas Hardy's poem, The Man He Killed.

So by the end of today's lesson, we will be able to explain how Hardy uses language, form and structure to express his viewpoint.

So let's have a look at today's key words.

We have colloquialisms, which are informal words, phrases, or expressions that are characteristic of everyday conversation.

And we also have slang, which is a very similar term because it also refers to informal language.

However, slang consists of unconventional words or phrases that are specific to certain groups or cultures.

Interjections, then that third word are words or phrases that are used to express emotion, surprise or emphasis, and they're often inserted into a sentence.

A dramatic monologue is a poetic form in which a single character speaks revealing their thoughts, feelings, and motivations.

And finally, commonality, is a word that means shared features, traits or characteristics among individuals, groups or things.

So how is today's lesson going to look? Well, in order to analyse The Man He Killed, we are going to start by thinking about Hardy's use of a language, and then we're going to explore his use of form.

And finally, we are going to explore his use of structure.

So starting off with language then.

I'd like to think specifically about Hardy's use of informal language.

So throughout the poem, Hardy uses many different types of informal language such as slang and colloquialisms, those two key words that we were just discussing.

Contractions and abbreviations.

And these are two different types of shortened words or phrases.

We have contractions which are words such as can't or don't, where a letter or a few letters have been omitted and replaced with an apostrophe, or we have abbreviations, which is where we shorten words.

And thirdly, then we have exclamations and interjections.

So interjections was that key word, interruptions that emphasise something or show surprise, perhaps, or excitement.

And exclamations, which are essentially sentences with exclamation marks.

They are phrases or sentences that show us heightened or intense emotions.

And finally, non-standard grammar.

So this is where a writer perhaps chooses a word order that is not the order that we would expect from standard English written text.

So now over to you for a quick discussion.

And what I would like you to do is see if you can find any examples of these types of informal language in the poem.

So pause the video here while you grab your copy of the poem and give it another really good read through and familiarise yourself with the text.

And then when you've done that, take a few moments to discuss the examples or the quotations that you've found with the people around you, or if you're working on your own, that's okay.

Just make some notes on your paper or in your exercise book.

So pause the video here while you take some time to do this task and when you're ready to feedback your responses go play and we'll continue.

Welcome back.

Some really interesting discussions there to start us off.

And I was particularly impressed by all the different examples of this informal language that I could overhear people drawing out of the text.

So let's have a look at some examples that I overheard and explore these quotations in a bit more detail.

So starting then with Hardy's use of colloquialisms and slang.

So we did have quite a few colloquialisms in the text.

We had "wet, off-hand like and fellow because these are all words that perhaps in this context are a bit more informal, but they are still colloquialisms because they're words that we would all recognise also from our everyday speech.

And then that's where we've got this slang term, nipperkin, which is a word for a small container that holds approximately half a pint of liquid.

So in this context, Hardy is using it to represent a drink that the two soldiers may have.

But nipperkin is not a word that we would all associate with our every day vocabulary.

So therefore it is an example of slang and not a colloquialism.

I also heard lots of people picking up on these contractions.

We've got quite a few contractions throughout the poem, that's, he'd, list.

And we've actually got two there because we've also got this example of the shortened word.

We've got he'd, he would, enlist and then list which here is short for that en-list sign up to the army.

And thirdly, then we've got exclamations and interjections.

So starting with the exclamation.

We've got that line, yes, quaint and curious war is, and we've got that all important exclamation mark which actually adds a bit more emotion to this line and takes it beyond perhaps just being a statement.

And then also interjections.

We've got quite a few.

We've got just so, of course he was, and perhaps.

And in each case in the poem, Hardy uses these interjections to interrupt the speaker's flow, to interrupt what they were otherwise saying.

And finally we've got some examples of nonstandard grammar such as the phrasing of standards three and four where Harley says off-hand like.

Just as I - was out of work - had sold his traps.

No other reason why.

And if we look here at this part of the poem, we can see that Hardy's separating each of these short clauses that the speakers using to build up this description.

And arguably Hardy does this to create the feel of spoken language.

By using these hyphens, it really creates the impression that the speaker is repeatedly interrupting themselves, which then gives us the further impression that what they're saying is spontaneous.

It's not premeditated, it hasn't been written down in a poem.

Instead, it's almost like the speaker is sat opposite us telling us this story spontaneously.

So taking these ideas a little bit further then, I'd like to hand over to you for another discussion.

Why do you think Hardy uses so much informal language? So pause the video while you have a think and discuss this with the people around you or make some notes if you're working on your own.

