Essay On The Sniper

“The sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty is a fictional story set during the early weeks of the Irish civil war, during the battle of Dublin. SUMMARY: An IRA sniper is sitting on a roof eating a sandwich and drinking a shot of whiskey. Evan though it’s dangerous, he lights a cigarette and is almost immediately shot at by an enemy sniper. An armoured car of the free staters arrives, and an old lady walks up to it and points out the position of the IRA sniper. The sniper shoots the old lady and the man in the car, he is then shot. He tricks the enemy sniper into shooting his cap, which he placed over the rifle. He lets the cap fall into the street and drops his rifle, tricking the enemy sniper into thinking he is dead; the enemy sniper then stands up …show more content…
In the beginning of the story, the sniper is described as very good at his job. He "is used to looking at death." His movements are those of a well-trained sniper. He decides to light a cigarette, and does so “hurriedly”. This is his training taking over. Evan though it is dangerous to do it, he does it cautiously. When the old woman points him out he quickly and accurately kills both the man in the car and the old woman. When shot in the arm he remains calm and controlled, still calculating every move, and comes up with a plan to reveal his enemy. The sniper then reveals a soft side when he is “bitten by remorse” after killing the enemy sniper.
Figurative language: there was a large amount of figurative language in The Sniper, for example “the sniper could hear the dull panting of the motor” “a bullet flattened itself against the parapet” “he became bitten by remorse” and “his bullets would never pierce the steel that covered the grey monster” “rifles broke the silence of night, spasmodically, like dogs barking on a lone farm” “he was slowly falling forward, as if in a dream” and “his right arm was paining him like a thousand