Comparing The Sniper 'And The Man He Killed'

Next both of the main characters had someone they knew personally on the opposing side. And finally their motives were the same, which was to win the war and protect their fellow soldiers at all cost. They were different however because one story was station in America the other in the Koreas. Also in “The Sniper” the character on the opposing side was killed where as in “Cranes” the character was set free. Finally the themes of the stories are different as well.

Liam O'Flaherty uses similes to enhance the story “The Sniper” by creating mental images and connecting the reader’s experiences to quotes in the story.  In the beginning of the story, a civil war between the Free Staters and the Republicans is taking place.  A Republican sniper is resting on a roof at night time, and looks over the streets of Dublin.  The author states, “Here and there through the city machine guns and rifles broke the silence of the night, spasmodically, like dogs barking on lone farms” (213).  The shots are fired into the darkness in random bursts, breaking the silence of the night.  O'Flaherty then uses a simile to compare the sounds of the shots with dogs barking on lone farms.  This can allow the reader to be able to

War has been occurring for over thousands of years, and has claimed a devastating amount of

“Cranes” and “The Sniper” have similarity because there is its two main character all having to choose between wars. The similarities of this to themes are that they both involve the war. They both lost something, in The Sniper he lost his brother and, in Cranes the Songsam's lost his relationship. They both lost this because of the war. Some differences they have is that they lost different things. One lost a brother and, the other one a friend. There different because they both didn't feel the same for what they lost. Another difference can be that, the way they lost (their brother or friend)was really different, because in The Sniper he lost his brother because he shoot him(making him like a target.) In cranes he lost it because didnt he

After he shot and killed the enemy sniper, he wanted to be sure he killed him so he went to see him. He got shot at by machine guns. When the firing stopped, he went to the body. He turned it over and it was his brother. The theme was made clear when the story said ¨The sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother´s face.¨(Page 9) His heart probably sank when he found out the man he shot and killed was his brother.

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, Liam O’Flaherty recounts a story of an Irish sniper fighting for the republican army during the Irish Civil War. He wrote this short story based on his experience with time at war. Liam o’flaherty illustrates how war can reduce the value of family and human lives, betrayal, and suspense. In this essay I will be discussing these major themes as well as comparing this story to books such as The Odyssey and others containing similar themes. This essay also will discuss how suspense is used in Liam O’Flaherty’s The Sniper.

His technique makes the reader feel as if he is right there with the sniper, feeling the tension and the nerve racking trials the sniper goes through. O’Flaherty uses personification and puts the reader in the sniper’s shoes when he writes, “the sniper could hear the dull panting of the motor.” When the reader can feel the emotions of the characters in the story, it helps contribute to the development of the story’s meaning. The reader is taken along the journey of the sniper; throughout the story the reader learns the skillfulness of the trained killer, and his experiences of war. In the conclusion, a plot twist occurs, revealing the person he had killed was his brother. The author uses irony in this plot twist to show the cruelty of war. In “The Sniper”, the cruelty of war is displayed, by not only the killing of the sniper’s own kind, but the difficulties he has to face, just to survive. An example of this, is the sniper having to kill a seemingly innocent woman, just so he can survive for the day. This story provides for a greater meaning of war, than just what is

The third person single vision point of view of a tough sniper fighting a civil war enemy, in Liam O’Flaherty’s “The Sniper,” plays with the reader’s emotions throughout the story. He employs third person single vision point of view to tell the sniper’s intense adventure from an outside narrator who has access to the mind of the protagonist. O’Flaherty chose third person single vision POV because distancing the reader is the only way to develop a tough protagonist that the reader can be intimate with, taking into account his limited intellectual skills.

In the text it says, “Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face.” and early on in the story he wonders if he knew the other sniper, and ironically it was someone he knew very well (4). He is caught up in annihilating the enemy, he only stops to think about who the other sniper is. O’Flaherty uses irony to show how the sniper ends up killing his own brother and only after he shoots him he wonders if he knew him. In addition to the irony, O’Flaherty also uses description to develop this idea of action without thought. He gives us a vivid description of the sniper that makes us wonder about him, “His face was the face of a student, thin and ascetic, but his eyes had the cold gleam of a fanatic. They were deep and thoughtful, the eyes of a man who is used to looking at death” (1). These two sentences give us information of the sniper based solely on the words of the author. The way O’Flaherty describes him makes us think about what he does and who he actually is outside of being a sniper. This shows how the sniper’s actions without thought affect him for the worse. O’Flaherty establishes the theme of “The Sniper” by using description and irony.

How the narrator's behaviors as a soldier changes, is that he becomes hesitant and scared. This particular soldier does his duties, but is terrified and paranoid in doing so. He wants to warn the enemy that he is about to die, but he can not because it is not his job to do so. If he was to not kill the man, even though he was no harm to them, he would have been in big trouble for not fulfilling his duties as a soldier. Also, the way he kills the man shows how he feels about the war and how he didn't know how to react. He could have just as easily shot the man and not wasted a grenade, but he could not react

A similarity between O’Flaherty’s “The Sniper” and Hardy’s “The Man He Killed” is that the protagonist are both soldiers. For instance, “Then when the smoke cleared he peered across and uttered a cry of joy. His enemy had been hit”(O’Flaherty 208). In other words, soldiers are happy when killing their enemies, especially

In the chapter “The man I Killed,” O’Brien narrates an incidence which had permanently destroyed his life, murdering an innocent man. He had a lot of difficulties describing the man he killed, and that is why he avoided using the first person in his narrative. The reason for doing this was to relieve some of his guilt which had possessed him. Nevertheless, O’Brien could not hinder himself from picturing a complete imaginary life for the Vietnamese soldier. He outlined the similarities that he possessed and those of the dead man. For instance, he claimed that the man was a student who was not ready to join the war, but he had no otherwise because he did not want to let his family down (O’Brien 126).

Brother vs brother, friend vs friend. The United States, Ireland, the Koreas, Italy all of these countries have faced civil war in one way or another. Ideology rips apart friends, families and neighbors in the most subtle way. The two short stories “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty and “Cranes” by Hwang Son-won expressed this theme. Both of them have similarities and differences, but overall they seem alike on the outside but different on the inside. The conflicts shape these stories molding them into two different themes of literature.