O Flaherty's The Sniper

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).

Imagine what war looks like. An image of suffering, grief, guilt, torture. The story, while set in Vietnam, is just as relevant today with the conflicts we have. Tim O’Brien, the main character, had to go through all the discomfort that comes with war. Even with all of the external and physical battles, the real conflict might just be inside the soldier.

Suspense The story that demonstrated the best suspense out of the three stories, The Sniper by Liam O’Flahtery, The Dogs Could Teach Me by Gary Paulsen, and The Flowers by Alice Walker was The Sniper, by LIam O’Flahtery. There are many ways in which O’Flahtery develops suspense in the story. One place where suspense was built was in the fourth paragraph. He says, “Almost immediately, a bullet flattened itself against the parapet of the roof.”

When i was little i was told not to listen to strangers. I remember walking home from the park late night alone. This middle-aged man saw me in his car and asked me “need a ride sweetie?” I hesitated and automatically said “ no thanks, i already have one”. Then i quickly walked away.

It details a republican engaging in a skirmish with another sniper. Where he narrowly kills his enemy but when inspecting the enemy's body it turns out to be his brother. This connects with the message from Code Talkers of soldiers wanting to protect not harm. He ended up killing his brother because of the war. The same war he despises and curses as seen in this quote “cursing the war, cursing himself, cursing everybody”(O’Hearly 2).

His stories are images of his own experiences in the war, as he is the narrator and main character in most of the stories. Some of his points of view are how war is an ambiguous thing and how it changes people. For instance, in “How to tell a true war story” the author reflects on the feelings of being alive after a fight, proposing that war is hell but also many other things. In O’Brien’s words “You feel an intense, out-of-the-skin awareness of your living self- your truest self, the human being you want to be and then become by the force of wanting it.

Someone once said, “War is a curse on humanity that never ends.” Liam O’Flaherty’s “The Sniper, Homer’s “The Odyssey”, and Tim O'Brien's “Ambush” show that war is a curse in different ways. Firstly, Liam O’Flaherty’s “The Sniper” shows the first part of the the curse of war: war tears families apart. In “The Sniper”, a young sharpshooter faces off against his target, another marksman. The sniper gets shot in the arm, but manages to kill his target using his revolver.

War is not just shooting guns and throwing grenades. War is a fight between people or upon themselves. War is a constant curse because in the end there will always be an injury. First, within the short story “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty the author depicts a young man who is scared but is fighting for the freedom of his country as a sniper. “Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face.”

In the beginning of the chapter, O’Brien tells about a soldier that lost one of his best friends and decides to write a letter to the friend’s sister. In the letter the soldier talked about “what a great brother she had, how together the guy was, a number one pal and comrade. A real soldier’s soldier” (O’Brien 64). The soldier made sure the family knew their relative was a great guy so they could be proud of him and have a little closure. He got in touch with the family because of the significance of his friendship.

This shows a close glimpse into the mindset of the soldiers and their thoughts during the war. At this point in the book , it proves itself to be true

Although the soldier he killed was an enemy soldier, instead of vilifying him he was able to humanize the man. O’Brien was able to describe the physical appearance of the soldier and imagine her life before war. The author was able to portray an emotional connection and made the line between friend and enemy almost vanish. This was able to reveal the natural beauty of shared humanity even in the context of war’s horror. O’Brien is able to find the beauty in the midst of this tragic and horrible event.

He uses these emotions to convey the readers the true realities of what war is. O’Brien focuses on the theme of war by using syntax, diction, and tone in order to convey there is no beauty in war. The author composes his words

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.

One similarity in O’Flaherty’s piece is the sniper’s thoughts about how war is painful and can rip people apart. “His teeth chattered, he began to gibber to himself, cursing the war, cursing himself, cursing everybody...and looked into his brother’s face” (O’Flaherty, 208). This quote talks about how the sniper felt after seeing his enemy fall off the roof from being shot and then once he identifies the body as his brother,he realizes how war can truly tear families apart. Another similarity based on theme in the poem “The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy. The soldier realizes near the end of the poem that war is full of suffering and can tear friends apart.

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.