“The Sniper” is a short story set in Ireland early in the early twentieth century. At that time there was a civil war raging among rival Irish factions. One side wanted independence from England, while the other, fearing religious persecution, did not.
The story is set up to shock the reader with a late twist of situational irony. After describing an encounter between two soldiers, which ends when one soldier shoots the other, the story ends with the line:
Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother's face.
This is a classic example of situational irony. The last thing we were expecting actually happened: one soldier unknowingly killed his own brother.
If I were going to write a new ending to this I might go at it in several ways.
1. Once the surviving soldier soldier realized that he had killed his own brother, he would have a moment of realization that persuaded him to put down his gun. Perhaps he would carry his brother's body back through the streets to his home and the battle would cease for a moment while he did so.
2. Or, I might have the soldiers realize that they were brothers and leave them in the stand-off thinking about the situation they were in. The reader would have to think about what might happen next.
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