And when you're ready to feedback your responses together, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

Again some really fantastic discussions taking place there.

And I was particularly impressed by people that were using their wider contextual knowledge of the poem in order to try to make some inferences about why you think Hardy made the choices that he did.

So that's really good job there.

So I'd also like to draw on a few contextual ideas to discuss this.

So well done if your discussions were picking up on any of these ideas.

So firstly then we could argue that more than simply humanising the enemy soldier, perhaps here, Hardy's aim is to instead normalise him.

And what do I mean by normalise? Well, during the second Boer War, propaganda played an important role in shaping citizens' perceptions of those fighting on both sides.

And remember, propaganda were persuasive materials that perhaps were put out by governments or by the leaders of the army or other leaders of a particular country in order to persuade people or to influence opinions about a certain war or conflict.

So propaganda or British propaganda at least, often heroised British soldiers, and characterised the opposing Boer soldiers and the citizens of South Africa as aggressors who were resisting British rule.

So we're getting a certain depiction of the people living in South Africa from a British perspective.

So I'd like to hand over to you again for another discussion.

So how could normalising the enemy soldier in this way affect our perceptions of him? And in particular, might it have affected perceptions of him to Hardy's readers at the time that this poem was published? So think very carefully and pause the video for a few moments while you discuss this with the people around you or make your notes and when you're ready to discuss it together, click play and we'll carry on.

Welcome back.

Again, some really interesting and quite imaginative responses to this question with people thinking really carefully about perhaps the key messages and ideas in this poem and what Hardy he wants to convey to the reader.

So well done if you picked up on some similar ideas to me in that the enemy soldier is someone that everyday readers might relate to, perhaps with similar motivations or beliefs.

Hardy implies that he is just like everybody else, this enemy soldier.

And in doing so, closes the distance between the hero and the enemy.

Okay, so now it is time to pause and check our understanding so far.

So here's my question to you.

Which of these quotations from the poem uses informal language? So pause the video here while you have a look at those quotations and identify any of those informal language types that we were discussing earlier.

Press pause for as long as you need to and click play when you're ready for me to reveal the correct answer.

Welcome back and well done to those of you who said B.

He thought he'd list perhaps off-hand like and we've actually got quite a few different examples there.

We've got colloquialism such as off-hand like and we've also got contractions such as he'd, list, and we've also got injections such as perhaps.

So now it's time for our first practise task of today's lesson.

And what I would like you to do is to make notes on the following quotations from the poem, exploring what you can infer about the speaker from their narrative voice and how Hardy presents it in these particular quotations.

So first of all, I would like you to explore this one.

I shot him dead because, because he was my foe, just so my foe, of course he was.

And secondly, he thought he'd list perhaps off-hand like just as I was out of work, had sold his traps.

No other reason why.

So I would like you to explode these quotations, annotating them with any methods you can find, any inferences that you can make about that speaker and what impression you get of their narrative voice.

Some things to consider then.

What sort of person do you think the speaker is in these quotations? What key words or phrases in particular give you this impression? Zooming in and thinking about why those particular words or phrases give you that impression.

Why do you think that Hardy has chosen to present the speaker in this way? So pause the video for as long as you need to to give this a really good go.

And when you're ready to feedback your responses together, click play and we'll go through it.

Welcome back, and a fantastic effort from everybody there.

I was particularly impressed with how people were pulling lots of different methods out of these key quotations and adding those personal interpretations of the language, the inferences that we can make about that speaker.

So let's explore these quotations together then.

That first one.

I shot in dead because, because he was my foe, just so my foe, of course he was.

So first of all, we could have picked up on this use of repetition of the word because, which we could argue mimics spoken language here.

It almost mimics a full start because, because he was my foe, which could suggest that the speaker hesitates when they're speaking.

Maybe they start this sentence, I shot him dead because, and then they hesitate because perhaps they don't fully understand why they did have to kill the other man.

And maybe that slight hesitation is enough for us to get that sense of uncertainty on the speaker's behalf.

And also then we've got just so, of course he was, both examples of interjections.

And we could argue that both interjections maybe sound like something that the speaker's saying to reassure themself or repeating what he thinks he should believe.

And if we compare that to what we were just saying earlier about this false start, we've got this idea that perhaps the speaker doesn't know how to finish the sentence and maybe finishes the sentence with what he's been told or what propaganda might have told him.

This idea that because the enemy soldier is his foe, that's why he had to kill him.

So maybe these interjections also give us this impression that maybe he doesn't fully believe the reasons why he's been told to kill the other man.

