The Sniper Summary and Theme

Summary: Free Staters and Republicans are at a civil war in Dublin, Ireland. The short story begins with the Republican sniper debating he wants to light his cigarette as it will blow his cover(on the rooftop). Eventually he lights the cigarette and it grabs the attention of the enemy. Consequently, the bullet barely missed the republican sniper. When the Sniper sees a tank on the road below him he sees an old lady talking to the old man in the tank so he shoots them as they are in the tan of the enemy's. After he shoots them the enemy from across the rooftop takes aim at him and manages to hit his forearm. The republican solider feels a lot of pain as he describes it with a lot of similes and irony. He eventually bandages himself and know that he needs to get back to his company's commander but he is unable to get there unless he gets rid of the sniper on the other side. So, he thinks of a plan in which he; the Sniper, placing his hat on his rifle to lure the enemy in. Then when the enemy fires at the hat, he would act dead by throwing his rifle towards the ground. This gives the enemy the illusion of winning. When the enemy is in plain sight, the Sniper would shoot him. When the plan begins to take place, the enemy believes it and begins to express multiple emotions. This brings success to the Sniper’s plan because the enemy decides to look over the parapet, which gives the Sniper the chance to shoot the enemy in the head. The winning of the fight brings the Sniper into an unusual euphoria, which is disturbed by the loud gun shot of his own rifle. The ironic turn near the end takes place when the Sniper comes off the roof, and goes to look at the body of the enemy, only to realize the body was of his own brother.      

Theme: In the short story, The Sniper, the author, Liam O’Flaherty, is trying to communicate that the aftermath of one’s choice is not always pleasant. This is shown in the narrative as the Republican sniper goes to inspect the body of his enemy. That is where he notices the face of the enemy is ironically his brothers. This frankly goes back to the theme since in the beginning he was portrayed to be “fanatic and ascetic,” as we deeply believed that the Republican sniper was doing the right thing. Later, after killing his brother, he starts to realize that the future is unpredictable. Hence showing the that theme is being shown that the after-effects of one's action is generally imprecise.

Journal Entry

Character notes (ACTIVITY I)

Bernard	Friends with Alia            Dislikes Ender            Ender broke his arm           Wants to be better than Ender
Alia	Bridge between Bernard and Ender            Bernard’s friend            Practices with Ender at the battle room            Is bilingual (told Ender salaam)
Petra Arkanian	Girl            Salamander Army            Teaches Ender how to aim and do tricks
Rose the Nose	Leader of Rat Army            Ender's second leader            Jewish            Graduated battle school
Dink	Toon leader            His friend            Took over rose the noses position after
Mazer	Teaches Ender at the end of the book            Is Ender's mentor
Ender	Protagonist            A third            Sister: valentine            Brother: peter            Beat up Stilton            Six years old
Bonzo	Leader of salamander army            Dislikes Ender            Thinks that Ender was a waste of a trade

Journal Entry (ACITIVTY II)

Dear diary,

            I am so sorry, I did not write yesterday. I was so busy. I had to do a lot of research for my English assignment; we were supposed to write a paragraph on our family’s ancestral backgrounds. I was really interested to write this paragraph as it got me thinking of other cultures and religions; what if I was Jewish or Sri Lankan it would be a totally different experience to write about. Since I was wondering what it would be like to be from a different cultural background I started to think of the time that I had to go on the job shadowing trip for careers. I went to the hospital to work with a physiotherapist.

Since physiotherapists have a very hands on job and do a lot of interacting. I was able to meet many people and excitedly all were from different backgrounds. I met this lady who has an Italian background and I learned that besides the food: pizza, pastas, and different kinds of desserts being a part of their culture, being religious is as well. About 90% of Italians are Roman Catholics and the national flag represents hope, faith, and charity. I remember we were talking about my cultural background (Sikhism) and how there is still a cast system even though all generations didn’t say anything against it until now. I started to tell the lady that how my family has started to accept interracial marriages, you know the one between my older brother and his wife. But, what was interesting was that her family has always accepted interracial relationships as her parents are from two different parts of Europe and she is also in an interracial marriage as she is married to guy from a Jamaican background. We had a very deep and interesting conversation and I learned so much that I decided to come home and tell my family all about our conversation and taught my family a bunch of facts from the Italian culture.

