The Sniper

“The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty
This short story has a strong emphasis on how the war affects people, through one particular sniper that symbolizes a general subject so we get aninsight of the evils of war. In this story, the main topic is how people were talked into fighting for an idea that maybe they didn’t even support. This insight is showed through thestory of a sniper.
At the beginning of the story we get an idea that the sniper doesn’t really want to carry out his job, so he “took a short drought” from the “flask of whisky fromhis pocket”, so as to get his mind out of the job. It seems that even though he is young, it’s not the first time he has done a job like this .Unfortunately, in the past, and moreduring the war times, people didn’t have the right of choosing it they wanted to join the military or not. If they chose you to go to the war you had to go. Sometimes, even if you have afamily you had to leave to other country to fight in the war.. and be far away from your family for a really long time.
The story of the sniper tell us that in some situations, atwar, you could never choose what your jobs were, you had to do whatever they told you to, and that “blindness” could end up, as in this case, in the killing of a friend or relative.And the main character, although is still following the orders, knows what is going on and it depresses him, and that’s why even though he’s really young, he drinks and smokes. And atthe end of the story, he takes the risk of going to see who he killed, because he knows what the other sniper was going through, as he was too, and needed to give him a face. Andthat’s when he discovers what he has done, that he has killed his brother, and it looks that it is in that moment when the horrors of the war really sinks in his, and the readers. mind.