The sniper

The sniper is set in Dublin, Ireland in June sometime in the 1900s. It is dark except the dim light from the moon. It is about a republican sniper that lays on a rooftop and shoots at people and then suddenly an enemy sniper appears at the rooftop on the other side of the street. The characters in the short story are: The sniper, The enemy sniper, the old woman and the turret operator. Only the sniper and the old woman gets described.

The story begins with the sniper taking an eating, drinking and smoking break on the rooftop. Then he sees an old lady telling a solider in a turret where he is, so the sniper shoots both of them. After that an enemy sniper appears on the rooftop across the street and they start shooting at each other, resulting in the sniper getting shot, which is one of the two most significant events in the story. The sniper heals his wound and manages to shoot the enemy sniper by tricking him, but when he goes to see who the enemy sniper is, it turns out it was his brother, which is the second most significant event and also a plot twist, because it changes the whole story. The plot is very believable, because something similar to this could actually have happened even though this is not a true story.

It uses a lot of characterization on non-living things, for example: “a bullet whizzed”, “panting of the motor” and “the pain swept trough him”. It also uses a lot of symbols, for example: “broke the silence” or referring to the armored military car as “the grey monster”. I think that these linguistic tools are useful to get people to understand and to spice up the sentences, but I don’t think they are what makes this a great short story. I think what makes this a great short story, is that it builds up anticipation and releases it all with an unexpected plot twist at the end. I really recommend reading this short story, because it packs an entertaining story into a text that only take about 5 minutes to read.