This idea of because he was my foe, of course he was my foe.

And in fact that phrase there, which is meant to imply certainty, perhaps gives us quite the opposite impression.

And onto the second quote then.

He thought he'd list perhaps off-hand like just as I was out of work, had sold his traps.

No other reason why.

So what could we have pulled out of this quotation then? First of all, we've got these colloquialisms and contractions list off-hand like and traps.

So first of all then, we've got this idea that the frequency of this informal language could suggest that perhaps our speaker is working class.

They're using a working class vocabulary maybe, a slightly more informal conversational way of speaking.

We also get from this word traps that maybe our speaker is a rural man, maybe their job involves working with animal traps.

And they're assuming that perhaps the enemy soldier may have come from a similar background to them.

And we've also got this word list, contraction of that military term enlist, which could imply that perhaps it's something that citizens discuss often.

Is so frequent in their vocabulary that they've shortened the word now.

They've always given it a nickname because perhaps it's something that they talk about so much.

And also we've got this word off-hand, which could suggest that perhaps our speaker enlisted into the army on a whim.

Maybe they bought into this persuasive propaganda and they're assuming that perhaps the enemy soldier also signed up on a whim.

And also this word off-hand, it's really supporting our previous analysis of that other quote.

This idea that perhaps our speaker didn't really fully understand the ramifications of what their job as a soldier would involve.

And we've also, again got Hardy's use of punctuation.

We've got lots of dashes there.

So what does this use of non-standard grammar imply by our speaker? Well first of all, it suggests these repeated interruptions or interjections, which mimic this spoken language, they give us impression of a quite relatable and conversational speaker.

And also we learning about the speaker's life through his thoughts about the other soldier.

So his predictions about what the other soldier's life might be like actually gives us these all important clues to the sort of person that the speaker might be.

Okay, so now we've studied Hardy's use of language.

We are ready for the second part of today's lesson where we are going to explore Hardy's use of form.

And we're gonna focus on this idea that the poem takes a form of a dramatic monologue.

So I'd like to hand over to you for a quick fire discussion.

What is a dramatic monologue? Pause the video here while you have a think and discuss it with the people around you or make some notes.

And when you're ready to continue, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, welcome back.

So well done if you are picking up on this word monologue to start with, which is a speech given by one character.

And a monologue is not necessarily something that we only find in poetry.

We would most commonly find monologues in a play where a character would deliver a speech on their own.

But a dramatic monologue is a type of poet.

It's a poetic form.

So over and above this idea that we're getting a speech from one character, there are also some other important conventions of a dramatic monologue.

First of all, we will be always hearing in the first person perspective, I.

We're gonna hear through the speaker's words in a dramatic monologue.

Secondly, there's a silent audience.

In most dramatic monologues, the speaker speaks directly to the listener or the reader.

Perhaps they're speaking to a you character and this you character isn't necessarily always named.

Thirdly, we get this slow reveal of the character or the speaker's personality across the course of the poem.

We learn a lot about our speaker as they deliver this monologue to us.

And finally, there are three main types of dramatic monologues.

There is a romantic monologue, a conversational dramatic monologue, and a philosophical or psychological dramatic monologue.

Okay, so now it is time to pause again and check our understanding.

So from which perspective are dramatic monologues usually written? Have a look at the options below and pause the video if you need to while you have a think and click play when you're ready for me to reveal the correct answer.

Okay, welcome back and well done to those of you who said A.

The first person is usually the perspective from its dramatic monologues are usually written.

And actually we could work this out because the prefix mono means one only or single.

So we've got that really important clue there in that word monologue.

So now it's time for the second practise task of today's lesson.

And what I would like you to do is to complete the grid below exploring how The Man He Killed uses the conventions of a dramatic monologue.

So what I've done there in that left hand column is I have listed the conventions that we've been discussing.

So the first person perspective, a silent audience, this slow reveal of the speaker's personality, and finally those three types of dramatic monologue.

So what would like you to do is to find evidence from the poem for any of these conventions that we can identify in the text.

And in particular, with that last row, I'd like you to think really carefully about which of the three types of dramatic monologue we are dealing with here.

So pause the video while you give this a really good go.

And when you filled in those boxes and you're ready to feedback your responses, click play and we'll carry on.

Welcome back.

And well done for such a great effort with that activity.

It was so great to see people really engaging with those conventions of a dramatic monologue.

So let's just explore some of the evidence that you could have for each of the conventions starting first with that first-person perspective.

