ipl-logo

How Does Liam O Flaherty Use Imagery In The Sniper

433 Words2 Pages

Visualizing “The Sniper” “The Sniper”, a short story by Liam O'Flaherty uses a literary device called Imagery. This story is set in Dublin Ireland, in the 1920s, during the civil war. On one side, there were the Irish Republicans (IRA) where they wanted Ireland to be Republican, completely free from British rule. In the short story, imagery describes the setting and Ireland's conflict with the British. The author’s use of imagery brings forth a strong setting. A few uses of imagery include, “Machine Guns Roaring”, “Silence of the Night”, and “echoed the city”. These uses of imagery give the audience a sense of connection to the story, getting the audience to envision what the setting and environment was like. This literary device shows how imagery is used in stories to set the tone. The use of imagery the author used set the mood of the story. The sentence, "Here and there through the city, machine guns and rifles broke the silence of …show more content…

In the story imagery sets the setting using this quote “Dublin lay enveloped in darkness but for the dim light of the moon that shone through fleecy clouds, casting a pale light as of approaching dawn over the streets and the dark waters of the 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.” Imagery shows the audience where the story took place while making it seem like you were watching it all happen. As you can see, imagery is not only used in “The Sniper” but it is used in everything, it is used to give the audience a feel for the story. By authors using imagery, it sets the setting, mood and overall theme of a story. Imagery is a very important tool authors use in all stories. The use of music can set the mood, along with the use of specific words to describe the setting and theme of any piece of

Show More
Related
887 Words | 4 Pages

Imagery is used throughout, in order to engage the reader and assist them in understanding things from Saul’s perspective. For example, the sense of sight was touched on when it describes the string of light bulbs, the shadows of the ice and the rocks and spindly trees. It creates a mental image with the use of sophisticated adjectives such as humped, spindly and eerie. Also, the description of the smell is very detailed by saying that it was a “potent mix” of various unpleasing scents. This proves that imagery is a device that is essential in helping the audience imagine the setting, make connections and hold interest.

Read More
590 Words | 3 Pages

“The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty is a short story that takes place in Ireland. The main character is a sniper for the Irish war, when some conflict happened and, the sniper revealed himself, the enemy started shooting him. The enemy shot the sniper in the forearm, he was forced to cut off his forearm and fired back killing the enemy, only to find out that the enemy was his brother. Through the actions of the character, readers understand that Liam O’Flaherty shows that everything takes a little amount of courage.

Read More
920 Words | 4 Pages

Panic, anxiety, and most importantly, fear, are all components that form the adventurous tale, The Most Dangerous Game. Rainsford, the protagonist of the story, is widely recognized as an experienced hunter who ventures off in a ship to travel to Rio in order to hunt jaguars. However, the story turns when Rainsford falls off his ship, encounters a hunter who hunts men, and becomes the prey himself. Although Connell sets up an intense plot by using irony, characterization, word choice, and other literary devices, imagery is one of the main aspects that releases an uneasy feeling within the audience. Imagery is a common literary device that authors use to engage a reader into the story, by painting the scene in the audience’s mind.

Read More
1253 Words | 6 Pages

Imagine, a girl sits in a burning hellscape, the sky burning red, and the street is littered with bodies, holding her dead father in her arms. In the historical fiction novel, The Book Thief, Markus Zusak writes to young adults about the time in the life of a little girl, Liesel Meminger, growing up in Nazi Germany through the eyes of death. A big reason the book is so emotional is due to Zusak’s way of writing which makes it so strong. He uses wording and metaphor to build up emotional gut punches, writes archetypes and settings in a way to attach readers to them, and outlines his themes using symbols to express said themes. Markus is an expert in wording and metaphor.

Read More
513 Words | 3 Pages

In the story Richard Connell uses imagery to describe the setting. ¨Jagged crags appeared to jut into the opaqueness.¨(Connell, 218) Throughout his writing he includes descriptions that make the reader imagine what the feelings that the characters have are. He says ¨It's like moist black velvet¨(Connell, 215) The imagery that he uses brings the reader into the story and connects them to the setting and describes and appeals to their senses in a way that makes the feel as though they are there.

