Liam O Flaherty The Sniper Analysis

Decent Essays
The theme of “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty is that war reduces human beings to mere objects. to further explain it is that they have no names, no faces. That they are just targets and nothing more, to be shot at from a distance. Without knowing who are you shooting and knowing if they’re going yours or if their your friends or family. And there is no no winners,regardless of who you kills more people or takes more land. And the war knows no boundaries,age,gender,location, time of the day or family ties. And the story opens many eyes which made a brother kill a brother. And they didn’t care if their family or not, they only want to win the war.

The theme of “Cranes” is that the reader with a shocking wartime situation in which two childhood

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The Dangers of War Many know of the dangers of war, soldiers come back injured, civilians are hurt, and much is lost. In “The Sniper”, Liam O’Flaherty tells a story of these very threats in which a young sniper is eager to participate in a civil war in Dublin, Ireland. The soldier constantly encounters danger wherever he goes. As he faces the battle, he gets hurt and experiences the effect of the war because in the end, it turned him against his own brother. This short story illustrates the horrors of war and reveals the physical and psychological scars a soldier is left with after battle.…

    • 531 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “American Sniper” by Chris Kyle is a riveting autobiography about the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history. The book tells the life story of a Naval SEAL, known as Chris Kyle, who was sent on four tours of duty and had at least 160 confirmed kills. While the book is action-packed and heart wrenching there is most certainly a deeper meaning to it. The speakers credibility, purpose, and the subject are all revealed in the book can be found by doing a a small amount of research and textual analyzation. The speaker in “American Sniper” is none other than the author and military hero Chris Kyle himself.…

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    O Brien Themes

    • 1005 Words
    • 5 Pages

    War can be considered one of the most traumatizing “job” in the world because of the potential it can change a human. O’Brien makes several attempts to make his message or theme clear to reader by putting direct characterization of…

    • 1005 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    War: Kills from the Inside Out Lars Fredrik Händler Svendsen, a famous Norwegian philosopher once stated that “self-identity is inextricably bound up with the identity of the surroundings.” Svendsen is arriving at the conclusion that one’s own identity is directly connected to their surroundings and so a change in environment would consequently alter one’s self-identity. Therefore, the violent and gruesome acts that are a product of war will alter the identity of those who are surrounded by such acts. Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road expresses how war consumes one’s identity through the utilization of symbolism.…

    • 1514 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Things They Carried In the classic novel, The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien illustrates the gruesome details of a dead soldier to develop the speaker’s negative attitude towards the traumatizing effects of war. He provides a detailed description of the soldier as well as a made-up backstory to further enhance the effect. The speaker believes that his death is unnecessary, a waste of life, and not detrimental to the outcome of the war.…

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Death is illustrated as unjust and unfair before the war, and when over exposed to the theme of death, casualties become small and insignificant. In this essay we’ll be going in depth about the themes of bravery as something that under the right circumstances anyone can have, Family is something that we adapt to, that affects us, and that death can be justified.…

    • 628 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    War is a picture that is often painted with the wrong colors. People may think they understand what war is but they are comletley worng. War is not something that you simply understand. You may try to figure it out but you’ll never understand war unless you’ve experienced it firsthand.…

    • 499 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Brilliant Essays

    Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried contain some aspects that are both alike and different. The main theme—war—is the same throughout both works of literature. War is also a provoking issue that is making its way into the daily conversations of everyday…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Brilliant Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sarajevo’s Solitary Sniper I watch the Sarajevo wind leaf through the newspapers that are glued by blood to the street, spilled blood on the street that I have caused. I am a sniper. A sniper sitting lonesome in a collapsing building, waiting patiently to take out those innocent people roaming the rubble below me. Bodies that I and other on my side have killed line the streets, but the amount of death is not what gets to me. I often don’t want to kill the survivors who pass – weak, defenceless, and dying – but my superior sits in a building not too far from where I am… watching.…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The soldiers all succumb to the darkness of man’s heart. The common soldiers sacrifice everything they have in war, and in return are granted nothing but painful deaths. The men must choose between humanity and survival. Ultimately, survival always triumphs due to the animalistic transition made in the chaos of…

    • 1291 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    War, the whirlpool of society that brings in all manner of young men to fight a war they not always wanted to fight. In the novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, the matter is taken into depth for the author himself was one such person in his youth. The life of a soldier and that of a civilian are so apart from one another, which it’s impossible to assume the transition between either one an easy one. As a soldier, every day could be your last in the field, a stray bullet, a forgotten mine, the dangers of the bush, the looming presence of death that beckons to each individual at every step of their journey, yet they simply hump on.…

    • 1096 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Title: American Sniper Author: Chris Kyle w/ Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice Text Type: Autobiography This novel is a thrilling personal account of Chris Kyle who is better known as the deadliest marksman in U.S. military history. A Texan saddle bronc rider turned navy seal with over 150 kills confirmed to his name across 4 tours spent in Iraq, Kyle earned a legendary status among his fellow soldiers and struck fear in the eyes of his enemies who nicknamed him “the devil”. A gripping memoir of the courage and pain felt during war and the strain it put on his life and marriage upon his return home. One major issue that comes into play throughout this novel and affects the lives of many soldiers who return home is posttraumatic stress disorder…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The book “If I die in a Combat Zone” written by Vietnam veteran Tim O’Brien walks the reader through the main stages that a normal individual has to go through from the day he is drafted until the day he comes home from the war. The author, who is also the protagonist of the story, explains how hard it was to be a soldier in the Vietnam war. He also focuses on the fact that some soldiers thought the war was wrong. In this memoir O’Brien gives the audience an overview of his thoughts during his journey in the military and also his direct experience in Vietnam. Through his story the author shows how hard it was to be a soldier during the Vietnam War.…

    • 1440 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Sniper” is a story set in times of the Irish Civil War, depicting a Free Starter sniper who undergoes a huge change in the face of killing an enemy sniper. He is dehumanized from pain and killing others, seeing people only as targets. He is also desensitized to aspects of the war most civilians would be very afraid of, which is shown through the pain of when he gets shot in the arm--the narration only depicts it as a “deadened sensation”. However, once he finally succeeds in killing the enemy sniper, “the lust of battle of battle died in him”--meaning that he’s no longer desensitized from war. The story also states that “He became bitten by remorse”, meaning that he no longer sees the enemy sniper as a target, but rather a person; this also signifies the end of his dehumanized war state.…

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The main character in The Sniper did the opposite of what the main character did Cranes. Songsam did his duty to his friend whereas the sniper did his duty to the war. Since the both of the main characters in the stories were interacting with the enemy, the outcome of the situations were completely different. In The Sniper, the main character chose to kill the enemy and do his duty to the war. He was a fanatic and knew what he had to do in order to survive the war.…

    • 333 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays