Violence In Liam O 'Flaherty's The Sniper'

The Irish civil war was a time of violence, change, and betrayal. People took sides, Ireland (Catholics) or England (Protestant). The oppositions were strongly against each other. The short story, “The Sniper,” by Liam O’Flaherty takes place during this time. It shows how violence and assumption leads people into making bad decisions.

The story of “The Sniper,” tells about the night when a Republican sniper was camped out on the roof about to have a smoke. The sniper gets shot at after lighting the match. An enemy truck appears and a woman tells the truck where the sniper is. The sniper shots her along with the truck. He then gets shot at by an opposing sniper from across the street. He nurses his wounds all night and then kills the opposing

sniper in the morning. Then he walked up to the opposing sniper’s body and realizes it was his brother. This shows how assumption and violence creates many problems and causes you to make bad decisions.
The theme of how violence and assumption can lead people to make bad decisions was first introduced when the sniper was desperate to take a smoke and would risk be killed to do it. The sniper takes a shot of whiskey and wants a smoke after his long day of sniping. He knows his enemies could see the flame but decides to risk it anyway. Then moments later a bullet whizzes past his face. In the story, after the sniper lights his match, it states, “a bullet flattened itself against the parapet of the roof.” This shows how the assumption and violence causes people to make bad decisions. The sniper was desperate and upset due to the violence he risked being killed for no reason.
The theme is refined when the sniper kills a woman and a soldier.

The sniper sees a truck appear and a woman walks up toward it and begins speaking to the driver. The truck has a machine gun manned by a soldier stationed on its roof. After the woman finished speaking, the truck immediately starts shooting toward the sniper. The sniper shoots the gunman and then angrily kills the woman. Next the sniper gets shot in the arm by an opposing sniper located across the street. In the story it stated, “The head fell heavily on the turret wall. The woman darted toward the side street. The sniper fired again. The woman whirled around and fell with a shriek into the gutter.” It also stated, “He scooped to pick up his rifle. He couldn’t lift it. His forearm was dead.” This shows how the violence and assumption caused the sniper to kill the innocent women. The reason was his assumption that she was a bad person and killing her would be an outlet to his anger caused by the war.

The theme is fully developed by the end of the story when the soldier kills his brother. The sniper looked across the street and sees the other sniper. He shoots him without thinking twice. Then walked toward the body to see if he knew the person. He looked at his brother. In the story it stated, “Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face. The sniper was blinded by his assumption he killed someone without realizing who they were. He was so angry and blinded by the violence he was exposed to, he killed his

brother.
The story “The Sniper,” by Liam O’Flaherty shows how assumption and violence leads people into making bad decisions. This theme first emerges when the sniper lights a match despite knowing the dangers it had. The theme continues to develop when the sniper kills a innocent woman. The theme is finalized when he kills his brother.
The violence that the sniper was exposed to affected him during the story and will also have permanent damage. The violence caused him to make assumptions that weren’t always accurate. These wrong assumption lead the sniper into making bad decisions that ending up causing the death of several people. His assumptions were so strong that he ending up killing his own brother. We must make sure that violence and assumption don’t lead us into making decisions.