I got to say that living in Brampton you don’t meet a lot of people from different cultural backgrounds especially from Italian backgrounds. I also learned that judging a book by its cover is not acceptable especially now because it is very stereotypical and now interracial relationships are a normal thing. However, I guess I understand where the people who judge others they may have been taught to think like that or they do not understand. You know what I find funny, that when I start to talk about something I am very passionate about I tend to start to go in depth on how I feel and drag on about the topic. Anyways, so when I was talking to the lady I learned that she didn’t like it when people judged her or when they asked very stereotypical based questions like: is pizza really from Italy? Are you really Italian? You look Mexican! The lady made a really hilarious joke that at least on the bright side she said that she could make really delicious ethnic Italian food. After meeting the lady I was in a very  good and happy mood, I think when I talk to people and I learn more I appreciate it and at the end I get a smile on my face. For me it is very easy to talk to people as I am a very understanding and an attentive listener but the most important reason to why it is easy for me is because of my experience that I have had with pain and tragedy that make me want no one to feel left out and everyone should be listened to and I am a very soft-spoken person. Oh my god! I have to stop writing as my mom is calling me to come eat dinner, so overall I love interacting with people from different cultures/countries as I am very interactive and I enjoy learning. I promise to write tomorrow. Bye! J

                                                                                                                        JASLEEN SIDHU J  

      

Artifact BLOG#4

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/277604764505377466/

This quote from Go Ask Alice shows her feelings in the beginning of the book and how she is unable to blend in with a group. She eventually starts to stop caring of what others think and say. however, the loneliness gets to her and she starts caring and comes to a point where she chooses drugs to solve and numb the sorrow.

Go Ask Alice blog #3

http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/Stigma-briefing.pdf

For my third blog I decided to do something different which is a PDF file. I really liked this link that I posted above because it shows the "war on drugs" that is taking place now that coincides with my social issue. In "Go Ask Alice" the protagonist faces trauma (death of grandparents) and isolation which results her to then choose the path of drugs to get away from all the negativity in her life. As the protagonist develops her characteristics through the events in the novel and tells the reasoning on why she has done this and how she feels from it. This all connects back to the PDF file linked above called, "Connect the Costs". In this link it talks about war on drugs which basically means the prevention of the spreading the use drugs and how it is important as it will make the drug users incapable of getting any more. This relates to my social issue because everyone in the novel besides the protagonist and the other drug users are like what the PDF file is telling and that is also how their views and opinions are based on. No one really helps the drugs users in the community besides immediate family members who eventually loose hope and leave them to fight for themselves. In conclusion, this link that I chose coincides with the vast population who discriminates the drug users and shows why this majority does what they do to solve the problem of drugs, for the users benefit, but the users don't think that way as most are addicted to their substances.

The Sniper news article

Sniper Kills Own Soldier

By: Jasleen Sidhu

In Dublin, Ireland the sun is setting on a June night. A dim light of the moon is shining through pale clouds, showing a faded light on the streets. The Republicans and Free Staters battling in a civil war.

A republican sniper lay in front of the parapet of the roof, spotting the enemy’s sniper on the opposite side and gets shot at twice by the other sniper.

 The first bullet whizzed over his head and pierced a hole through the parapet of the roof. The second bullet got shot into the republican snipers forearm, which was bandaged by him.

The republican sniper said, “My right arm was paining me like a thousand angry knives”.

After the sniper thought that he needed to get rid of the enemy as he needed to report back to the company’s commander to report the kills and his injury.

So the sniper thought of a plan in which he took off his cap and placed it over his rifle to divert the enemy into thinking that that he had killed the sniper.

As soon as the enemy shot at the cap the rifle and cap fell to the ground and enemy’s sniper stood up took look if he had killed. That is where the republican shot the enemy and the enemy fell forward and hit the ground with a thud.

The sniper sees it is safe to go to report to the company’s commander and flips over the enemy’s dead boy to only look at his brother’s face. 

The company’s commander said, “This is a very unfortunate thing to happen so we have given the sniper a permanent release from the army as this is a time where he needs to be with family to grieve and face the guilt.”