Examples Of Foreshadowing In The Sniper

Maya Bahr Mrs. Kory Advanced Honors English 25 October 2024 “The Sniper” Literary Analysis Most people can agree that war and death are not good things no matter the circumstance. In The Sniper, Liam O’Flaherty uses war to reveal how it can make people do things that would normally be against their moral values. O’Flaherty uses foreshadowing, situational irony, and the immoral decisions made in war to support the theme that war corrupts people and makes them behave inhumanly towards others. War and death are never good under any circumstance, therefore Liam O’Flaherty uses foreshadowing to show that war can make people act immorally. This is true because war pushes people to do things they would never do independently. For instance, the main
Perhaps he had been in his own company before the split in the army” (O’Flaherty 4). The author alludes to the sniper knowing the man he killed immediately after the last shot was fired. The use of foreshadowing forces the reader to think about the possibilities of what will come at the end of the story. In the end, we see that the author's use of foreshadowing led to the sniper killing his brother. This supports the idea that war corrupts people, forcing them to act against their morals. O’Flaherty uses situational irony to support the idea of war corrupting people. This is true because normally brothers wouldn't shoot at one another trying to kill the other, this is just one example found in “The Sniper”. War is a terrible thing that no person should have to experience: “Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face” (O’Flaherty, 4). The final sentence in the story reveals that the enemy sniper he had killed was his brother. The use of irony creates an unexpected twist at the last moment of the story. The sniper had been unknowingly trying to kill his
This is just one example of how war can corrupt people and turn them into ruthless beings who lack moral values due to their situation. War often makes people corrupt and do things that go against their morals and values. This is true because in war people aren't treated as humans, but rather as beings used to eliminate the enemy. For example, O'Flaherty does not name any of his characters to make them seem more inhumane, the characters in the story are given names based on their position or appearance like “the sniper” or “the old woman”. During the rising action of the story the sniper shoots a woman who he sees as an informant: “Then round the corner of a side street came an old woman. the sniper fired. the woman wheeled round and fell with a shriek into the gutter” (O'Flaherty 2). The sniper shoots the old woman because she is seen as an informant, this inhumane behavior is not something the sniper would do without the demands of war. The pressure created by war causes its soldiers to treat each other inhumanely. In conclusion, war and the corruption it creates often make people act