Liam O 'Flaherty's The Sniper'

Liam O’ Flaherty’s realistic fiction story, “The Sniper” takes place in Dublin, Ireland, where there is a civil war taking place. The main character whose name is unrevealed, is a sniper for the republican side of the civil war. Throughout the story the main character views the war differently than how he will towards the end. By the narrator’s use of description and

perspective, Liam O’ Flaherty creates the lesson of how violence harms everyone.

Violence shows throughout the story as a central issue impacting all characters. Since the main character is a sniper in a civil war, he harms others and he is the reason of the violence. One example of this is, the sniper chooses to take part in the war. He is deciding everyday to wake up in the morning and potentially kill

his own people. At one point they are all united and together fighting as one, but now he is killing others that he knows, and is not seeing the “enemies” as actual human beings. Flaherty writes, “Then when the smoke cleared, he peered across and uttered a cry of joy. His enemy had been hit.” In this section of the passage the narrator uses the word “enemy” descriptively, and intentionally to describe the point of view that the main character has on the war. This also shows the main character shoots the “enemy” sniper and kills him. Therefore, by doing this he is the cause of the violence and is the main person to blame for the violence. Not only was the man who is killed, harmed, but the other side of the army was harmed as well because they lost one of their soldiers, a family member, and a friend. The main character is being harmed mentally because after all those people he kills in his lifetime he is being harmed mentally. The narrator uses descriptive language to get his point across numerous ways, because he uses the word “enemy” many times to describe characters. Throughout the story, Flaherty uses descriptive words that describe the results of violence and the use of perspective with specific evidence from the passage to support it.
In the story, “The Sniper”, Liam O'Flaherty uses the third-person point of view to show the central issue that violence harms everyone.

In the passage the author chooses to use the third-person unlimited perspective. By doing this the narrator is able to tell the readers what the main character is thinking and feeling at all times. Also the narrator can use that point of view to give a mental picture of the violence occurring. For example, in the passage it says, ”When the sniper reached the laneway on the street level, he felt a sudden curiosity as to the identity of the enemy sniper whom he had killed.” Throughout this quote of the passage the author uses his unlimited perspective to show the “feeling of curiosity” that falls on the main character as he figures out who he killed. During this example, it is useful to be able to use the perspective that Flaherty chose, because the author is able to fully explain how violence is being shown not only from the narrator’s eyes, but through the eyes of the main sniper. Therefor, by doing this Liam O’ Flaherty is using different perspectives to show the central issue in the passage, violence harms everyone, in an abundant amount of

ways.
In “The Sniper” the central issue or theme of the passage is how violence harms everyone, either mentally or physically. Liam O’Flaherty uses different techniques throughout the whole story. Flaherty uses the narrator to show the ways the main character’s perspective of the war changes from the beginning of the story to the very end. Not only does the author use the use of perspective to get his point across, but he uses very detailed and descriptive sentences to analyze how the character is feeling during the major points throughout the story. By the narrator’s use of description and perspective, Liam O’Flaherty creates the lesson of how violence harms everyone.