The short story “The Sniper” depicts a civil conflict situation between Republicans and Free Staters. It focuses on a man who is a sniper for the Republican side. This sniper is pinned by another sniper that is across the street. Both take shots at each other one by one, in an endless battle. The Republican sniper moves around continuously trying to get the kill. The enemy lands a shot on him but luckily it is not fatal. The sniper quickly patches himself up and hatches a plan to fake his death and take out his enemy with the element of surprise. The plan worked and his enemy is dead, but the sniper feels remorse and loses his excitement of war. Curiously he moves to the enemies position and once it is calm he turns the sniper over, only to find out that it was his brother he was fighting.
What is
the author's message? Provide evidence from the text and explain your thinking.
I believe that the authors message is that war
can distort your thoughts and make you think unclearly. It forces you to
develop hatred and desensitizes you to inhumane things. In this story we have
two brothers shooting and each other relentlessly and so cold heartedly. If
they had realized the fact that they were brothers before it was too late, they
would both still be alive. “Then the sniper turned over the dead boy and looked
into his brother’s face.” I would imagine this to be very horrible and sad. He
unknowingly killed his own brother, all in the name of a large scale war. There
must be people from both sides that know each other and loved each other.
Looking at this conflict on a smaller scale could help work things out without
the senseless killing.
very interesting post
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