'The Sniper' By James Hurst

537 Words3 Pages

‘’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. In opposition to “The Scarlet Ibis” being an internal war. In the last sentence of paragraph one in “The Sniper” it states that “Republican and Free staters were at a civil war.” The civil war was caused by an split between the same country causing many men to have to pick a side and many friends and family members taking different sides. Although each of the short stories express war the war found in “The Scarlet Ibis” was internal. The internal war was shown through the narrator's fear and embarrassment of having a brother who couldn’t even walk, as it states in the passage “Life was bad enough having an invalid brother.” …show more content…

In “The Sniper” brotherhood was shown between the two teams and also the two brothers. In the last sentence of “The Sniper” it mentioned “I wonder if i know the guy, and then I rolled over the body and saw the face of my brother.” This shows brotherhood between two brothers in a war of opposite sides. However the brotherhood in “The Scarlet Ibis” was also shown through two brothers in their own new way. “The Scarlet Ibis” showed their brotherhood through the narrator’s teachings and encouragement in his brother Doodle. As it states in the first sentence of paragraph seventeen “Doodle began to cry, but I urged him to do it, because I knew he could.” Each of these stories show brotherhood and state it in their own