1. Narrators
1.1. Unnamed free state sniper
1.1.1. In the story we can see the lack of humanity taken away from him as a result of the war.
1.1.1.1. "The Republican sniper smiled and lifted his revolver... his hand trembled with eagerness... uttered a cry of joy"
1.1.1.1.1. There is a short moment when he "became bitten by remorse", but that only last for a few minutes. His mind refocused on reality, steeling himself to travel back to his base. There may be some "humanity" left in him, but the readers can tell that it's being stripped away him in as the war progresses.
1.2. Shaun Tan
1.2.1. Quite shy, reserved to himself
1.3. Unnamed magistrate
1.4. Jack Davis, Indigenous rights campaigner
2. Context/ Setting
2.1. During a Irish Civil War: a once-town-now-turned-battlefield area in Ireland, a Free State sniper vs. Republican sniper
2.1.1. war - dehumanization, loss of innocence,
2.2. A person walking by the beach stumbles upon a "lost" strange thing, develops a bond with it, and tries to help it find its home
2.2.1. loss of freedom expectations in society, conformity
2.3. At Burma: an unnamed magistrate witnesses a Hindu man being executed (the reason is unclear but may be because he is religious, or was defiant during colonialism)
2.3.1. lack of empathy, discrimination, hierarchy, perception.. subjugation?
2.4. Calls out/ protests against misrepresentation and mistreatment of Natives, and current (now past) disregard for them as government/ colonialists justify themselves for their actions against the Natives. --> Political/ social commentary in the form of poetry.
2.4.1. discrimination, loss of innocence, culture, individuality, perception, authority, subjugation
3. Imagery
4. Tone/ mood
4.1. Hanging: treated the Hindu man like his death would mean nothing - useless.
4.1.1. Creates a depressing mood for the reader
4.2. Aboriginal Aus.: lists out the native's grievances, creating pity
4.3. The Lost Thing: very suffocating - the looming atmosphere develops the feeling of being watching all the time
4.4. The Sniper: excitement/ adventure until the very last sentence about his brother
5. Diction
5.1. lexical connection
5.1.1. evil: swamped, snapped, murdered, buried
5.1.2. victim: remember, cry, thought
6. Irony
6.1. The appearance of the dog - a symbol of light- was greeted by a collective digust.
6.1.1. "A dreadful thing had happened - a dog, come goodness knows whence, had appeared in the yard"... "Who let that bloody brute in here?", said the superintendent angrily."
6.1.1.1. The dog represents a beacon of hope and light, but it was viewed negatively by the narrator, magistrates, and companions.
6.2. Shaun Tan becomes a lost thing himself in the end
7. How Color is used
7.1. Silent brown men vs. white drill suit
7.1.1. Visually groups 2 bands of people together: the prisoners and the officers. Also creates a dystopian feel.
7.2. Dark and bright in the lost thing
7.2.1. represents the suppressed and the freedom - like what society is missing out on when they don't have any limits or restrictions. creates happy and depressing atmospheres
8. Themes linked together
8.1. Loss of
8.1.1. innocence
8.1.2. individuality
8.1.3. culture
8.1.4. freedom
8.2. Discrimination
8.3. Perception (cleansing vs. invading)
8.4. Hierarchy/ Authority
8.5. Expectations in society
8.6. Societal Pressure/ [forced] Conformity
8.7. Dehumanization
8.8. Subjugation
9. Structure of Writing
9.1. Sentence structure
9.1.1. In the Sniper, the sentence structure undergoes a cycle of shifts: from short, factual statements describing actions to long sentences about the event and sniper's thoughts.
9.2. Paragraph Structure
9.3. Poetry structure
9.3.1. listing
9.3.1.1. lists adjectives to develop and evoke emotion
9.3.2. rhyming
9.3.2.1. emphasizes on words to portray meaning/ themes
9.3.3. enjambment
9.3.3.1. shows timeline of Aboriginal Aus. history - events in stages
10. Plot
10.1. Sniper's experience was life-changing/ traumatizing - we go through this whole experience with him - all the plans, killing, the determination to live and report back to his general etc - only for him to find out he has killed his "brother". It stops there but through the sentence/paragraph structure, the reader goes through the same shock as the sniper. We can assume that this experience has been imprinted in the sniper's memory forever.
