"Five ways to kill a man", describes different ways man has used from ancient times till twentieth century,to kill other human beings. It mocks at the dehumanisation of man.
The first stanza talks about crucifixion of Jesus Christ it included complicated method to torture and kill him. A crowd walked up the Golgotha hill and forced Christ to carry the wooden cross on his back.
St. Peter the leader of his disciples refused thrice to know him. The cock crowed to remind Peter of Christ's prediction that he would deny him.
They nailed him onto the cross and pulled the cross up erect.After that Jesus was asked to remove his cloak leaving him semi clad.They tortured him in various ways and he asked for water,he was provided with a sponge soaked in vinegar.
Eventually Christ died and then they divided his clothes among themselves.
the second stanza describes war fought for the sake of crown and honour in the medeival age.
it refers to the Wars of Roses (1455-1485)a series of dynastic wars fought between the House of Lancaster and House of York for the throne of England.They fought with bows and arrows, wearing an armour known as metal cage and riding of white horses.
The third stanza describes first world war and the use of gas warfare. In 1915 the British used gas cylinders to attack German front lines. The wind direction changed and the gas came back to poison the British soldiers. The poet also refers to use of trench warfare , bombs , mud blackened boots , plague of mice. He also talks about the dozen songs of war chants used to boast the morale of soldiers to make them proud of their act of killing the enemies.
The fourth stanza describes advent of aeroplanes and atomic warfare.
This warfare required an aeroplane to fly above the victims head without even knowing them or seeing them. The poet refers to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki of Japan by USA during the second World War.
The poet says this required "an ocean to seperate you" referring to the cultural and geographical gap between US and Japan;" two systems of government" referring to the difference in adminstrative system of the two countries;'a nation's scientists' and "several factories" to produce the lethal weapon like atom bomb. All this deadly acts were executed by the orders of a psychopath, probably Harry S. Truman, the then president of USA who authorised atomic bombing on Japan.
the poet then says "land that no one needs for several years", a reference to the regions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,which were totally devastated due to the effects of radiations.
In the last stanza the poet devised a far more simpler and direct method than the four methods he described in the above four stanzas, to leave the victim in the middle of the twentieth century in the miserable condition of the post effects of the second world war which included poverty, hunger ,malnutrition, dieseases,religious intolerances; In such conditions man was being inflicted with with pain everyday in order to survive and in doing so, he would die a slow but painful death.
Each stanza of the poem deals with one method of killing and each one further creates a distance between the killler and the victim, till in the last stanza there remains neither the killer nor the victim only a living Death.
"Five Ways to Kill a Man" is a fairly straightforward poem in terms of what events are taking place.
The first stanza opens with a bold statement about there being "many cumbersome ways to kill a man." It then continues to tell about the crucifixion of Christ. The stanza coldly states what few tools and elements are needed to crucify a person.
To do this properly you require a crowd of peoplewearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloakto dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and oneman to hammer the nails home.
Stanza two moves forward in time about one thousand years. It talks about medieval knights battling each other in suits of armor. It talks about how swords and arrows are designed to penetrate that armor. The end of the second stanza also includes a bit of narration on the need for royalty to celebrate the violence being done at their command.
Stanzas three and four are about World War I and II. Stanza three focuses on how toxic gasses killed thousands of men in the trenches. Stanza four is about the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan. There appears to be an insult directed at the US president for dropping the bombs. The poem says that in order to drop the bomb, a "psychopath" is needed. This stanza also ends by stating that the effects of the bombs lasted a lot longer than a day or two.
All you thenrequire is an ocean to separate you, twosystems of government, a nation's scientists,several factories, a psychopath andland that no-one needs for several years.
The fifth stanza states that all of the previous methods for killing a man are "cumbersome." It states that the easiest way to kill a man is to just leave him somewhere in the twentieth century. The narrator is calling reader attention to the increasing violence that has been happening throughout history. In addition to that, the narrator is showing readers how mankind's technology has allowed us to kill in easier and easier ways from farther and farther away. No longer do we need to stand next to the man we are killing and drive nails through his hands. We simply need to drop a bomb thousands of miles away with the push of a button and watch thousands of people die via live video feed.
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