Author Liam O’Flaherty examines war’s devastating effects on men through description, characterization, symbolism, and a limited third-person narrative style.

O’Flaherty’s presentation of graphic details does not glamorize violence. Instead, visual, tactile, and auditory imagery emphasize visceral pain and fatal destruction. After the sniper is shot, he sees the bullet’s entry hole, surmises that it is lodged in his bone, bends his arm unnaturally, and feels excruciating pain. The bullet, a symbol of war‚ becomes part of the sniper. The experience of war becomes part of men’s bodies and psyches.

Later, O’Flaherty describes the enemy’s death in an almost cinematic, slow-motion style that lingers on and highlights the grotesque violence.

He was reeling over the parapet in his death agony. He struggled to keep
his feet, but he was slowly falling forward as if in a dream…Then the
dying man on the roof crumpled up and fell forward. The body turned
over and over in space and hit the ground with a dull thud. Then it lay
still.

Again, the author uses elaborate details to visualize the dying man’s tortured final movements. His falling seems almost unreal. The image of a body repeatedly turning over in descent extends and complicates his deadly fall. The sickening “dull thud” as the body hits the ground abruptly
separates life (motion) and death (stillness).

Through his characterization of the sniper, O’Flaherty emphasizes war’s emotional and mental effects. To succeed as an assassin, the sniper must be impersonal and cold. The author introduces the sniper as a young, disciplined, cold, and fanatical killer “who is used to looking at death.” The sniper shoots his human targets (i.e., the man in the turret and the old woman) without remorse.

When the sniper does feel emotion, it is in anticipation of killing. When he hears the enemy car’s motor, “his heart beat faster” because he is pumped with adrenaline to attack. Later, when he prepares to shoot the enemy on the other rooftop, he smiles, and his hand trembles “with eagerness.” After confirming that he hit the enemy, he utters “a cry of joy.”

Only after this shooting does O’Flaherty suggest that war perhaps has not entirely erased the sniper’s humanity. Unexpectedly, the sniper expresses regret for shooting another person.

As he watches his enemy fall, he shuddered. The lust of battle died in him. He became bitten by remorse. The sweat stood out in beads on his forehead. Weakened by his wound and the long summer day of fasting and watching on the roof, he revolted from the sight of the shattered mass of his dead enemy. His teeth chattered, he began to gibber to himself, cursing the war, cursing himself, cursing everybody.

O’Flaherty reveals that the sniper is a human with feelings, not merely a cold killing machine. The sniper finally realizes the consequences of his actions and physically manifests regret, confusion, and madness. The sniper becomes a tired, half-starved, injured victim of war himself.

However, his brief moment of conscience ends when he is “frightened back to his senses by” the sound of a gunshot. No longer nervous and frightened, the sniper laughs and seems to resume his less human, more attack-ready state.

Interestingly, the sniper does not completely revert to his earlier coldness but displays ambivalence. His sudden curiosity trumps his discipline. He risks danger to see the face of his victim.

O’Flaherty uses symbols to show how war imbues everyday objects with tragic weight. The sniper uses a long rifle to execute people from a distance. The enemy on the other rooftop shoots the sniper with a rifle. Both men can maintain physical and emotional distances from their victims.

Only after the sniper uses his revolver to shoot the enemy does he feel any human connection with his victim. The revolver—shorter than a rifle—brings the sniper physically and metaphorically closer to this target; he unknowingly shoots his brother from only 50 yards away.

The sniper’s cap is an example of a synecdoche—a symbol where a part stands for the whole. The cap represents the sniper’s head and his entire body. He props the cap upon his rifle to mimic him standing up and falling. The cap becomes a tool of deception in war.

The cigarette symbolizes dangerous pleasure. It might relax him, but the sniper debates if smoking is worth the risk. By lighting up a cigarette, the sniper alerts the enemy of his presence, which leads to him being shot.

O’Flaherty tells the story through third-person limited narration person, from the sniper’s point of view. This technique effectively builds and sustains suspense as the readers see and experience what the sniper witnesses and feels. No characters in the story have a name, reinforcing the sniper’s impersonal view of his targets. The sniper himself remains unnamed, suggesting the universality of his character. Ultimately, O’Flaherty’s narrative technique leaves readers wondering how the sniper reacts to his gruesome discovery. Does he feel regret and anguish or continue to be cold as a form of self-protection?

