Analyzing O 'Flaherty's Short Story The Sniper'

Penned during two distinctly disparate eras in American military history, both Erich Maria Remarque's bleak account of trench warfare during World War I, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Tim O'Brien's haunting elegy for a generation lost in the jungles of Vietnam, The Man I Killed, present readers with a stark reminder that beneath the veneer of glorious battle lies only suffering and death. Both authors imbue their work with a grim severity, presenting the reality of war as it truly exists. Men inflict grievous injuries on one another, breaking bodies and shattering lives, without ever truly knowing for what or whom they are fighting for. With their contributions to the genre of war literature, both Remarque and O'Brien have sought to lift the veil of vanity which, for so many wartime writers, perverts reality with patriotic fervor. In doing so, the authors manage to convey the true sacrifice of the conscripted soldier, the broken innocence which clouds a man's first kill, and the abandonment of one's identity which becomes necessary in order to kill again.

War is something that can change the very principles of a person, it can change a person and leave multiple effects that can last for their entire life. The sniper is fighting in a civil war where friends and family can turn into enemies at a moment's notice. The fight is between the Republicans and the Free Staters, the protagonist is a sniper for the Republicans. Throughout the story, we go into the state of mind of the main character and learn some ramifications that he gained in the war. The text, “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty shows us the physical and psychological results of war, that happens to people.

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

The theme of how war can tear apart families in “The Sniper” first appears at the start of the book when he shoots a woman. First, Dublin shoots a woman walking in the open field. The text says, “The sniper fired again, the woman whirled around and fell with a shriek and into the gutter.”The woman the sniper shot could have been a neighbor or friend because this took place during civil war. In civil war, the country divides and goes to war.

thinks is right or a person who fights because he has to? “The Sniper” tells a story of a sniper who is in a fight between another sniper. The story takes place in Dublin Ireland and is considered Civil War. In ¨The Sniper,” Liam O’Flaherty uses diction, point of view, and plot to create a story of loss, pain , and an intense mood.

When faced with a life or death situation, there is no time to think. Soldiers are forced to make life or death decisions in a split second. The aftermath of those decisions, however, can live with soldiers for a very long time. As O’Brien recalls the emotions he felt when he killed someone for the first time he notes, After he killed the soldier, O’Brien is paralyzed with the thoughts about the dead man’s background, his family and what his future might have been. O'Brien conveys the feelings of uncertainty experienced in the heat of intense life or death moments during war.

“Wars never hurt anybody except for the people who died” -Salvador Dali, leader of the Surrealist Movement. In both stories men who are at war are described, both of these men have killed a man who are known as their foes. Both of the men realize that the man they killed could've been a friend, and were someone who really wasn't the enemy. The relationship between these two stories is that war can tear families apart. In Liam O'Flaherty's “The Sniper” and “The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy both show similarities and differences in plot, irony, and theme.

To kill a man is to take away everything he has, and ever will have; and in War, death is inescapable. Vietnam War veteran Tim O’Brien was drafted to fight in the War in 1969 and states in the book as his “character/narrator” self that he attempted an escape to Canada out of fear. But the stronger fear of people being ashamed of him took over and had him turning back to home to enlist in the U.S. Army. O’Brien published The Things They Carried in 1990 and explored the physical and mental realms of war-time combat with stories. These stories are based on his own experiences, but they include a fictionalized version of himself as “the narrator” and are said to only be what felt like the truth rather than being the actual truth. Despite this, the intention of these stories are to give readers the understanding of what it was like to be a soldier fighting for their life and country overseas. In the chapter “The Man I Killed”, the narrator tells the story of a man he killed outside the village of My Khe who was “a citizen and a soldier” of Vietnam (119). Although this man was the enemy, O’Brien’s character displays how ending another’s life in battle is not an easy pill to swallow. O’Brien, the narrator, uses repetitive descriptions, vivid and gory details, and his glum emotional response to the fatality he caused in the chapter to illustrate how feeling responsible for another man’s death can have traumatic effects on the mind.

In “The Sniper” the theme is that war can make you do things you didn’t think you could do. In the story this was the beginning of the Irish civil war (1923). This was the battle of Dublin, which meant a series of street fights. So everywhere you go in the streets it’ll be several people out fighting and dead body’s scattered on the roads and on the sidewalks. It’s a fact according to the author.

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?

"The Sniper" places a strong emphasis on the evils of war, and yet paints a vivid image of mankind's qualities and their society. Employing the technique of describing one particular sniper to symbolise a general subject, readers are able to gain a deep insight into the evils of war. In this story, the assembly of setting, contrasting characters and themes of fanaticism and division of loyalties are vital to conveying the horror of war. On the other hand, "The Sniper" also discusses the power of war, depicting it as the decider of life and death for men. Its force is further emphasised when neighbours are turned into enemies under war's influence.

In 1923, the story “The Sniper” was written by Liam O'Flaherty. The story is about a Civil war in Ireland where there were 2 snipers, shooting at each other and they were both on a rooftop with long-range weapons and they don’t know each other but at the end one of the sniper found out that he killed his own brother. The author uses irony and the conflict between the sniper and the other sniper just to tell us the main message which is that we shouldn’t fight each other, we should fight together because we live in the same country and we should fight for our country.

Liam O’Flaherty uses the conflict between the two snipers to help describe the main character. “She was pointing to the roof where the sniper lay. An informer. The turret opened. A man’s head and shoulders appeared, looking toward the sniper. The sniper raised his rifle and fired. The head fell heavily on the turret wall. The woman darted toward the side street. The sniper fired again.”(O’Flaherty 1-2) moments like this help us understand the main character and his mentality to do anything if it helps him survive. As the battle ensued the sniper always did whatever it took to live, even resorting to tricking the enemy sniper just to get a shot off at him. This life and death battle the sniper has to go through is what hooked me on this story, but what really made me love it was the resolution, “Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face.”(O’Flaherty 4).

In “The Sniper”, a cold-hearted depiction of war, Liam O’Flaherty follows a young Republican sniper through a typical day amongst the callous bloodshed. The story opens with the Sniper, bathed in soft light emanating from the moon, drawing smoke from his cigarette. For a while there is the gentle illusion of normality, however, before long, the silence of peace is shattered by an appearance of an armored car and enemy informant. Driven by his need to survive, the Sniper shoots them down, without even once wondering about their intentions. As he eliminates the threat, another enemy sniper catches him in the arm with a carefully aimed bullet, forcing him to retreat behind the roof. Reminded constantly of the death waiting for him by the corpses of the people he killed, the Sniper grinds his teeth and overcomes his pain, formulating a plan that would allow him to survive. Before the sun rises, the Sniper tricks the enemy Sniper into believing him dead. When the enemy sniper stands up in fabricated victory, the Sniper takes him down, ignoring his bleeding arm and screaming conscience. Before he can decide to report back to his commander, the Sniper is hit with a strangely compelling need to find out who the enemy Sniper was. Risking his life and dodging numerous bullets from a machine gun, he gets off the roof and reaches the body on the ground. When he flips it over, the face that stares back at him is the lifeless mask of none other than his brother. On this

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 .