Well, there are quite a lot of different quotations that we could have chosen that he used that first person pronoun I.

And I've selected, I shot at him, as he at me.

And for that silent audience then again, pronouns you've got, you shoot a fellow down.

We've got that second person pronoun, which implies the existence of that silent audience.

And also the entire poem is actually framed within a set of speech marks, which implies that the poem is being said aloud by the speaker.

That third one then, the slow reveal of the speaker's personality.

Well arguably he and I on that first line doesn't reveal who the characters are until much later on.

And in fact they're revealed quite gradually with the clues that our speaker drops during the course of the text.

So for example, we start off with these two figures, he and I, they could be anyone.

And then on line five, we've got the word infantry, which keeps us that impression that perhaps both these men might be soldiers, but we don't know any more about them than that.

And then later on line 10, foe gives us a bit of an inkling about their relationship, their enemies.

And then last of all, line 17 war, we've got that setting, we know perhaps where these two people met.

And finally then, which of the three main types of dramatic monologue are we dealing with here? Well, I would argue conversational.

So firstly, we've got those speech marks that we were discussing earlier, which frame it as part of a conversation between the speaker and the silent audience.

And we've also got the idea that these contractions and abbreviation, so the informal language mimics the informal nature of conversational speech.

Okay, so we've made it to the final part of today's lesson and a massive well done for all your hard work so far, and keep it up for this last section where we are going to be exploring Hardy's use of structure.

So I'd like to start by thinking about Hardy's use of repetition and mirroring.

So one important way that Hardy emphasises the similarities between the two soldiers is by repeating or mirroring ideas from earlier in the text.

So I'd like to hand over to you for a discussion at this point.

What is the difference between repeating something and mirroring something? So pause the video while you have a think and discuss this with the people around you or make some notes if you are working on your own.

And when you are ready to discuss it together, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, welcome back.

Some really interesting responses there that I overheard.

It's actually quite tricky when things are fairly similar to try to find that difference between them because it can often be quite subtle and nuanced.

And I think that trying to articulate a difference is sometimes quite tricky when it is a subtle one.

So well done for attempting that task.

So a lot of people that I overheard were picking up on this similarity between the two things, both repeating and mirroring involve seeing the same or similar versions of something over and over again.

So for example, repetition is the recurrence of the same ideas.

And here's your example, two pictures of this lovely little penguin.

They're exactly the same.

However, if we were gonna mirror these images of the penguin and the clue here is mirror.

And if we think about what happens when we look in a mirror.

So mirroring is where ideas and elements reflect or parallel one another.

So they are really strongly linked.

They're clearly more or less the same except they may be these really important differences.

They're not exact repetition.

So in this example, I've turned around one of the penguins, so they're now facing away from each other.

I could have also face them towards each other or turned one perhaps upside down.

I could even perhaps have changed the colour of one of the penguins and it would still be reflecting or paralleling that first initial penguin that we'd seen.

So how does this play out in the poem then? Over to you again.

I would like you to go back to your copies of the text and have a go at trying to identify any examples of repetition and or mirroring in the poem.

So pause the video here while you have a good look through the poem and identify your examples.

And when you're ready to discuss it, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

Some really interesting examples that I could hear some people picking out there.

So let's just go through some of the great responses that I overheard.

So first of all then, we've got this idea of these two soldiers and on line six Hardy uses repetition to really emphasise that to us staring face to face.

We've got that repetition there of the word face, face-to-face.

We've got this idea that they're both equals, stood there facing one another as I have depicted below.

So that's our example of repetition.

Now let's have a look at some examples of mirroring.

So first of all, well done if you picked up on this quotation from line seven.

So I shot at him as he at me.

And if you see we've got a mirror in there of the structure of the sentence.

The words aren't the same, but the structure of each half of that sentence is.

I shot at him as he at me and we've got repetition of the word at in order to mirror that sentence structure.

Well done if you picked up also on line 10.

So he was my foe.

My foe, of course he was.

So we've got repetition there of the word my foe and was.

But then we've also got a bit of mirroring because Hardy shifts around the word order, the syntax of this sentence in order to change the meaning slightly.

So he was my foe.

My foe, of course he was.

And just shifting those words around, give us that extra impression that we were discussing earlier that actually perhaps he's not as certain as that phrase, of course he was might lead us to believe.

And last of all, then we've got line one.

Had he and I, but met by some old ancient inn.

And then there on line 19 at the end of the poem, you'd treat if met where any bar is.

