THEME

“The Sniper”

ASSESSMENT INSTRUCTIONS

Theme: Respond to this question in the form of a well developed paragraph.

 Identify the theme. Remember, the theme must be written as a complete sentence, not just a big idea like “love,” but “Love drives people to acts of great courage and sacrifice.”  Explain how the conflicts and the character development shown in the story lead the reader to the stated theme.  Support with textual evidence including page numbers.

Analysis Claim Evidence

THINKING ABOUT THEME

CLAIM THEME EVIDENCE ANALYSIS SPECIFIC DETAILS FROM STORY EXPLANATION OF HOW DETAILS SHOW THEME

The theme of The Sniper is that war turns humans into objects. In the story, a Republican sniper is in an apartment building and is trying to snipe out his enemies. He was only focused on his targets and had no reasoning to back up his decisions. “His face was the face of a student, thin and ascetic, but his eyes had the cold gleam of the fanatic (pg. 212).” When the old lady told the turret man where the sniper’s position was, he only thinks of her as an enemy informer instead of a person. “She was pointing to the roof where the sniper lay. An informer (pg. 213).” He then kills both of them and he gets shot by an enemy sniper. The R sniper mends his wounds and then he thinks of a way to trick the enemy sniper into thinking that he had killed the R sniper. When his ruse had succeeded, the R sniper kills the enemy with his revolver. After the adrenaline has worn off, he then gets curious about the identity of the enemy sniper. “His nerves steadied. The cloud of fear scattered from his mind and he laughed. […] He wondered did he know him (pg. 215).” When he returns, he finds out that the person was his brother. “Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face (pg. 215).” This shows that the R sniper was only thinking about killing his enemy instead of thinking who he might have been. War turns humans into automatic killing robots that only think of taking out their target without any emotion.

EXAMPLE

–analysis –specific details – restated theme

The theme of “The Sniper” is you can convince yourself that anyone is an enemy. And are they truly your enemy? You can tell this is the theme because the main character shows that he will do anything to kill his enemy. On page 212. it sates “they were deep and thoughtful, the eyes of a man who is used to looking at death.” So, the character is very determined to kill his enemy. Again on page 214, “he must kill that enemy and he could not use a rifle.” The author emphasizes the main character’s determination and desire to kill this enemy. It didn’t matter who it was, the main character had his mind set and he wasn’t thinking of backing down. However, shortly after the sniper shoots his enemy, his adrenaline and fierce mode quickly collapsed as he found himself feeling guilty and ashamed, on page 214, “the lust of battle died in him. He became bitten by remorse.” This statement proves that what he had set in his mind before didn’t matter because once he had accomplished what he had set out to do was still not satisfying.

EXAMPLE

–evidence –analysis

In the story The Sniper the theme seems to be that subordinating your needs to those around you or your community is not always a good thing. For example, because the sniper was “fanatic” about his patriotism to his Republican cause, he shot his brother (pg. 215). And because he was in such a mindset of kill -or-be killed he harshly and painfully dressed his wound. If he had realized that his crazy; patriotism was unhealthy, he might not have shot his brother.

EXAMPLE

–theme

War is very destructive and can tear families apart. As it shows in the story that because of the war, the two brothers ended up on opposite armies and one ends up killing the other brother. It’s also very destructive because many people die just for trying to help their cause like the old lady. Finally, it’s destructive because it can cause distrust against nations and make it harder for other countries to function.

EXAMPLE

–analysis

The theme of “The Sniper” is that war reduces humans into targets. When the sniper discovers the enemy sniper all he can think about is surviving and taking down his target (O’Flaherty 213). The young sniper doesn’t realize what he’s doing until he accomplishes his goal and kills his enemy (O’Flaherty 214). When he kills the man, he feels extreme guilt, leading him to curse the world and the war and goes into shock (O’Flaherty 214). The sniper decided he wanted to know who he killed and found out it was his own brother he murdered (O’Flaherty 215). This adds to the theme that war reduces humans into targets because the sniper unknowingly killed his brother in the rage or war.

EXAMPLE

–evidence