Foe

The foe represents the antagonistic labeling that facilitates the violence and killing of war. Because the man that the speaker kills has received the dehumanizing and antagonistic label of “foe,” the speaker is able to “[shoot] at him as he at me, / And [kill] him in his place” (7-8). However, the speaker’s own hesitation represents the falseness and constructed nature of labels such as “foe.” When considering this label, the speaker’s language is repetitive and slowed with the purposeful addition of an em-dash at the end of the line: “I shot him dead because — / Because he was my foe” (9-10). In addition, speaker’s language, when labeling the man he killed as his foe, is filled with overcompensatory phrases (“Just so,” “of course,” “clear enough”), applied because, deep down, he recognizes the insufficient label. Ultimately, the speaker’s thoughts have no definitive conclusion; the...