“The Sniper”
By Liam O’Flaherty
“THE SNIPER” PRE-READING
NOTES
The Writer and his Historical Connection
Meet the Writer
• Liam O’Flaherty (18961984)
• Born to a large, poor family
on Inishmore, one of
Ireland’s rocky Aran Islands.
• He took inspiration from the
peasant life of the Aran
Islands in his writing.
Background
• This story is set in Dublin,
Ireland, in the 1920s, during
a time of civil war.
• Republicans: desired all of
Ireland to be totally free from
British rule.
• Free Staters: desired
compromise with Britain.
• The Irish Civil war tore families apart: child against
parent, sister against sister, and brother against brother.
POST-READING NOTES
Literary Elements
• Types of Point of View
• First Person
• The narrator is within the action of the story
• Second Person
• When the narrator directly addresses the reader
• Third Person
• Limited: The narrator has a limited knowledge of the story (limited to one
character)
• Omniscient: The narrator has an unlimited knowledge of the story (knows
everything about everyone)
Point of View
Definition
3 Types
• A technique that reveals a
discrepancy between
what appears to be and
what is actually true.
• Involves a deflection from
expectation
• Dramatic
• Situational
• Verbal
Irony
Dramatic Irony
• When a writer allows a
reader to know more
about a situation than
the character does
• Often used to reveal
character
Example: In The Gift of the Magi, the reader knows that Della cuts her hair off to
earn money to buy her husband, Jim, a chain for his watch. He, however, has sold
his watch so he could buy her silver combs for her hair.
Situational Irony
• When what happens is
entirely different than
what is expected
• Example: Guy Montag, the
protagonist of Ray Bradbury’s
Fahrenheit 451, is a fireman.
However, in this novel set in a
possible future, a fireman
doesn’t put fires out: he starts
them, burning books which
society has deemed dangerous
and unsafe.
Verbal Irony
• When a character says something different than what is meant.
• In the spoken word, the tone of voice makes verbal irony easier to
detect.
• Examples
• In a song, a farmer says to the wife who has abandoned him, “You
picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.”
• Mark Antony makes a speech after Caesar’s slaying. He knows Brutus
is responsible, but in his speech, he repeats, “Brutus is an honorable
man” all the while making Brutus appear less and less honorable.
Conflict and Point of View
• Conflict:
• Man vs. Man: the struggle exists between the
Republican sniper and the Free Stater sniper.
• Point of View:
• Third person limited: restricted to one character
(the Republican sniper) and observes only what he
sees, hears, feels, or does.
Similes and Metaphors
• Similes:
• “Machine guns and rifles broke the silence of the night,
spasmodically, like dogs barking on lone farms.”
• Metaphors:
• “Around the beleaguered Four Courts the heavy
guns roared.”
• “The sniper could hear the dull panting of the
motor . . . His bullets would never pierce the steel
that covered the gray monster.”
• Personification: attributing human characteristics to
something nonhuman.
Mood
• The mood of “The Sniper” is nervous and
suspenseful.
• O’Flaherty keeps you reading to find out what
comes next.
• The reader feels the suspense and becomes
nervous when the Republican sniper is shot and
he has to make a plan so that he can both live and
kill the Free Stater sniper on the opposite rooftop.
Irony
• The irony of “The Sniper” is situational.
• Situational irony: an event occurs that contradicts
the expectations of the reader.
• Neither the reader nor the Republican sniper
expects the two snipers to be brothers fighting
against each other.
Theme
• One of the possible
themes of “The
Sniper” is that war
has no boundaries.