O 'Flaherty's Short Story The Sniper'

An author’s main goal is to have the reader intrigued by the text with suspenseful and/or dramatic scenes happening throughout the story. The authors of all three stories (“The Sniper”, “Ambush”, and “The Trip”) all portray this expectation flawlessly. Even though the stories have a great chronological order with amazing characters, they also share similar themes and subjects. The following reasons explain why.

Liam O’Flaherty’s realistic fiction story, “The Sniper,” takes place in Dublin, Ireland during a civil war. In the story, a Republican Sniper is stuck on a roof with enemy snipers surrounding him. He shoots two enemies down before he is shot in the arm causing his rifle to brake. Now he must find a way to make a hard shot in order to kill the enemy with just a revolver and a hurt arm. By using word choice and sensory details O’Flaherty demonstrates the theme that actions have serious repercussions.

"You just don 't know," she said. "You hide in this little fortress, behind wire and sandbags, and you don 't know what it 's all about. Sometimes I want to eat this place. Vietnam. I want to swallow the whole country—the dirt, the death—I just want to eat it and have it there inside me. That 's how I feel. It 's like . . . this appetite. I get scared sometimes—lots of times—but it 's not bad. You know? I feel close to myself. When I 'm out there at night, I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and my fingernails, everything, it 's like I 'm full of electricity and I 'm glowing in the dark—I 'm on fire almost—I 'm burning away into nothing—but it doesn 't matter because I know exactly who I am. You can 't feel like that anywhere else."” (O’ Brien 80-81). Tim O’ Brien shows how being in contact with the war can change a person so pure and innocent to a person who isn’t in connection with themselves and is forever trapped inside their own mind. Also it shows how the people who can’t handle the rough environment of war can have a terrible reaction and loose themselves. He also shows how the war changes you mentally making it hard for you to tell if the is the real you or just a persona you took when you couldn’t handle it anymore and needed to mask your broken soul.

War covets the aspect of man that is man itself, for it craves to morph them into mere objects and targets. For many soldiers, they succumb to such a fate; being depleted their ability to feel immediate emotion, they develop primitive, animalistic urges of bloodlust during a time of bloodshed. The aspects of war gravely impacts a person, and as such can be seen in O’Flaherty’s character “the sniper,” as well as seen in O’Brien’s character “Private Paul Berlin.” The sniper is a victim to the war’s cold, emotionless embrace. A Republican soldier, he is, divided from his brothers in arms on the other side, the ones called the “Free Staters.” Nonetheless, under the circumstances, they all are pawns to Dublin’s chess table of a civil war, being played at the mercy of the war’s

Through literature, Liam O’Flaherty, the author of the short story The Sniper, clearly illustrates how horrific and destructive war really is. He illustrates the appalling agony of the Irish civil war through a dramatic story of two brothers against each other in the war. Through the the author's writing, readers can conclude that the theme of The Sniper is that war destroys families. O’Flaherty sets emphasis on this theme by using many strong literary devices. The literary devices used that apply the most emphasis on the theme are situational irony, setting, and the author's use of direct characterization .

War can destroy a man both in body and mind for the rest of his life. In “The Sniper,” Liam O’Flaherty suggests the horror of war not only by presenting its physical dangers, but also by showing its psychological effects. We are left to wonder which has the longer lasting effect—the visible physical scars or the ones on the inside?

. . . Like I was losing myself, everything spilling out” (O’Brien 202). Provided with only laconic, expository definitions, an audience cannot truly feel the pains of war. O’Brien utilizes descriptions which evoke all the senses and submerge the audience in the unique and powerful sensations of war. Witnessing war’s pains through the familiar tactile crunch of an ornament or the splash of liquid spilling, the audience can immediately understand the inconceivable pressure placed on the soldier’s injured body. O’Brien continues, “All I could do was scream. . . . I tightened up and squeezed. . . . then I slipped under for a while” (203). His abrupt syntax and terse diction conveys a quickness to these events. Not bothering with extraneous adornment, his raw images transport the audience to the urgency of the moment and the severity of the pain. Now supplied with an eyewitness’s perspective of war’s injuries, the audience can begin to recognize the significance of the suffering. O’Brien tells his audience, “Tinny sounds get heightened and distorted. . . . There was rifle fire somewhere off to my right, and people yelling, except none of it seemed real anymore. I smelled myself dying” (203). In the same frame, O’Brien paints the rumbling chaos of the big war juxtaposed with the slow death of the small individual. His description emphasizes the purposeless discord and confusion of war and seeks to condemn its disorder. He argues that war’s lack of

