The Sniper By Liam O’Flaherty

Brief Summary/Historical Background The Sniper follows a young man who finds himself in the midst of a civil war The young man is Irish, a nation beset by war with England “Republicans and Free Staters were waging civil war.” Ireland is split between citizens who would like to be separate from England and citizens who wish to be governed by England As a sniper, he works alone and is charged with the task of secretly stopping informants and ground forces from advancing

Brief Summary/Historical Backgroud The young sniper finds himself the target of another sniper and must fight for his life He faces a bit of a moral dilemma (internal conflict) over having to kill another We are given his thoughts to understand how his mindset changes through his experience in a battleground setting There is an ironic twist to the resolution of the narrative that presents a conflict for the young sniper

Activities/Tasks We have 6 tasks to complete as we develop our understanding of The Sniper Narrative Structure/Plot Imagery & Mood Literary Elements/SIFT Theme Characterization Foreshadowing

Narrative Structure/Plot Narrative structure involves the unfolding of the story There are 6 basic elements to the structure of a narrative Exposition: the background information (characters, setting, etc); how the story begins; the author exposes information to the reader Inciting Incident: the action that interrupts the action in the story; the beginning of the conflict Rising Action: action, after the inciting incident, that builds the narrative to a critical moment of suspense Climax: The highest point of action; the critical moment of suspense Falling Action: action after the climax that begins to close the narrative structure (loose ends are tied up, questions are answered/revealed Denouement/Resolution: the conclusion of the narrative where the conflict is solved

Imagery and Mood Imagery is the collection of literary elements that appeal to a readers senses Any writing that appeals to what you can: See Hear Taste Feel Smell Imagery has a direct relationship to mood, the emotional response of the reader Mood is how you feel as you read the work, based on the imagery the author has used to make the text come to life

Literary Elements/SIFT SIFT is an acronym that means Symbol/Imagery/Figurative Language/Tone Symbols are objects that represent both themselves and an outside object or idea Figurative language is a wide-ranging term that encompasses many literary elements We will focus on diction Diction is the word choice of the author used to create a strong positive or negative connotation Connotation is an implied meaning within a word that makes it sound either positive or negative; authors use this for effect Tone is the author’s emotion/attitude in a literary work

Theme Theme is a universal message the author is attempting to create about a given subject that is present in a literary work A theme is never a single word!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A theme begins with a single word—we call this a thematic topic The task is to build your topic into a thematic statement You will need to think critically about what point the author is making about his topic through the work

Characterization Characterization refers to how a character is developed through thoughts, actions, dialogue More than thinking of character traits, examine how the author develops the character through his description, his personal thoughts, thoughts of others concerning the character Understand how characters can be static or dynamic, and why Static characters stay the same throughout the work; they never grow or learn Dynamic characters change throughout the work; they grow as individuals or learn a valuable lesson through the development of the plot

Foreshadowing Foreshadowing is the authors way of embedding clues as to what might happen next in the literary work Foreshadowing involves the reader thinking critically about the text to make an inference as to what may come next Foreshadowing is NOT guessing! Guessing involves no thought or background information Foreshadowing involves making an inference using the information provided in the text