The Sniper Irony

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“War does not determine who is right- only who is left”. A man named Bertrand Russell who is a British author, mathematician, and philosopher had stated this. In both the poem, “The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy and the short story “The Sniper” by Liam O'Flaherty are about war and how it can tear people apart emotionally and mentally. Therefore, both of them have similarities and differences within the plot, irony, and the theme. To start, both the sniper and the soldier had killed a man because of war. For one from “The Sniper” an example is, “When the sniper reached the laneway on the street level, he felt a sudden curiosity as to the identity of the enemy sniper whom he had killed” (O’Flaherty 208). After the sniper killed the other soldier he wondered if he knew him, so he bolted across the avenue …show more content…

Proof from “The Sniper” is when he was watching the corpse plummet to the ground, “The lust of battle died in him. He became bitten by remorse”(O’Flaherty 208). He was mournful and full of sorrows because he had killed his brother. Likewise, the other text was very similar, “He thought he’d ‘list, perhaps, offhand like-- just as I-- was out of work-- had sold his traps” (Hardy 16-18). The man was just like that too, he had sold his things and needed to work, so he decides to join the army. In difference, they had different type of irony. In “The Sniper” there is situational irony, at the end of the short story when he discovers who it was that he killed, “Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face”(O’Flaherty 208). On the other hand, in “The Man He Killed” there was verbal irony, “Yes, quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down you'd treat if met where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown(Hardy 17-20). All in all, in both the short story and the poem there was irony, which is when the opposite of what is expected

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