In Liam O’Flaherty’s The Sniper, the main character, a sniper, is in the middle of a civil war in Dublin, Ireland. It is his assigned duty to assassinate anyone on the the other side of the war, no matter who they are. This creates a huge conflict, considering that the sniper ends up killing his brother. This supports the central theme that war is cruel, and this can be supported by the craft elements of the dialogue used and the setting of the story.
In the short story The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty, a main theme is that war is cruel. This is supported by many details within the story. War makes people do things that they normally wouldn’t do, mostly because it is their duty to protect what they believe in or their country. For example, the
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Without craft moves made by the author, the story wouldn’t even be a legitimate story, just some thoughts put together. Two out of the many very important craft moves in The Sniper are the setting/time period and the point of view. The setting and time period is very crucial to The Sniper. The book takes place in Dublin, the capital of Ireland, during the Irish Civil War. In the beginning of the story, the author paints a very clear picture of the setting, allowing you to vividly imagine the conditions that they are in during the short story. “The long June twilight faded into night. Dublin lay enveloped in darkness but for the dim light of the moon that shone through the fleecy clouds, casting a pale light as of approaching dawn over the streets and the dark waters of Liffey. Around the beleaguered Four Courts the heavy guns roared. Here and there through the city, machine guns and rifles broke the silence of the night, spasmodically, like dogs barking on lone farms. Republicans and Free Starters were waging civil war.” (O’Flaherty, 1) If the setting wasn’t described so thoroughly, the reader would not be able to imagine what was going on or comprehend anything. Also, it is made very clear that this story takes place in the middle of a war, hence the fact that the gunshots can be heard. It is even stated at the end of the paragraph that a civil war is being waged. If there weren’t a war-like setting involved, the story would definitely not even be close to the same. A writer can’t have a setting-less story and make it work. To add on, if the story wasn’t in the same time period, either, it would also be very different. It wouldn’t even be the same setting, considering that the current time period that it is in is the only one with the Irish Civil war; it’s physically impossible to have the same war in two time periods, so this would also indirectly affect the time period, too. The point of view is
For two hours we had the disagreeable noise of stone banging about, glass crashing, and the tumultuous voices of a large body of men, as they were a long time at the different houses in the different houses in the neighborhood.” this shows the aftermath of the Battle of Yorktown, and how brutal it was to the
Even though nothing should come between people, war breaks ties and relationships with people that normally don’t ever break. War splits families, friends, and even countries. The topic of family is different in both short stories, but yet it plays an important role in each story. In “The Sniper”, the man who is the sniper actually shoots his brother during the Irish civil war. The story reads, “Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face”(The Sniper 1).
The Sniper shows his intelligence by fast forwarding and looking at consequences before he decides. He also is smart enough to multi-task and treat his wound with the resources he has. Risa is skilled and confident in what she does like playing the sonata. She put all her knowledge from before getting unwound to when she is. Her smartness helped her in many situations from crying babies and negotiating with two guys for a better
‘’The Sniper" is a short story by Irish writer Liam O'Flaherty, set during the early weeks of the Irish Civil War, during the Battle of Dublin and "The Scarlet Ibis" is a short story written by novelist James Hurst. It was first published in The Atlantic Monthly in July 1960 and won the "Atlantic First" award. Each of the two stories have many likenesses and differences, in addition to focusing on the three same ideas. These three ideas are war, brotherhood, and regret. The war in “The Sniper” is an actual war.
War is hell. You can’t photograph a flying bullet; but you can’t capture genuine fear. (Horst Fass) Tim O’brien is the author of the short story “Ambush”, written in 1990. Tim is the narrator of the story who recounts an incident of war. When Tim’s nine year old daughter asks him why he keeps writing stories about war, and if he has ever killed a man before.
Through Farquhar, Bierce shows how soldiers on both sides were merciless in their acts, a fact that would never be mentioned if Romantic writings were all that remained from this era. Fast forward several decades, World War Two has consumed the planet, and officers are just as cruel as they were in the Civil War. “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell, announces, through the form of a poem, the callousness of the military in WWII. A man thinks he is safe under the protection of the State, but the poem tells that, “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” (“Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell).
What they do not look at: “Psychological effect of the war” War is something that has much more than physical effects. It is a burden on those involved on and off the battlefield. Being part of a war can affect you emotionally, mentally and physically. Even though soldiers are fighting for “just causes” was is an all-around negative event.
In the short story “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty the theme is that war changes human beings to mere objects. The story of “The Sniper” sets in the city, fundamentally in the rooftop and in the streets of the city of Dublin, Ireland.
"The Sniper ̈ by Liam O’Flaherty is a short story about a sniper who was in war, when he saw an old woman point at him he shot her, and while doing that he got shot in the forearm. The sniper tricks his enemy by taking his cap off then he puts it over his rifle to make it look like a person. When the sniper got his enemy he was curious about who it was, when he flipped over the body he saw his brother's face. Through the character's actions, the readers understand that war is full of courage, but it may never end well.
In the beginning, the sniper is sitting on a rooftop contemplating lighting a cigarette. The text says, “Placing a cigarette between his lips, he struck a match. There was a flash and a bullet whizzed over his head. ”(page 225) This quote is needed to understand the story because it shows when the fight starts.
After turning over the corpse though, he finds out it’s his brother. In, “The Sniper”, by Liam O’Flaherty, the sniper learns that violence and assumption can cause us to act in a regrettable way. The theme of assumption and violence is first introduced when the enemy sniper shoots and kills innocent people. The sniper takes place on a rooftop near O'Connell Bridge, and, as we now, in the middle of the Irish Civil War.
By manipulating the war setting and language of the novel Heller is able to depict society as dark and twisted. Heller demonstrates his thoughts of society through the depicted war. In the novel, the loss of personal identity in the soldiers lives. Furthermore, The idea is that supports how much value is placed upon a human life and shows the evils and cruelty of war is related The Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell, in which a soldier who spends his entire life in war only to die the same position he came into the war “fetal” state; just to be disregarded and buried in a whole.
In O’Flaherty’s “The Sniper” and Hardy’s “The Man He Killed” both works use plot, irony, and theme to portray the idea that war causes you to kill those you care or may have cared about. There are many similarities and differences In the plot of both “The Sniper” and “The Man He Killed”, there are many similarities and differences.
Liam O’Flaherty’s realistic fiction story, “The Sniper” takes place in Dublin, Ireland. The main character is a sniper fighting a civil war. He is on the Republican side who is fighting against the Free Staters. He does not put a lot of thought into his actions and it ends up costing him something big in the end. By using irony and description O’Flaherty shows that action without thought can lead to serious repercussions.
The theme was created when he finds out the man he shot was his brother. This could easily happen in real life. Fear could lead to destructive decisions, and in this case, fear led the sniper into shooting his own