The Sniper - Summary and Author's Messege

Summary - This short story takes place during the nighttime in the city of Dublin. There is an ongoing war between the Republicans and Free Staters. On the rooftop near O' Connell bridge, a Republican sniper is anxious and excited to kill his target once he spots them. He carries a flak of whiskey and a cigarette with him in his pockets. As soon as he risks a smoke, a bullet whizzes by him - his opponent is here. Suddenly, a car came out on top of the bridge. An old women approaches the car and tells the man who was inside about the snipers location. Immediately, the sniper shoots the man and women, killing them both. The car then speeds away. The sniper was so focused on those two that he forgot about the enemy sniper. As soon as he killed the two targets, the enemy sniper shot at him and made a hit on his arm. Although the sniper is able to recover by dripping his bottle of whiskey onto the wound, he is still in great pain. Not being able to use his rifle after being shot, he decides that he has to win using the revolver that he carries in his other pocket. The clever sniper then comes up with a plan to trick to enemy into thinking that he was dead. By using his hat as a decoy and dropping his rifle to the ground, his plan works and the enemy thinks that they have been successful and lowers their guard. Using this to his advantage, the sniper shoots and kills the enemy with one shot from the revolver. The sensation of killing fills the sniper up with guilt for killing and hatred for the war and himself. As he throws the revolver out of disgust, it fires and the bullet goes by the snipers head, this brings him back to his senses. Before leaving, he is curious to see who he killed thinking that he might have known them. He turns over the dead body of the enemy and sees his brother.            

Author's Message - I believe that the author's message in this story is that war has no boundaries in terms of age, sex, and family. At the beginning of the story, the author describes the sniper as being a student. When the car pulls over past the bridge, an old lady walks over to the car and gives away the snipers location. This shows that war has no age, the sniper is a young man while the lady is old. It also shows that there are no genders in war, everyone is the same and an enemy will always be an enemy regardless of who they are. At the end of the story, it is unveiled that the enemy the sniper shot and killed was his brother. This is very significant to the story because it gives out the message that war can separate families without them even being aware about it. The sniper was unaware of the fact that he killed his own brother until he actually looked to see who he shot. This shows that war can separate families and even pit them against each other in a battle of death.