Throughout the beginning of Liam O'Flaherty's short story "The Sniper" the title character is portrayed as dispassionate and a brutally efficient killing machine. He is a "fanatic" who apparently has no feelings for the enemies he kills. He even kills a civilian woman without the slightest hesitation. During his cat and mouse game with the Free State sniper he retains his composure even after being wounded. He devises a plan to draw his enemy into the open, and when it works, he coldly kills the man with his revolver from fifty yards. It is as he sees the body falling to the street below that he is struck with horror and remorse in the face of death. O'Flaherty writes,
The lust of battle died in him. He became bitten by remorse. The sweat stood out in beads on his forehead. Weakened by his wound and the long summer day of fasting and watching on the roof, he revolted from the sight of the shattered mass of his dead enemy. His teeth chattered, he began to gibber to himself, cursing the war, cursing himself, cursing everybody.
After throwing the revolver to the ground and it firing accidentally, the sniper is brought back to his senses: "The cloud of fear scattered from his mind and he laughed." When he gets to the street he cannot resist taking a look at the enemy sniper and has to avoid machine gun fire to do so. He then discovers that it was his brother. O'Flaherty ends the story here, but, judging by his earlier bout of regret, the reader must assume that he would feel even more remorse at realizing the ultimate horror of war.
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