10.2. In the Lost Thing, Shaun has quite an adventure with the lost thing as the duo search for its home, but he doesn't learn from it and therefore retreats to his boring society and blends in with them in the end (no individualism, conforms to other ideals etc). Unlike the sniper, Shaun doesn't have that connection with lost things another - it's like his memory (of the thing and his ability is diminishing as he ages/ conforms
10.3. A Hanging is more of an experience (looking back) for Orwell. He witnesses the heartless hanging of a Hindu man by Europeans, Burmese, and Eurasians. I think the point of the story was to show how "human" a human could be (will expand later), and how the Hindu man was always alive the moment before his hanging.. He wasn't dying.
10.4. Not really a plot: an Indigenous rights campaigner expresses his pain and anger for the injustice his people (the Native Australians) have suffered by the hands of the colonists.
11. Symbolism
11.1. Dog: beacon of hope or innocence
11.1.1. Description: "came bounding among us with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging its whole body, wild with glee at finding so many human beings together. It was a large woolly dog.. it pranced round us... jumping up tried to lick his face". "it danced and gambolled .. taking everything as part of the game"
11.1.1.1. innocent, just wants to play. it's a stark contrast with the dark event/ atmosphere. Here the dog appears to be more "human" than the magistrates and warders.
11.1.2. "it stopped short, barked, ant then retreated into a corner of the yard, where it stood among the weeds, looking timorously out at us." "the dog, sobered and conscious of having misbehaved itself, slipped after them"
11.1.2.1. After the execution, we can see from the shift in description (bright to serious characteristics), that the dog has lost its innocence
11.2. Sniper's brother: one of the two divided side that used to be a whole nation (Republicans vs. Free Staters)
11.2.1. Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother's face.
11.2.1.1. Last sentence in a single paragraph... throughout the story the writer builds all this tension up only to reveal the shocking truth: the sniper killed his own brother
11.3. Lost Thing: a person/ concept/ thing that society perceives to be different, and treated negatively by close-minded, traditional mindsets
11.3.1. To Shaun Tan, I though this was some sort of opportunity for him to break free from his pressuring society
11.4. A.A: narrator represents the whole Ab. Aust. community
11.4.1. not really symbolism though,...
12. The attitude/feelings the text produces
12.1. dissatisfaction as Shaun Tan conforms to society becoming the new "lost thing"
12.1.1. In the last scene, Shaun is in a bus which moves in a straight line, blending in with other identical buses. This contrasts against the colorful and bright paradise the lost thing entered (that Shaun was introduced to). Because the viewers can compare the different environments both characters are in now, we become disappointed in Shaun and how everything turned out for him. The lost thing was his stepping stone (an eye-opener) to escape society's conformity and he didn't take that chance.
12.2. Sniper: we feel feel satisfaction and relief when the sniper's enemy is killed. After finding out he was the sniper's brother, we feel regret, remorse, and grief. Helps the reader realize there's no black and white word - and many people don't have a choice to fight in this.
12.2.1. Throughout the story of the sniper, the writer builds up all the tension and stress overnight (shaping us to root for the sniper's success), only for us to discover that the enemy the sniper had shot was his brother. In one paragraph, one line, this was completely unexpected and a huge shock to both the sniper and the reader.
12.3. Hanging: We feel anger towards the colonizers and pity towards the Hindu man.
12.4. A.A: We feel rage for the injustice the natives went through - makes us want to get up and do something about it - advocate, speak up, etc.
13. Description of mentioned characters
13.1. Minor characters in the sniper are unnamed, and are labelled "his enemy", "an informer", "gray monster"
13.1.1. then in the end, it is revealed the enemy is actually his brother
13.2. Six tall indian warders vs/ fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold spectacles - Brown vs. White, Hindu/ defiance vs. Colonists and supression
13.2.1. authority figure, superior vs. inferior
13.3. A.A: Warrarra men, Murray tribe
13.3.1. Helps develop outrage from the audience, after mentioning the extinction/ suppression of a people by colonisers