So we've got a repetition of that word met, but also we've got a mirroring of the ideas and the image that is created in both lines because line one, we've got this image of the two men sat down in a pub together enjoying a drink.

And then in the final standup we get that same image again, you treat if met where any bar is.

So the image again of these people meeting in a pub.

So now we've explored these examples.

I'd like you to think about why Hardy does this.

What is the effect of the repetition and mirroring in this poem? So pause the video while we discuss this or make your notes, and when you're ready to go through it together, click play and we'll carry on.

Welcome back.

So well done if you are picking up on this idea, that it helps to establish a connection between the speaker and the enemy soldier.

They live very different lives and are very different experiences, but their humanity is what joins them.

So having these repeated mirrored phrases really helps emphasise how similar these men may be.

So let's pause for one final check for understanding.

So true or false, this time.

Hardy explores the dehumanising nature of war by drawing similarities between the speaker and the other soldier.

So pause the video while you make your mind up and when you're ready for me to reveal the correct answer, click play.

Okay, welcome back and well done to those of you who said true.

So now it's time to justify our answer.

So take a look at these two possible explanations below and decide which one you think best supports our ideas above.

So pause the video while you have a read and a think, and when you're ready to discuss it, click play.

Welcome back and well done to those of you who said B.

Now this is quite a tricky one because actually these sentences both started in the same way.

So I was really thinking about which of those two reasons was the best.

So he uses repetition and mirroring to subtly emphasise the ways in which the two men are similar.

So now it's time for the final practise task of today's lesson, and I'd like to explore other aspects of Hardy's use of structure.

So what I would like you to do is to think about how else Hardy uses structure to explore ideas of commonality.

And what's that word commonality mean? Well, it means the shared features, traits or characteristics among individuals, groups or things.

So in this context we are thinking about how Hardy uses structure to explore the commonality between the speaker and the enemy soldier.

So what I would like you to do is to discuss and identify lots of different examples from the text, perhaps working with the people around you, and then make some notes to answer that question.

So things you could consider.

The lengths of the lines or the stanzas.

The rhythm or the metre of the poem.

The order of the ideas and how they progress and how and where punctuation is used by the poet.

So pause the video here or you give this a really good go and when you're ready to feedback your responses, click play and we'll go through it together.

Okay, welcome back.

Some really, really fantastic discussions taking place there is people thinking about wide variety of different structural methods that Hardy's using.

So well done.

So let's explore some examples that you could have identified.

So starting with this lengths of lines and stanzas, well arguably there are equal stanzas in this poem, which could emphasise the commonality of war.

So this regular structure could link to the routine, rigid order that we usually associate with the military.

For rhythm and metre then, we could have talked about the fact that the poem has a regular metre, the lines and the number of syllables in the lines is all fairly regular, which gives the poem a matter of fact informal tone and links to the conversational feel of the dramatic monologue.

And arguably stanza three uses word play to emphasise those similarities.

So although we have a fairly regular metre and the use of rhyme helps to give it a regular feel, we do have lots of those informal interruptions, interjections, which help us to see this conversational feel as read the poem.

The order of ideas and progression then.

So arguably the last stanza of the poem mirrors the first stanza of the poem.

Both men sit down together for a drink as we were discussing on that previous slide.

However, in the last stanza the speaker changes the pronouns to you.

So instead of in the first stanza, if I were to meet in the pub, it's now, if you were to meet them in the pub.

We've got this hypothetical language in the last stanza that's almost encouraging the reader to think about how they would react if they were in the speaker's position.

And finally then Hardy's use of punctuation.

So line four of every stanza ends with punctuation except in stanza three, which could emphasise the speaker's confusion about the man's status as a foe.

Because in this stanza, the punctuation shifts from that pattern that it's been following, which implies that there's perhaps a break in the speaker's train of thought.

We've got that all important hesitation in this stanza, which indicates to us that perhaps they don't quite understand why it was that they killed the enemy soldier.

Okay, so we have made it to the finish line of today's lesson and a massive well done for all your hard work today.

I hope you feel a lot more confident when it comes to analysing The Man He Killed.

So let's just summarise what we've covered in this session.

The poem takes a form of a dramatic monologue.

A regular metre creates an informal tone as the speaker explains his actions.

The equal stanzas could represent the commonality of experiences of war.

Repetition and mirrored language illustrate a connection between the speaker and The Man He Killed.

And finally, Hardy uses informal language to characterise the speaker as a regular and relatable person.

So thanks for joining me in today's lesson and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Have an absolutely fantastic day, and I hope to see you again soon.