Comparing The Sniper 'And The Man He Killed'

“What a cruel thing war is... to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors.”
Military General in American CIvil War, Robert E. Lee. Lee was is known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the American civil war (Wikipedia). Lee eluded that war often has the tendency for brothers and friends to turn their backs on one and other. The idea of war is to have mankind gain a sense of peace on earth. However it is in fact, decaying our civilization, along with mankind. “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty and the poem “The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy are two pieces that deal with the issues of war, and in fact share many similarities and differences in the areas of plot, irony, and theme.

Liam O'Flaherty
A similarity in terms of irony for both writing pieces from “The Sniper” would be, “The sniper looked at his enemy falling and shuddered. The lust of the battle died in him. He became bitten by remorse” (O’Flaherty 208). This quote is interpreting how the man felt after killing his enemy. On the other hand, from the poem says “Yes, quaint and curious war is!” (Hardy 5). The author was demonstrating verbal irony because the war was sufficient with repentance. This also shows that the man from the poem wished to have sat down and shared a beer with his enemy, instead of being in war. One difference of irony between the two stories is that the sniper killed his own brother, unlike the man in the poem who shot a man he had never met. The assassin from the poem had not known the stranger he had murdered, unlike the executioner who had known who it was when he flipped over the corpse from the story. “The sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face” (O’Flaherty 208). This is also an example of situational irony, because the reader or assassin was not expecting his brother to be the enemy. In like manner, it illustrates what the assassin saw when he had turned over his enemy's body to see it was his own sibling he murdered. The man from the poem, “The Man He Killed”, ended a life of someone he did not know, “Had he and I but met” (Hardy 209). The soilder from the poem had not known the stranger he had murdered, unlike the executioner who had known who it was when he flipped over the corpse from the story. Overall, both works share similarities as well for irony. Both the poem along with the story share similarities in differences when it comes to