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The Effects of War
The sacrifice in war is heavy. You may enter with a healthy body but in return, leave with a damaged one; both inside and out. The author, Liam O’Flaherty, examines this claim in his book “The Sniper”. While showing the physical and psychological dangers of war O’Flaherty reveals the impact war has on a soldier. A soldier in who goes to war sacrifices both their bodies and mind in warfare.
O’Flaherty suggests the horror of war by presenting its physical dangers. In “The Sniper” the author uses the story to depict the possible injuries from war. In the text, the author states “The sniper lay for a long time nursing his wounded arm and planning escape.” Republican Sniper
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is injured and the author put this in the text to show the injury he maintained in war. In the text, death exemplifies the author's claim of the many physical sacrifices of war. Whether they can be the loss of a life or the injury of one. In the text, the author says, “The woman’s corpse lay still in the gutter...The Sniper looked at his enemy falling” the author uses these examples to show death with the death of two characters in the story. The Sniper also focus on the physical abilities needed for war. He shows this by telling the reader that the whole body is needed. For example, “He must kill that enemy and he could not use his rifle “ He could not use the rifle because his hand was injured. O’Flaherty presents the reader with overwhelming evidence on the physical strength abilities needed and the sacrifice of the body to present his information to the reader. O’Flaherty also presents the psychological dangers of war through the events of “The Sniper”.
Through “The Sniper” the author provided evidence of the act you are never safe in war. “The sniper darted across the street. A machine gun tore up the ground around him with a hail of bullets”. You are never safe in war all the sniper was doing was walking across the street and he was met with machine gun fire showing that walking down a street isn’t safe. The author uses pieces of text to remind the reader how war can break strong bonds. In the text, it states “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…...Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face.”. The war had separated the Republican sniper with his brother and the brother ,because of this war that separated the two they had meet in a gruesome way and leaving the Republican Sniper killing his brother and losing him forever by his own hand of brotherhood. Also in the story, the sniper shows that the nation as a whole is hurt when the text, says “Republicans and Free Staters were waging civil war.” This statement in the introduction of the story tells the reader that the nation is split in two and does two sides are killing each other in a war thus separating the two further away than they were before. The author also shows he wants the reader to understand the sacrifices you give up in war. The privileges you may seem as casual might not be the same in war. For example in the story the author puts “He paused for a moment, considering whether he should risk a smoke. It was dangerous.” The author tells the reader that it was dangerous to do an activity he enjoys because of the war he can not perform this activity and he might be seen and killed for his decision. “The Sniper” demonstrates the psychological dangers of war and describes in the text the effect it has on the Republican Sniper
to show a deeper understanding of the burdens of war. The physical and psychological effects “The Sniper’ shows exemplify the effect of war on a nation, a state ,a family and the body may be very harmful. When a soldier is in a war he puts his body on the line. The effect war has on the soldier can be physical with him suffering with injury or in some situations death. However, the effects on a soldier can be psychological affecting the soldier's mind reminding him it is never safe. “The Sniper” focused on the way a war tears apart a nation and family and at the end, the sacrifice for the ideal way may be too much. The author leaves the reader with the idea that no one benefits from war and nothing good can come from it.
The short story “The Sniper”, by Liam O’Flaherty and the poem “The Man He Killed,” by Thomas Hardy both use themes of guilt and regret to emphasize how war negatively affects the soldiers fighting it. In “The Man He Killed”, Hardy’s character, a war veteran, wonders what might have happened had he met the man he killed anywhere other than war. The soldier feels a strong sense of confusion and guilt because he realized the man he killed could have been his friend elsewhere. The veteran’s guilt resembles significant similarity to that of O’Flaherty’s character in “The Sniper”. The main character, a sniper in the Irish civil war, unknowingly kills his brother in a battle. The sniper felt remorse even before recognizing the body. The snipers’ sense
War has been a constant part of human history. It has greatly affected the lives of people around the world. These effects, however, are extremely detrimental. Soldiers must shoulder extreme stress on the battlefield. Those that cannot mentally overcome these challenges may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sadly, some resort to suicide to escape their insecurities. Soldiers, however, are not the only ones affected by wars; family members also experience mental hardships when their loved ones are sent to war. Timothy Findley accurately portrays the detrimental effects wars have on individuals in his masterpiece The Wars.
His quick thinking and desperate attempts to avoid an intricate situation ends with him killing his enemy, but the consequence is later revealed at the end of the short story. O’Flaherty writes, “Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face” (4). In other words, the enemy that the Republican sniper shoots at the end of the passage was not only his enemy, but his brother. The action of killing his brother shows that the Republican sniper is to blame because he takes action, without much thought, and does not consider that he is shooting his own flesh and blood. The Free Stater sniper is utterly the same as the Republican sniper because he views his enemy the exact same way. He does not ruminate on whether his enemy lives a different life outside of the war. Another sentence that is prominent in showing the mindset of the snipers wanting to create bloodshed from each other is, “ He must kill that enemy…” (3). O’Flaherty writes this to showcase the Republican sniper’s thoughts and feelings through his elaborate plan to assassinate the opposing sniper. The Republican sniper merely deliberates on how he will eliminate his
As we saw earlier, both authors of both stories were born in different places and did many things. “The Sniper” sets in Dublin, Ireland, during a time of a bitter civil war. It was a war between the Republicans, which wanted Ireland to become ...