Setting

The setting of “The Sniper” is crucial to the story, as it draws its intensity from the Irish Civil War. The narrative unfolds in Dublin, Ireland, during June 1922. By this time, the Irish Civil War has been raging for several months. The Republicans are holding the Four Courts judicial building, while the Free Staters are bombarding them with heavy artillery.

“The Sniper” is set between dusk and dawn. As “twilight faded into night,” the story’s action immediately becomes more perilous. The sniper must navigate his mission under the cover of darkness, relying only on “the dim light of the moon that shone through fleecy clouds” for visibility. This lack of light not only makes his already difficult task more challenging but also adds a layer of realism. The sniper has to hit his target, approximately fifty yards away, with a single fatal shot from a revolver. The darkness also carries symbolic weight, highlighting the murky, ambiguous nature of civil war. In such a conflict, friends, neighbors, and even family members turn against each other. As the story’s conclusion reveals, clarity is hard to come by in such a chaotic environment.

Point of View

The story is told from a limited, third-person perspective. All events are filtered through the protagonist’s experiences. Readers see what he sees, hear what he hears, and understand events through his thoughts. Despite this limited viewpoint, the action remains clear. The sniper watches an old woman on the street below as she converses with a soldier in an armored car turret. “She was pointing to the roof where the sniper lay,” making it evident to both the sniper and the reader that she is revealing his location, potentially leading the soldiers to target him. When the sniper executes his plan to deceive the enemy sniper into believing he is dead, he can tell it worked. The enemy, “seeing the cap and rifle fall . . . was now standing before a row of chimney pots, looking across, with his head clearly silhouetted against the western sky.” Although the story never delves deeply into the enemy’s mind, the reader, like the sniper, understands that the Free Stater “thought that he had killed his man.”

This perspective complements the emotional detachment of the narrative. The protagonist rarely shows his feelings about the surrounding events, except for the thrill of battle and a brief moment of revulsion after killing another person. Even when he discovers that the man he has shot is his brother, the sniper remains unresponsive. The story concludes, leaving readers to ponder his emotions.

Details and Sound

O’Flaherty uses numerous specific details to enhance the realism of his story. He vividly describes the battle sounds surrounding the sniper and references real events and locations, such as the Four Courts siege and the nearby O’Connell Bridge. The depiction of the sniper's first aid efforts is also rich with concrete details, like the “bitter fluid” of the iodine, the “paroxysm of pain [that] swept through him,” and his need to tie the ends of the bandage with his teeth. These details help immerse the reader in the action.

O’Flaherty also employs details to underscore the darkness. The sniper can see only by the “dim light” from the moon and, later, the approaching dawn. Even the flare from lighting a cigarette is easily visible. The sniper decides to risk smoking, striking a match, taking a drag, and then extinguishing the light. Though this process takes only a few seconds, “almost immediately, a bullet flattened itself against the parapet of the roof.”

Despite the story's realistic foundation, O’Flaherty uses descriptive sound imagery to highlight the stillness and darkness of the night. Throughout Dublin, the machine guns and rifles “broke the silence of the night, spasmodically, like dogs barking on lone farms.” When the sniper is shot and drops his rifle with a clatter, he “thought the noise would wake the dead.” Once his personal battle concludes and he has eliminated all immediate threats—the soldier in the turret, the old woman, and the other sniper—“Everywhere around was quiet.” This technique emphasizes the peril of the situation, as well as the sniper’s utter isolation and his need to conquer his enemies alone.

Ending

A. A. Kelly writes in Liam O’Flaherty: The Storyteller that “The Sniper,” “with its surprise ending based on coincidence is in the older tradition of Maupassant and O’Henry.” Such an ending depends on an unexpected revelation at the conclusion, whether lighthearted or tragic. Few writers have managed to employ the surprise ending effectively. However, O’Flaherty succeeds because he has already captivated the reader with fast-paced action and the unique detachment of the protagonist. The shocking ending seems poised to challenge that detachment, but O’Flaherty refrains from revealing the sniper’s reaction to discovering he has killed his brother. Instead, O’Flaherty leaves it to the reader to draw conclusions and ponder how, or if, this event will influence the sniper’s future decisions.

