The Sniper Theme and Summary

Summary of The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty

            This short story takes place during the civil war (between the Republicans and the Free Staters). The ‘sniper’ in this story is a Republican who seems emotionless as he has grown accustomed to being in this war.

            After having a quick meal the sniper risked lighting a smoke, and almost instantly there was a bullet shot at the parapet he was standing behind. After one more quick puff he put out the cigarette and peered over the parapet, as another bullet flashed above his head from across the street.

            He saw nothing but the outline of the opposite building in such darkness, but he did look down and discover an enemy car and realized that shooting at it would be pointless. Next a lady walked up to the car and informed the man inside of the enemy sniper laying on the rooftop as she pointed in his direction. As the man came out of the car the sniper shot him immediately, followed by the woman. Out of nowhere the enemy from the other rooftop shot the sniper in his forearm. At this instant he crawled back to the parapet, and sanitized and wrapped up his wound.

            His plan of escaping this rooftop was to trick the enemy opposite of him into thinking that he had shot him dead. After being shot at and faking his death the sniper changed his location on the rooftop and successfully shot down his enemy.

            Seeing him hit the ground and lying there made the sniper feel remorseful. He then tossed his revolver and as it accidentally went off, the shot zipped past his head and due to the shock woke him up, returning him to his original state of mind.

            He escaped the rooftop and walked over to the corpse of the man he had shot down, out of curiosity. As suddenly bullets broke the peaceful sound he threw himself down beside the dead body; only to realize that his had shot his own brother.

  

Themes of The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty

            The theme I found in this short story is division r in political terms, partition. The Sniper shows the irony of how brothers got pitted against each other in the civil war. “Brothers” in this case meaning those within the same country, fighting each other. This story delivers the message that violence in often self-consuming, and that in the civil war they killed their own people. Another strong message delivered through this piece is that war turns people into mere objects. In war, you have no identity, hence why none of the characters were identified with names. Also, the sniper ended up killing an old lady, and his own brother; war has no boundaries.