#41

The Sniper

             The author of ‘The Sniper’, Liam O’Flaherty, shows the unpleasantness of war through the story. Throughout his writing, he builds up this image of how bad a war is. Mostly, the darkness and the tension affect the readers’ notion. The three major things that Liam uses to show his hatred are cigarette and hidings, cruelty, and tragedy.

             The cigarette that the sniper smoked and how he had to hide, perfectly shows how a person has to be extraordinarily careful during wars. It’s very hard to believe how hard it is to live restrained for even an hour. Imagine yourself having to creep under the shadows, not allowed to do anything but wait. The sniper couldn’t even smoke, for then; he would be spotted and get killed instantly. However, he did smoke as he would usually do normally, and got shot! There is no mercy out there in the war. The people have to live with anxiety and fear until they win, or they lose.

             Furthermore, the cruelty of the plot inwardly describes how the author utterly disliked wars. The sniper had to kill an old lady whom he did not know at all, just because she was informing his enemy. Just because she was his enemy, he had to kill her. What difference does it make between this and Holocaust? Germans killed the Jews just because they were Jews. The sniper killed the old lady and the man just because they were his enemy. The war just simply makes human relationships forbidden by telling them which side they are on. The sniper ended up killing his on brother because they were on different sides. Even looking at a dead person makes someone disgusted and dismayed, imagine how dreadful it would be to kill one’s own family? Even though the sniper was cold hearted and was excited to kill his enemy, he was sickened by what he had done. These battles and wars have people on their strings and take control on them, leaving a bloody mess behind them, letting family and friends mourn in pain and horror.

             Lastly, this story is a microcosm of the tragedy of wars. Wars are, as most people know, sad. People have to fight against each other; people lose their belongings, their friends, family… etc. They are broken apart from their merry life. Even in Korea, many people suffered from bombs, deaths, diseases, and every other factor that they were sick of it. Liam expressed the tragedy by showing how the sniper had changed after he killed the last man, his brother. And when he finally saw that the man was his brother, he was shocked.

             Liam O’Flaherty showed how pointless wars are with his ‘symbols’ in the novel. Overall, He used gloomy background and intensive sense to create the tragedy of wars.