The English in Ireland

In the twelfth century, the English king, supported by a substantial army, proclaimed himself as the overlord of Ireland. For the following several centuries, English control was largely limited to the region surrounding Dublin. Nevertheless, the English monarchy persisted in its attempts to dominate the entire island, leading to continuous Irish resistance. In the early 1600s, the monarchy dismantled the native Irish political system, bringing the whole country under its rule. Over the next century, the English established colonies in Ireland, displacing many Irish people from their lands and awarding estates to English landowners. This colonization effort also sparked religious conflicts, as the majority of Irish were Roman Catholics, while the new English settlers, predominantly in the north, were Protestants. Laws consistently favored Protestants over Catholics.

By the late 1700s, Irish rebels were repeatedly striving to achieve some form of independence. Despite their efforts, in 1801, the Act of Union officially joined Great Britain and Ireland. This legislation dissolved the Irish Parliament, and Ireland began electing representatives to serve in the British Parliament.

Starting in the 1870s, a Home Rule movement began gaining momentum among Irish nationalists, most of whom were Catholics. Supporters called for some degree of self-governance. They were opposed by Irish Protestants, known as unionists, who wished to maintain Ireland's status within the United Kingdom. Irish political leader Charles Parnell, who was a member of the British Parliament, led a nationalist party advocating for a separate Irish Parliament. Later, in 1902, a new nationalist political party called Sinn Féin was established, aiming to achieve Irish independence.

Due to these nationalist efforts, by the 1910s, the British Parliament passed a Home Rule bill. While the majority of Ireland supported this bill, Protestants in Northern Ireland vowed to resist any form of home rule by force, fearing that Catholics would dominate the island. However, the onset of World War I delayed the implementation of home rule in Ireland.

The Easter Rising

Supporters of Irish home rule were disheartened by this postponement. In April 1916, a rebellion known as the Easter Rising erupted in Dublin. Approximately 1,000 Irish fighters rose up against British rule. Over the course of the next week, street battles broke out across Dublin, and Republicans took control of several government buildings. However, British troops forced the Republican leaders to surrender and executed several of them.

Following the Easter Rising, during the 1918 elections, Irish voters overwhelmingly supported members of the Sinn Féin political party as their representatives in the British Parliament, rather than members of the more moderate Irish party. Sinn Féin championed complete independence for Ireland, and instead of taking their seats in the British Parliament, these Irish Republicans established a revolutionary government and formed an Irish assembly called Dáil Éireann in Dublin.

Up until 1921, Ireland was engulfed in a violent conflict. The newly formed Irish Republican Army (IRA) launched a campaign against British rule, resisting any attempts to reimpose British control and compelling Britain to acknowledge the Irish government. The IRA employed guerrilla tactics, prompting the British government, represented by the police force known as the Black and Tans, to respond with severe reprisals.

During this time, the divide between the north and south of Ireland deepened, with northern unionists threatening rebellion if they were separated from Britain. In reaction, the British government enacted the Government of Ireland Act in 1920, establishing two distinct parliaments for Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Eventually, in 1922, leaders from the Dáil Éireann signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty with Britain. This treaty transformed twenty-six of Ireland’s thirty-two counties into the Irish Free State, a self-governing dominion within the British Commonwealth of Nations, while the six counties of Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom.

Irish Civil War

Not everyone in Ireland supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The British prime minister had even threatened to declare open war on Ireland if the treaty was rejected. Republicans particularly opposed the oath of allegiance that members of the Dáil Éireann were required to take to the British monarch, as well as the provision allowing Northern Ireland to remain outside the Irish Free State. Eamon de Valera, the head of the Dáil Éireann, refused to back the treaty and subsequently resigned. Elections were held for the new Irish Parliament, resulting in most Republicans being voted out. Before the new Parliament could convene, a civil war erupted between supporters of the treaty, known as Free Staters, and its opponents, called Republicans.

In April 1922, Republican forces seized Dublin’s justice buildings, the Four Courts, and soon found themselves besieged by Free State forces. For several days in June, the Free Staters bombarded the Four Courts, eventually retaking the buildings and capturing the enemy leader. However, before their capture, the Republicans detonated explosives in the Four Courts. Despite the Free State's victory, skirmishes continued in Dublin until early July, when Free State forces finally secured control of the city.