Read More
2308 Words | 10 Pages

The vivid descriptions of the setting, particularly of Saint-Malo and its streets, beaches, and buildings, create a powerful sense of place and atmosphere. The imagery used to describe Saint-Malo is particularly evocative, as the author writes," the walled city on its granite headland, drawing ever closer, looks like an unholy tooth, something black and dangerous, a final abscess to be lanced away." (Doerr, 4). The use of imagery helps to convey the danger and uncertainty of the characters' lives. It also builds tension and suspense in the story.

Read More
850 Words | 4 Pages

The author uses vivid imagery and descriptions throughout the story. Find three examples of figurative language (and indicate the page number) that the author uses to help the reader see and feel what the sniper is experiencing. One example of a simile in the Sniper was, machine guns and rifles broke the silence of the night, spasmodically, like dogs barking on lone farms, this was found on page 5. Another simile was, and his right arm was painting him like a thousand devils, on page 7.

Read More
516 Words | 3 Pages

In the story “A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote, imagery is used to create an image in your mind by appealing to your five senses. Imagery is often used to describe the setting of the story and to give you an idea of what is going on. Capote shows many examples of imagery throughout the story to make you understand the importance of his memory. The use of imagery helps create the mood by making the story real and bringing you in what Capote saw.

Read More
1337 Words | 6 Pages

Imagery allows a reader to imagine the events of a story within their mind through mental images. Imagery can describe how something looks, a sound, a feeling, a taste, or a smell. Imagery is especially important when the author is describing a character or a setting. The short story The Man In The Black Suit by Stephen King has several excellent examples of imagery.

Read More
1399 Words | 6 Pages

“Only the dead have seen the end of the war, “ says a renowned philosopher, George Santayana. Every single time when the war takes place, millions of innocent civilians are sacrificed under the jackboots of soldiers and a wide variety of constructions are completely annihilated. These brutal aspects of war become more tragic and heart-breaking in the civil war, where two sides have the same ethnicity and nationality. The short story, The Sniper, by Liam O’Flaherty also takes place during the Irish Civil War, the time when Ireland was divided into two powers: Republicans who supported Ireland’s merger with Great Britain and free-staters who supported the independence of the nation. Throughout the story, O’Flaherty revealed the horrors, tragedy,

Read More
1143 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the entire novel, the author’s use of literary devices is very clear. These literary devices, specifically similes and personification, help the reader get a better idea of the exact sounds and feelings which will allow them to know what it feels like to be there in that moment. “ I stood there, trying to think of a comeback, when suddenly, I heard a whooshing sound, like the sound you get when you open a vacuum-sealed can of peanuts. Then the brown water that had puddled up all over the field began to move. It began to run toward the back portables, like someone pulled the plug out of a giant bathtub.

Read More
400 Words | 2 Pages

Ray Bradbury uses several craft moves throughout his dystopian story names ‘The Veldt’. Using imagery, foreshadowing, and irony; Ray Bradbury enriches the story with these varying craft moves. Each is used to place the setting and feel of the story in the readers’ minds. Imagery is a craft move that was used to detail important areas in the story and help sell the scene Bradbury is creating to the reader. This is used to build a mood; one in particular is suspense.

Read More
455 Words | 2 Pages

On of the greatest examples of imagery that Alice Walker uses is the one that compares light and darkness. At the beguining of the story the author mentions delicate and calm setting of a farm. In creating this imagery the reader is able to understand that all the positive and upbeat words are associated with the farm setting. Myop’s light-hearted innocence is also shown when “watching the tiny white bubbles disrupt the thin black scale”. The effective description  provides credibility to the environment, and makes the later events all the more shocking,

Read More
828 Words | 4 Pages

“A Short Guide to Imagery, Symbolism, and Figurative Language Imagery” describes imagery as “a writer or speaker’s use of words or figures of speech to create a vivid mental picture or physical sensation”(Clark). In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin uses nature imagery to portray the journey of emotions that Mrs. Mallard experiences

Read More
1116 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More

More about How Does Liam O Flaherty Use Imagery In The Sniper

Related Topics

Open Document