The Sniper

The city is Dublin, Ireland. The place is a city rooftop not far from the O'Connell Bridge and the Four Courts and overlooking a quiet street. The time is a moonlit night sometime in June of 1922...

In this story, the author argues that supporting a cause can create a deep division between the individual members of a family. To show this, O'Flaherty situates his story during the violence and...

There are a couple of ways to consider the words and phrases the author uses to describe the Republican sniper and what he is doing. We can discuss what he is doing and his reaction to what is...

Liam O'Flaherty composes his short story "The Sniper" from the point of view of a third-person narrator. This narrator, however, has a limited perspective, for he looks and speaks through the lens...

The old woman is an informer for the Free State troops. Because she is an informer, she poses a threat to the sniper. Early in the story, an armored vehicle shows up near the sniper's position....

The irony is that the sniper kills his own brother. The story is set during the Irish civil war in the 1920's. Each brother has chosen a different side on which to fight. During his battle with an...

In a work of literature, foreshadowing refers to some indication of an event that is yet to happen. Although the narrator tells us that the sniper has "the eyes of a man who is used to looking at...

The plot of “The Sniper” involves two snipers positioned across the street from one another, both unaware that the other sniper is his brother. The story takes place in Dublin during the Battle of...

In this short story, the Irish Republican sniper is stationed on a rooftop overlooking the beleaguered Four Courts and must use his wits to outsmart and kill the enemy sniper on the opposite roof....

In literature, the protagonist is the most significant character in the story, and their actions are the focal point of the narrative. The protagonist is the most prominent figure in the story, and...

The short story "The Sniper" by Liam O'Flaherty takes place during a civil war in Dublin, Ireland. A Republican sniper, a young man, lies on a rooftop with a rifle, a pistol, and a pair of...

In very simple terms the quotation alludes to the depressing fact that war is a permanent condition for humankind. So long as there are human beings on this earth, so the argument runs, there will...

One could consider the climax of "The Sniper" the moment when the Republican sniper successfully tricks the opposing sniper and kills him in one shot. The moment that the enemy sniper wounds the...

The surprise ending of Liam O'Flaherty's short story "The Sniper" is meant to shock the reader and highlight the brutality of war, especially a civil war that matched countrymen against each other....

The suggestion of forthcoming events, or foreshadowing, usually comes at the beginning of a narrative, and such is the case in "The Sniper." Oddly enough, though, there is also an instance of...

The resolution to a story is typically defined as the part that comes after the climax of the story. In this story, I think that the climax is the part where the sniper shoots and kills the enemy...

The short story "The Sniper" by Liam O'Flaherty takes place in Dublin, Ireland, during a civil war. A young man with a rifle and field glasses is stationed on a rooftop. He can hear sporadic...

I believe that this question is asking you to come up with five of your own adjectives to describe the main character in "The Sniper" rather than using some of the great adjectives that the story...

The climax of a story is the moment of the most tension, and it can even be a turning point in the story itself. The conflict between the sniper and his enemies does not come to its most intense...

The other answer on The Sniper is what you need to answer your question. In addition, I would add that the internal conflict is deeper than indicated. The sniper battles himself over the idea of...

As for tone and mood, consider that the story is centered around a lone sniper, a very young soldier trying to survive in the Irish Civil War. Now look at the opening paragraph and note the...

"The Sniper" is littered with examples of onomatopoeia (in which the writer uses a word that is phonetically similar to the sound it describes). In fact, O'Flaherty uses onomatopoeia in the very...

The Republican sniper stationed on a rooftop near the O’Connell Bridge witnesses an old woman wearing a tattered shawl approach and speak to a Free Stater soldier manning a turret attached to a...

In this story, the sniper must trick his enemy so that he can safely exit the roof of the building. Remember that he is injured because the enemy has shot him in the forearm, and he has only a...

The message of Liam O'Flaherty's story entitled "The Sniper" may well be that civil wars are wars which are never truly won because the losses are those of fellow countrymen, if not brothers. Also,...

Liam O’Flaherty's short story "The Sniper" is told from the third-person limited point of view, which means that the narrator is a non-participating observer with a limited scope of perspective....

"The Sniper," a short story, describes a conflict between two unnamed snipers during the Irish Civil War in 1922. The main character is the Republican sniper, who has been camped out on a rooftop...

The atmosphere in Liam O'Flaherty's short story "The Sniper" is created through the story's diction (word choice) and additional imagery in the form of literary devices. Words and phrases that are...

In the first paragraph, O'Flaherty reveals that the two sides at war are the Republicans and the Free Staters. To put this into context, these two sides emerged during the Irish Civil War of 1922 -...

One of the symbols in "The Sniper" is a gun. We see two different versions of it, handled by two separate, opposing forces. The first sniper has a revolver and a rifle; the second sniper has a...

Liam O’Flaherty depicts how war desensitizes individuals and devalues human life, and he illustrates the absurdity and futility of fighting against other humans. The characters in the short story...

Interpreting the message of a story isn't always a straightforward process. The reason for that is that all writers are put into a rhetorical situation in which they are trying to send a message to...

When O'Flaherty writes, "the lust of battled died in him," it means that the sniper has changed as a human being. The moment "the lust of battle died in him" takes place when the sniper has...

At the beginning of "The Sniper," the narrator describes the civil war being waged between the Republicans and Free Staters. He describes constant gunfire and says that everywhere "the heavy guns...

Personification is the practice of assigning human traits to inanimate objects. Often, it involves objects that are described as behaving in a manner similar to humans. There are several instances...

Liam O'Flaherty seems to intend for readers to take the phrase literally. He sets "The Sniper" in war-torn Ireland which was/is not unlike the civil war that the United States experienced. One...

The unnamed sniper ties in to the theme of war decreasing the humanity of those who fight in war or are affected by it. Humans become objects, or just dots on a map. In this vein, it is important...

The main events in this story are relatively few. It is full of detail and description, but only a few important things really happen. First, an Irish Republican sniper waits on a rooftop and eats...

The central meaning of Liam O'Flaherty's short story "The Sniper" is the vicious unpredictable nature of war and the cruel toll it takes on the soldiers who fight. The Republican sniper is...

Literary setting describes both time and place of a story. For the short story "The Sniper," the setting includes the historical events occurring at the time and in the place of the story....

In Liam O'Flaherty's short story, "The Sniper," the theme that most strikes me is that in war, there are no winners, regardless of who kills more people or takes more land, etc. When the Republican...

I think this story is definitely a tragic one that seriously questions the worth or benefit of engaging in civil wars. The story shows how tragic such wars are, as they literally pit friend against...

We see the emotions of guilt and remorse the sniper feels when he kills the old woman and the soldier in the street below his rooftop perch and again when the kills the sniper on the rooftop across...

Once the sniper confirms that his opponent has been hit, he utters "a cry of joy" and watches him die. The immediate elation is followed by remorse and anger—at himself, at others, and at the war...

A sniper's bullet hits and kills the old woman from Liam O'Flaherty's short story "The Sniper." The old woman in question is actually an informer working for the Free Staters. While the...

Teachers will often teach the five elements of plot by using a pyramid or triangle. It is an effective visual shape for plot because it shows students how a story will build in intensity up to the...