In reality, one will never know who the true enemy is until one kills. In the plot twisting short story “The Sniper,” by Liam O'Flaherty, a republican sniper faces an enemy which later discovers it is his own brother. The republican sniper soon finds the truth of how the enemy was such a good shot. The theme of this story is one can never be sure of the enemy. The sniper’s curiosity leads to realizing who caused the death of his brother. The enemy shoots at the republican sniper and it hits his forearm, therefore his arm is not capable of doing was has to be done. The sniper kills the enemy, not realizing it until curiosity leads to the truth, that it was his brother who he murdered. Don’t ever assume the person firing towards oneself is the enemy because it could lead to disaster.

To begin when I was in 7th grade, there was a solo for the violas in a concert, and there was only 4 of us. We all had to play out, so that the whole Auditorium would hear us. That showed that when I played out it should I was brave. So me being brave nothing compares to these 2 characters in these 2 stories, were brave. The characters Conner and the sniper showed that they were brave with their actions because Conner put himself in danger while he was getting shot at, and the sniper while he was pinned down.

After the sniper has shot and killed his enemy he goes to see who it is and the irony is revealed: “Weakened by his wound and the long summer day of fasting and watching on the roof, he revolted from the sight of the shattered mass of the dead enemy” (265). Situational irony is shown because he can pour iodine into his own wound and wrap it with his teeth, yet he is revolted by looking at his fallen enemy. What this suggests is the reality of war has finally gotten to the sniper, because he can endure physical pain of war but not the emotional

He was staring right at me as I pulled the trigger. The whites of his eyes disrupted by a splatter of scarlett as the bullet ripped through his uniform. This was one of the worst parts of my new posting. Having to see the life leave the body and how personal it felt. That was someone’s husband, someone’s brother, someone’s son.

An experienced soldier needs training in many fields to be successful. Being trained in many fields making the soldier experience gives them an advantage against the other soldiers that have little to no training at all. Also having training can relate to other people due to sports and how the training there is grueling so the person can be the best at it. It can be argued that the protagonist is characterized as experienced due to his survival and combat training which is required to be successful in the field in the short story “The Sniper”, by Liam O’Flaherty. Being trained in survival skills is necessary for success.

People say that war brings out the worst in people or soldiers. Liam O’Flaherty would agree with this statement. Through the use of imagery and foreshadowing in the short story “The Sniper” O’Flaherty shows that war leads to the lack of humanity in soldiers. O’Flaherty uses images of death and conflict to signify war. “The women whirled round and fell with a shriek into the gutter” The description of the woman’s death provides the reader with a clear visual on how brutal and heartless the killing was.

Two brave men who have bought the enemies and persevered the horror that laid ahead of them. “The Sniper” a short story by Liam O’Flaherty, takes place during the irish civil war. A trained sniper is given a mission to kill. Where as Private first class paul berlin the protagonist in “Where have you gone charming Billy” by Tim O'Brien, he is a young soldier drafted and sent off to fight in the vietnam war where he must face inner struggles and the violence during the 1960s. Though they both are two different people, the two protagonists have similarities and differences in their own unique ways.

I got an A on my history test in eighth grade without studying for it. The night before had been really busy and I did not have enough time to do any studying so I was extremely nervous walking into history to take the test. Luckily for me, I remembered enough of the information that I was able to pass my test with a perfect score. Intelligence can be shown in many different ways, including plans, and grades. Two characters I read about shared this trait, Hanna Mendel from Playing for the commandant by Suzy Zail and the IRA sniper from “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty. Hanna Mendel and the IRA sniper are both intelligent because the sniper is able to think quickly of a plan that will save his life and Hanna uses her intelligence to get good grades in school, and to avoid being shot.