The Lottery

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 11th grade February 2008

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War creates hate and anger. There are never positive aspects of the war. The price for war is hundreds and thousands of casualties. Not only that, it breaks thousands of families and friends apart. War also sacrifices many innocent people because of differences in both sides. This is what makes war so brutal and pointless. In "The Sniper" Liam O'Flaherty suggests the horrors of war by presenting its physical and psychological dangers.

The physical dangers in war would be commonly in deaths and injuries with life threatening consequences. According to the story, after the sniper finished smoking, "a bullet flattened itself against the parapet of the roof." This shows that his enemy immediately tries to shoot him and lucky he/she missed. Also it proves that his position is dangerous, because he was on the top of the roof and can be seen in both sides and could be killed easily by his enemy.

He doesn't know where his enemy is; because his enemy is in hiding. Another example of the physical dangers of war is when the sniper was hit by his enemy, "His forearm was dead. I'm hit." This quote shows that the sniper¡¯s health is in great danger. These kinds of health problems can take many years to heal. For example, many veterans who returned from the Vietnam War took very long to heal their injuries, if they were even curable. Psychological dangers can be the most dangerous in war. Because these kind of dangers can never cured, psychological dangers are devastating. When a person who is open and was killed by a sniper who were in a hidden position. In the story, when Sniper killed his enemy, his action was ¡°he peered across and uttered a cry of joy, his enemy had been hit.¡± This shows that he is still searching for other enemy even though he killed one of his enemies. The sniper is a person who is in love with killing of other people and only job is to end other peoples' life, which describes his ¡°lust for killing.¡± He knew that if he does not kill his enemy, his enemy would kill him. There is no end in his mind, he is a professional killer. The sniper doesn't hesitate when he kills people, "a man 's head and shoulders appeared, looking towards the sniper." This man's head was bounced off the parapet and fell off the roof like a basketball.

At the end, most of war never ended until either side dominates the other or both sides reach a treaty. The physical and psychological dangers show that war never a good thing to do, but people have their own beliefs. War can be avoided, but nation leaders chose to go with war to show the strength of their country, which leads to millions of deaths