Tuesday, September 16, 2014
"The Sniper" by Liam O'Flaherty : Literary Terms Analysis Practice
In a comment, answer one of the four questions listed below.
(1) MOOD - Analyze changes in the mood throughout the story. How and why does it change? Provide textual evidence (direct quote(s)).
(2) THEME - What do you think the theme of the story is and why? Provide evidence.
(3) SYMBOL - Identify an object, place, activity, etc. and explain what it stands for beyond itself.
(4) IRONY - Identify and explain when and how irony occurs in the story. *Hint: 2/3 forms of irony are present in this story.
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There is a clear shift in mood in this story. It occurs when the main character shoots and kills the enemy sniper. Before this moment, the man was hardened and calculated, not letting his emotions affect his actions. That behavior is displayed in this quote: "His eyes had the cold gleam of the fanatic. They were deep and thoughtful, the eyes of a man who is used to looking at death." This shows that this man is experienced in war, and has a passive attitude towards killing and death. This characteristic creates a calm and suspenseful mood. This changes after his enemy dies. The mood suddenly becomes chaotic and emotional. This paragraph shows it well:
ReplyDeleteThe sniper looked at his enemy falling and 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.
The protagonist abandons his indifferent mask and reacts to the death with great emotion. This is a definite change in the mood of the story.
The theme of this story is Nobody Wins in War. I think that this is the theme because the last line of the story is when we discover that the man had killed his brother. When the man was looking a the dead body, "Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brothers face." The story ended on a climax so, there is no resolution. I think the author purposely made it so there is no resolution so it looks like there was no resolution to the war. Even if one of the sides wins the war, families will still be torn apart and there will be destruction to the city. Therefore, the theme of this story is Nobody Wins in War.
ReplyDeleteI believe the theme is nobody wind at war. I believe this because both of the snipers lost. The main sniper lost his brother and the other sniper lost his life. Therefor that leads me to believe the authors purpose was to make you realize war has terrible consequences and no even though you might when technically you lost so many other things that you basically lost
ReplyDeleteNext time, can you comment without your full last name attached? Thanks!
DeleteI believe the Theme is that nobody wins at war. I believe this is the theme because the consequences that war has almost makes the victory pointless. For instance even with fights with your own family and friends all the things that occurred and how you hurt them makes you winning the fight not important and you realize what you wanted wasn't worth all the terrible things you did.
ReplyDeleteThe Theme of The Sniper was know who your true enemies are. I think this because the man in the story that the sniper was referring to as "the enemy" was his own brother. Although he didn't know this until after he killed him. He didn't know that since the war was a civil one, his brother could be on the other side and when he found out, it was way too late. This could easily happen in real life too. If someone who was supposed to be one of your really great friends goes and talks terribly about you behind your back, they're obviously not a very good friend and after this, you wish you would have know who your real friends and real enemies are.
ReplyDeleteI think that there is some symbolism at the end of the story when the protagonist sniper throws the gun to the ground. Sure he's just throwing a gun, but it represents such anger and remorse. Anger at the war, for all the violence and fighting. Remorse from for shooting the other sniper, especially when he found out it was his brother.
ReplyDeleteThere was very intense, and unexpected irony in, The Sniper. In the story the sniper's arm was shot, and he came up with an idea to make the shooter think he was dead. The sniper put his cap on the end of his gun and the other shooter shot at the hat. Then, the sniper dropped his gun on the ground and threw his arm over the edge of the roof. This scene was dramatic irony, because the reader(me) and the sniper new he wasn't dead, but the other shooter thought he was. The other form of irony in the story happened at the very end when the sniper killed the other shooter, and became curious to who he had killed. When the sniper turned over the body, he realized he had just killed his own brother! This form of irony was situational irony because both the character and reader thought the sniper had killed his own brother.
ReplyDeleteNice analysis! Thanks for analyzing BOTH forms of irony. :)
DeleteI believe the theme of The Sniper is there are no winners in war. I believe this because neither the Republican sniper or the Free Staters sniper had won their battle. The Free Staters sniper was killed by the Republican sniper but no good came from that because not only was a man who just wanted to defend his rights killed but the man also happened to be the Republican sniper's brother, "the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother's face." And because of the sudden mood change from intense to remorseful at the end of the story we can assume that the Republican sniper had deeply regretted killing his brother thus, neither sniper won.
ReplyDeleteVery well said, Ryan. You write eloquently!
DeleteOh yeah, will you please comment without your full last name next time? Thanks!
DeleteI believe that the theme of the sniper is no body wins at war. I think this is a good theme for the short story because neither of the characters ended up winning. The one sniper shot his brother, and the other sniper gets killed by his brother. The first sniper was upset with killing his brother. You can tell this by the drastic mood change in the story, Therefore know one has won in this situation.
ReplyDeleteVery true!
DeleteNext time, will you please not comment with your full name? Thanks!
SYMBOLSIM: I belive a symbol in this story is the revolver. He throws the revolver on the ground angirly and it ends up going off. He is mad at the war and the consequences it brings. He dosnt want to fight it anymore or be apart of it. He takes out his anger on the revlover and ends up almost getting shot. The reblover is symbol for the anger at the war, that the Sniper has.
ReplyDeleteI believe the theme of "The Sniper" is "War makes you work hard and hurts you in return". The entire story proves this because the Republican sniper works to kill his enemy in various ways.For example: He is taking fire by the Free State sniper because he decided that lighting a match for a cigarette was a risk worth taking Shortly after that, an enemy armored car appeared out of seemingly nowhere with the intentions to explode him. The sniper works against enemy forces for a long time and even gets injured by doing so.When he finally killed the enemy sniper and was on his way back to base camp, a newfound curiosity took over him like a ship to a new captain. He went back to the scene and found that the enemy, was actually his brother. Since the story ends there, I can only assume that if there was anymore guilt locked away in his feelings, he was feeling it now. He worked so hard for so long and got rewarded with a dead brother. I think he know knows what war truly is. Too bad it had to be this way.
ReplyDeleteSorry for this being late
I think the theme of Sniper is nobody wins in war. I think this because none of the snipers won, the sniper got shot by the other and died. Then the sniper went to go see who he shot and he found out it was his brother. This story is saying that nobody wins in war because even though the other sniper is alive he figured out he killed his brother so he lost.
ReplyDeleteThere is dramatic irony in The Sniper. One example of dramatic irony presented in The Sniper is when the protagonist puts his hat on the tip of his gun and hangs it over the edge of the building he is on, then when his enemy shoots at it he drops the hat to the ground. This is dramatic irony because we, the readers, know that the main character is not dead; however, the person who shot at the protagonist does not know this.
ReplyDelete