War is the opposite of peace, and in war people become like savage animals, killing for glory or to prevent the clashing of ideas. O’Flaherty saw war in his beloved home country of Ireland and was appalled by what he saw. As a result, he wrote his famous anti-war peace The Sniper which details the tragic story of one fighter unknowingly killing his brother. In The Sniper there are scenes where the sniper has been acting less than human. O’Flaherty tells a want for peace through the action of his work telling of the atrocities of war.
O’Flaherty uses in his memoir symbolism because the piece is after all a criticism upon the Irish Civil War. This is usually through mundane and subtle actions including the nameless-ness of every character in the story, the Sniper lighting a cigarette, and the Sniper realizing that he had killed his “brother”. First and foremost the “brother” represents the family, neighbors, and friends killed in conflict. This represents how in war the soldiers are just expendable fodder to be sent to die. Secondly the cigarette might represent the Sniper’s livelihood being burned away because he has killed people without remorse, and lastly the fact that everyone is nameless in the epitaph shows that they
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During the war families were split up because of the conflict of ideals. The article ends with the Sniper unmasking the other sniper and realizing that he is his brother. O’Flaherty wants to address the fact that in civil war rules are broken, there is no middle ground and that moral codes and empathy do not mean anything anymore. The hearts of people are filled with hate and their only goal is to defeat the new enemy, even though they were once brothers that shared the same playground once. During this war the opposition is shown as a faceless enemy that needs to be destroyed utterly. It is not until we look at the face of the soldiers that it is discovered that they are humans