Korb has a master's degree in English literature and creative writing and has written for a wide variety of educational publishers. In this essay, Korb considers how "The Sniper" demonstrates the division the Irish civil war has inflicted on society.

In crafting his first published short story "The Sniper" O'Flaherty took as his setting and dramatic impetus an issue that he knew well: the Irish civil war of the early 1920s. In this story, two snipers on opposing sides of the conflict face off in a duel. The hero of the story prevails. He kills his enemy, thus assuring his survival, at least for the moment. Only after his enemy is dead, however, does the sniper make a startling revelation: the enemy sniper is his own brother.

The story does not address the problems of the civil war from any historical perspective; notably, O'Flaherty makes no mention...