Title: American Sniper
Author/Director: Chris Kyle, Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
Text Type: Auto-biography On Modern War
Information on Genre, Style and Theme:
The book ‘American Sniper’ is a autobiography, written by Chris Kyle, about his life as a navy SEAL’s (SEa Air Land).
The book starts from much further along in the book, when Chris Kyle is on a roof top as a sniper for his first time, on watch for the US Marines, as they capture an area in Iraq from Saddam Hussein.
Chris Kyle is looking for anyone suspicious and sees a women, wearing a robe, and takes no notice of it.
He sees the women pulling out a Chinese frag grenade, and calls in to the coms for permission to take a shot, At that moment after he takes the shot, it becomes his first kill as a sniper.
The book then goes back to his earlier life, before joining the Navy SEAL’s, when he was a cowboy and how he was raised by his parents to be very a very patriotic person, as his family used to be serviced in the US military.
Chris Kyle went to enlist for the US Marines, and the US Marines area in the recruitment center was closed, and a man in the Navy area called him over offering a opportunity to do the Navy SEAL’s BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition/ SEAL) training. The BUDS training is the most physical and mentally intensive training program in the whole of the US Military, and passing the BUDS allows a person entry into the Navy SEAL’s.
Chris Kyle goes through all of the BUDS, and gets allowed entry into the Navy SEAL’s.
When Chris Kyle gets deployed in Fallujah, he decides to help the Marines in the battle situation.
The book from here onward is all about Chris Kyle’s experiences as a Navy SEAL, and the people he fought in war with, as in one chapter when he has to pull a young 19 – 23 year old Marine, who got gut shot, out from open area. The marine then tells him not to tell his mum he died in pain, and at this moment Chris Kyle doesn’t even know the Marine.
Chris Kyle is well know among the US Military, as he has the most confirmed sniper kills at 160, and 255 claimed kills.
Anti-Hero:
I chose this book as a anti-hero text, as Chris Kyle, being a soldier, Is a anti-hero.
He is a anti-hero as he kills people, terrorists, who do wrong, in order for what he believes, his country to be protected, and to protect his fellow soldiers lives.
Even though Chris Kyle does what he believes to be the morally right thing to do, he has joy in killing of the insurgents, and in the book he describes it as he tries to be creative with his kills. this is evident in the book when Chris Kyle shoots the beach balls that the insurgents are using to float on the river to get across, then causing them to drown, if the Marines didn’t shoot them first, to put them out of their misery, of drowning.
For these reasons the book ‘American Sniper’ Is a anti-hero text.
React!