Republican Sniper Thesis

The theme of the story is war, a civil war in the case of this story, is that war causes people to forget that their enemy is a person and not just an object in a game. The Republican sniper is in a civil war in this story, opposing a Free stater. The Republican sniper is able to portray this theme throughout the text with his actions as well as his personality as he opposes the Free stater.

The Republican sniper is nameless, as well as the aggregate of characters. The characters are only referred to by the sniper as the roles they play, such as informer and Free stater. As they are referred to as their roles, he is as well, he is only known as the Republican sniper. This changes them from people to objects, like pawns in the game of war. Objectifying his enemy strips away the person that they are and turning them to just that, objects.

He had the recklessness of a young man not yet afraid of dying. Though he is just a young man, the war has turned him into a predator, eager to kill whomever, whatever, opposes him. In this sense he has returned to animal instincts and disregarded other humans and only has a sense of survival in the situation that he is in. Only seeing enemy and ally, killing the former to ensure his own survival. Thus only branding the people he opposes as a threat, an enemy and only this. In the end of the story, it is revealed that the opposing sniper the Republican sniper had killed was his own brother. The violence and animosity of war had caused a young man to dirty his hands with the blood of his own brother. The war with all of it’s valor, had darkened the identity of his brother. No longer was his brother his brother, but something to eliminate. The Republican sniper did not give a second thought to the slaughter of the people that he was responsible for until after, when those people were no longer objects but