Apr 02 2008
Revisiting “The Sniper”
Now that we have learned a little bit about Irish Independence and the Irish Civil War, a short story you read a few months ago with Mr. Corcoran might make a little more sense. Re-read Liam O’Flaherty’s The Sniper. If you have misplaced your copy, you may use the link in the post I made earlier today.
Please comment on the author’s point of view. Note that I am referring to the opinion, attitude, purpose and viewpoint of Mr. O’Flaherty as opposed to the POV of the narrator in the story. This story first appeared in 1923 in the London publication The New Leader. O’Flaherty was living in London at the time. Do you think the fact that O’Flaherty was not in Ireland during the Civil War affected his POV?
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Note: you can’t get “credit” if we don’t know who you are. You are, however, living up to your sn….the point of your comment is not clear.
The view-point, in my opinion was not affected. Liam O’Flaherty was probably an expert on the subject in the Irish Civil War, and studied it carefully. I would have thought it was a true story, if Mr. Corcoran did not tell us.
-Kelsey Dwyer
Yes i totally agree with the guy that we have no idea who he is.
How should he know what its like if he wasnt there?
It might have affected his point of view just because he wasn’t directly involved in the war.
It probably affected his point of view because his surroundings wouldn’t have supported the Irish in their campaign for independence.
No, actually I understand what abstract means. He/She (whoever you are) means that since the author didn’t live in Ireland at the time affected his point of view because he wasn’t actually part of the situation
The fact that he was not there could have affected his point of view because he would only know what people had told him it was like, instead of a first hand experience.
OK…but is it easier to tell people who are in the midst of a civil war to stop fighting when you are removed from the situation?
i liked the movie you have but i dont think it really got to what O’Flaherty was trying to get at as much as the story does
Mr. Corcoran also thought the “movie” was lame–he advised against putting it up. I just put it there because I thought you might like to see someone else’s interpretation…just as an fyi kind of thing. My Patrick got a laugh at the “armored car” being a Tahoe.
But on a serious note Jason brings up a good point about film not always being a more effective story teller than text. In this case the written word captures emotions that the visual storytelling can’t.
i think the author not being there makes a difference because you dont get the full affect of the time unless you are actually living in it
He was not involved in the war, but still may be an expert on what happened. To me, this is what affected his point of view.
Although he may be an expert on the Irish Civil War, his view point may have been affected because he did not experience it for himself. It may be hard for him to understand really what happened, just relying on what he has heard from people.
I believe that his point of view was only affected slightly. O’Flaherty probably still had a pretty good idea of what was going on. I think that he portrayed the sitiuation in Ireland well.
It is my belief that his point of view was deeply affected. He knew what was going on in Ireland, but he did not quite understand how the men fighting in it felt at the time.
Buell, if you aren’t in a civil war it will definitely be easier to tell people to stop fighting, which would be a waste of words since, sadly, force is ussually needed to back up words nowadays. If you aren’t in the war, and aren’t the one fighting for what you believe in, to bring down a tyrant, or other possible motives, then how can you possibly understand what’s going on enough to stop the violence and solve the problem? And Liam’s point-of-view wouldn’t be affected by his being in London, his ideals are shared by his “brothers” in arms in Ireland who are doing the fighting, so he feels what they do about the situation. Do you have to be in Iraq to feel what the soldiers do about the war? Two different people can share the same feelings about the same event or thing, even if one of them hasn’t experienced it first-hand.