In the short stories “The Sniper” by Liam O'Flaherty and “Cranes,” by Hwang Sun-won and translated by Peter H. Lee, the two stories share one similar universal theme. To begin with, in the story “The Sniper,” a young man is currently in the civil war as a sniper. In this story, the conflict that he faces includes killing the enemy sniper on the rooftop across from him. However, being the clever man he is, he tricks the enemy sniper and successfully kills him. In the end, he decides to find out about the identity of the fallen man and unfortunately discovers that the dead man is his brother. As one can see, the theme of this story is that there is no true winner in the hands of war. To explain, although the main character successfully carries out his…show more content… In brief, the main theme of this story is that the power of friendship can overcome all barriers. To explain, despite Songsam’s position as a peacemaker, and Tokchae role as a prisoner, Songsam frees Tokchae because of all the happy memories and unbreakable bond that they share. In the end, after considering the themes of the stories “The Sniper” and “Cranes,” it is clear that they share one universal theme: although war creates destruction, it brings people closer. For instance, at the end of “The Sniper,” the main character realizes that the war was pointless because of the fact that he lost his brother during the war. In other words, he realized he has gained nothing from the war since his brother is now dead. As for “Cranes,” regardless of what Tokchae has done, Songsam forgives Tokchae for his sin since he believes that Tokchae is a good person because of all their memorable childhood memories. As one can see, the universal theme for the short stories “The Sniper” and “Cranes” is that despite the destruction war creates, it brings people