A certain matter-of-fact quality pervades the descriptions of the wounds inflicted and received by soldiers; the face-to-face attacks with rifle butts, spades, and grenades; the sounds, smells, and colors of death and dying in this book.
Julianna Claire, an award winning poet once said, “War makes men act like fools, and makes fools pretend to be brave.” War is a very difficult and dangerous game. There must be a just cause to fight for, supporters on either side of the war, and clear plan on what the war ought to look like. Though, as much as countries plan their strategies and perfect their tactics, war never seems to go how people think it should. War creates heartache, makes countries question their governments, and changes the lives of the soldiers who fight in them. One such story that address the damages of war, is Ambush, by Tim O’Brien (1946). In this short story, Tim O’Brien tells a story of a young man fighting in Vietnam who kills a member of the Vietnam army. Robin Silbergleid, a neurosurgeon in Seattle, Washington, who minored in
As can be seen, Paul Boyer, Tim O’Brien, and Kenneth W. Bagby, convey the notion that war affects the one’s self the most. Through the use of literary devices: tone, mood, pathos, and imagery, these 3 authors portray that war affects a person’s self most of all. War is not only a battle between two opposing sides, but it can also be a mental conflict created within a person. Although war is able to have an effect on physical relationships between family, friends, or even society, conflict within oneself is the most inevitable battle one must face during war times.
One of the worst things about war is the severity of carnage that it bestows upon mankind. Men are killed by the millions in the worst ways imaginable. Bodies are blown apart, limbs are cracked and torn and flesh is melted away from the bone. Dying eyes watch as internal organs are spilled of empty cavities, naked torso are hung in trees and men are forced to run on stumps when their feet are blown off. Along with the horrific deaths that accompany war, the injuries often outnumber dead men. As Paul Baumer witnessed in the hospital, the injuries were terrifying and often led to death. His turmoil is expressed in the lines, “Day after day goes by with pain and fear, groans and death gurgles. Even the death room I no use anymore; it is too small.” The men who make it through the war take with them mental and physical scarification from their experiences.
Bullets, of course, are another big danger in war. The author shows with bullets how close you are to death in a war. In the event where the sniper lights his cigarette, he is twice almost killed with the “enemy” sniper’s bullets! The sniper’s own bullets are quite dangerous, too, as seen when he easily kills the tank commander and citizen woman informer. After shooting them, the “enemy” sniper sees him, and “His fore...
In conclusion, O’Flaherty included a number of both psychological and physical risks in “The Sniper”. By doing so, he informed readers of just how bad war can get. The ending of the short story can teach readers to consider what they could be risking before fighting for a cause and decide whether it is worth
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
There he lay staring into the face of his own brother outside the Main Street barber shop. His brother lay motionless on the cold hard cement sidewalk which he had fallen on after he was shot, he was dead. The Republican sniper heard the rattle and clanking of the enemy soldiers rounds being loaded into the giant death machine which the opposing soldier beared in his hands.The Republican sniper then dragged his brother's lifeless body into the darkness of the barber shop where the machine gunner could not see. He knew that he had to get out of the barber shop and get off the streets before the morning..
Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage was a novel that exploited an underlying irony of the nature of the American Civil War and war itself, as it was the “first non-romantic novel of the Civil War to attain widespread popularity.” Rather than depicting soldiers fighting for some noble and important cause, like literature of the American Revolution, Crane painted what seemed to be “loosely cohering incidents” that demystified and reshaped his generation’s views on warfare. War was not dignified; it was “hard stuff. Men ran away howling. Bodies were strewn and torn. War, went the cliché, was hell.” Crane created characters and scenes that highlighted the problems of his America’s popular opinion of war for “those whose interests are most nearly touched.” In Crane’s novel, those people were the innocent young soldiers who were thrown into “hell” and bestowed with responsibilities and expectations of highly immoral standards. He showed his generation and generations of Americans to come the horrors and the true nature of war. By exposing the fears and inner thoughts of Henry Fleming in his new environments, Crane introduced America to the harsh reality that “the blue and the gray honestly don’t ever seem too entirely certain why they’re fighting each other.” These were merely young men killing each other without really understanding the reason.
As Kingdom citizens and especially as we mature and grow in our assignments we must be aware that our time of equipping and preparation truly never ends. When Prophet Ajah asked me to participate on this important call and told me that the recent topic was sniper training, my mind went to so many different places and immediately God began to speak to me about submitting to training and the importance of being teachable and accountable even after achieving certain levels of experience.
War brings death and destruction, merciless slaughter and butchery, disease and starvation, poverty and ruin in its wake. Although war may not always be the first answer or the most beneficial, it is an inescapable evil because war has brought the world peace and prosperity, while banding people together to fight for a cause. It leads to national growth and solves domestic problems between countries; Injustice and tyranny can be quelled as the aftereffect of war. On the contrary, war includes loss of human life, the spread of diseases, and induces a feeling of anxiety and dismay among communities. The brutal sacrifices that innocent people undergo may not be worth the outcome. In My Brother Sam is Dead, written by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier, Tim must choose whether to be a Patriot, a Loyalist, or neutral. The reality of war and the inhumane acts that