Irony in The Sniper

Civil wars are generally infamous for putting brother against brother, or religion against religion, as was the case in Ireland for more than 80 years. The idea of Protestants and Catholics fighting against each other for any reason is simply paradoxical, especially when each claim that they are running on the fundamental Christian concept of “love thy neighbor.” During this war more Irishmen would die by compatriot hand than by their British enemies in the War of Liberation some four years earlier. However, the war was merely the setting of the stage that would send the actors into a far more warped dance.

’Flaherty describes the main character as having the face of a student, a trait probably held by many of the other lads who fought in that civil war. This war had put a young man onto the battlefield that probably should have been in Oxford rather than on top of a derelict building with a gun. The irony is that this college-aged student was already a war-worn soldier, a very good rifleman with dead aim whose eyes were “used to looking at death” and “had the cold gleam of a fanatic.” Later in the story, when the Sniper had killed his last victim, he returned to the state of a child who had just realized he had killed a living thing; his teeth chattered and all battle-lust left him, and he was just a young man filled with remorse and fear; his own revolver repulsed him. Yet when fanatical devotion blinds a person, as this soldier was, one is apt to do anything for that cause, even if it means going against friends and loved ones.

With this last stinging idiosyncrasy, O’Flaherty points out that war carries with it more than simply the death of unknown s

Some topics in this essay:
Liam O’Flaherty, Dublin Irish, Protestants Catholics, , War Liberation, “the sniper”, liam o’flaherty, civil war, theme “the sniper”, o’flaherty war, theme “the, war war, main character,