Hostilities persisted outside Dublin, prompting the Irish government (still dominated by Free Staters) to launch official military operations. The government took drastic measures to end the civil war, including executing Republican leaders. Within a few months, the Dáil Éireann convened to draft and ratify a new constitution for Ireland.

The Irish Free State

The Republican resistance became less coordinated. By early 1923, Republican forces had stopped fighting. De Valera, the Republican leader, called for a cease-fire. A few years later, he returned to the Irish political arena. He established a new political party and served multiple terms as Ireland’s prime minister.

In 1937, De Valera drafted a new constitution that transformed Ireland into a new state, named Éire, which was essentially a republic. In 1948, Ireland finally achieved full independence. However, the six counties of Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom.

1920s: Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom. Many Irish citizens have long been dissatisfied with this arrangement. In the late 1910s, Irish forces rise up and begin battling British troops, seeking independence from British rule.

Today: Four-fifths of the island of Ireland constitutes the independent Republic of Ireland, or Eire in Irish. Northern Ireland occupies the remaining portion of the island and remains part of the United Kingdom.

1920s: Republicans and Free Staters engage in a bloody and ruinous civil war. Republicans reject the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which establishes southern Ireland as a dominion within the United Kingdom, called the Irish Free State. Republicans desire full independence for the entire island of Ireland. On the other hand, Free Staters support the treaty. The civil war rages from 1921 until 1923, ending with a cease-fire and a Free Stater victory.

Today: After decades of conflict between Northern Ireland's Protestants and the Irish Republican Army—the militant wing of Sinn Féin—a cease-fire is agreed upon in 1998. However, tensions regarding the island's division persist. In 2004, Protestant and Catholic political parties continue to struggle over power-sharing arrangements, while allegations of kidnapping and violence by the IRA still occur.

1920s: Irish political leadership is dominated by men, including figures like Michael Collins, Eamon de Valera, and Arthur Griffith.

Today: Women play a much more significant role in politics. In 1990, Mary Robinson becomes the first woman to serve as president of the Republic, and women lead various political parties.

Sources

Calahan, James M., “Politics,” in Liam O’Flaherty, A Study of the Short Fiction, Twayne Publishers, 1991, pp. 30–40.

Doyle, Paul A., “Liam O’Flaherty,” in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 162, British Short Fiction Writers, 1915–1945, edited by John H. Rogers, Gale Research, 1996, pp. 282–92.

Kelly, A. A., “Urban and War Themes,” in Liam O’Flaherty: The Storytellers, Harper & Row Publishers, 1976, pp. 23–36.

O’Brien, James H., “The Short Stories,” in Liam O’Flaherty, Associated University Presses, 1973, pp. 92–117.

Troy, William, “The Position of Liam O’Flaherty,” in Bookman, Vol. LXIX, March 29, 1929, pp. 7–11.

Further Reading

Bates, H. E., “The Irish School” in The Modern Short Story: A Critical Survey, The Writer, 1972, pp. 148–62. Bates, an accomplished novelist and short story author, examines O’Flaherty’s work alongside other notable twentieth-century Irish writers.

Brewer, Paul, ed., Ireland: History, Culture, People, Courage Books, 2002. This book offers an illustrated introduction to Ireland, emphasizing its history up to the early 2000s, as well as its people and culture.

Doyle, Paul A., Liam O’Flaherty, Twayne Publishers, 1971. Doyle’s book provides a comprehensive overview of O’Flaherty’s fiction, including both short stories and novels, and features a detailed biographical chapter.

Kiely, Benedict, Modern Irish Fiction: A Critique, Golden Eagle Books, 1950. Kiely critiques prominent Irish writers from the first half of the twentieth century, characterizing O’Flaherty as a romantic.

Ranelagh, John O’Beirne, A Short History of Ireland, Cambridge University Press, 1995. This revised edition covers Irish history from ancient times to the end of the twentieth century.

Zneimer, John, The Literary Vision of Liam O’Flaherty, Syracuse University Press, 1970. Zneimer’s in-depth study explores O’Flaherty’s personal life, the themes in his work, and offers a focused analysis of his short fiction.