The Diamond Eye

“I spoke too curtly. I should have been soft, said Please be there or Won’t you be there? The cautious wordsmithing of a woman stepping lightly around a man who has the upper hand, and might use it to lash out—no poet ever agonized over the crafting of a sentence more carefully.”

Quinn here underlines Mila’s vulnerability and the extent to which Alexei makes her doubt herself. Alexei wants deference, not honesty, which reveals his obsession with his own power. The comparison of an anxious woman to a poet or a wordsmith underlines that surviving sexism is its own art form.

“An advanced marksmanship badge—now that would wipe the smirk off Alexei’s smug face. More important, it would make Slavka believe I was more than just his soft, fond, loving mamochka. Because I had so much more to teach him than shooting, to make a fine man of him.”

Mila’s wording emphasizes how her relationship with Alexei is a struggle for dominance. Her language also emphasizes her gender and her parenting responsibilities: She must be more than an embodiment of femininity because Alexei will not accept parenthood. This sense of herself as a protector, as a woman who does what she must, will be key to Mila’s character arc.

“I know only that my dark side awoke when I realized there was no room in my life for mistakes. When I realized I could not miss, not ever. When I heard a rifle sing in my hands as I buried a bullet through the neck of a bottle and sent the base flying into diamond shards... and realized who and how I could be.”

Mila’s language emphasizes that war was a kind of epiphany in which she “awoke” as though from sleep. The repetition of “when” emphasizes the significance of the moment, while the phrase “diamond shards” connects Mila’s first shot to her eventual standoff with the anonymous sniper with diamonds in his pocket. Quinn thus telegraphs that Mila’s growing power will involve a confrontation.

“I was a weapon. I’d learned to shoot, after all. And I’d vowed to be Slavka’s father as well as his mother. In times of war, fathers go fight for their children. So I let out a shaky breath, went home to my student digs for my passport, student card, and marksmanship certificates, and went—still in my crepe de chine dress and high-heeled sandals—to enlist.”

Mila’s choice to call herself a weapon, and her desire to be both parents to her son, links her military enlistment to her struggle with gendered expectations. Alexei is not a father, so Mila takes on the role, albeit while dressed in formal finery. The contrast underlines the difference between her old life and its gender norms and the new world of the military she is about to enter.

“‘One of the boys.’ Lena began sawing at my thick plait. ‘Right. Whack mine off next.’ We sheared each other, hurled our severed braids ceremoniously into the nearest campfire, and traded rather grim smiles as they sizzled and stank.”

Mila’s friendship with Lena is her first experience of wartime camaraderie. The verbs in this passage are mechanistic or linked to farm work: Lena “saws” at Mila’s hair, and they “shear” each other, emphasizing that utility now has taken precedence over aesthetics. The action of “severing” symbolizes how war is the death of their former selves, with the campfire as a kind of pyre for the ceremony.

“Even after five missed shots, I knew I could. Because I’d trained to be perfect, and perfection had become a habit too strong to allow missteps. Life so rarely allowed a woman to be perfect, much less a mother, much less a single mother, much less a single mother in the Soviet Union, which was a beautiful place but not precisely a forgiving one.”

Mila’s journey to success involves all of her identities: She is a good sniper not despite her parenthood or her gender but because of them. Her civilian life was its own preparation as it contained its own demands and impossible standards. Her nationality is bound up in her ideas about gender and success—every aspect of her life has prepared her for this moment of life-and-death struggle.

“‘Lyudmila Mikhailovna?’ Sergienko added as I turned to leave. ‘Yes, Comrade Captain?’ He looked me hard in the eyes. ‘Good hunting.’ Two words that helped me put away the mother, the daughter, the student, and let the sniper unfurl her wings.”

Sergienko’s wording here brings Mila back to her military roles. He uses the formal address for her, as she does for him. Her ability to “put away” her other identities emphasizes her compartmentalization skills, which only increase with time at the front. Her sniper self has “wings,” a metaphor expressing how war’s danger comes with a kind of freedom and power.

“Paraphrasing Tolstoy shouldn’t be allowed, but I can’t help it: unsuccessful hunts are all alike; every successful hunt is successful in its own way. (I didn’t finish Anna Karenina any more than I finished War and Peace, but even I knew the first line.) A successful day for a sniper might involve ten kills or a tense standoff with no kill at all. An unsuccessful day for a sniper is the day you miss and end up dead. So the eternal question—What is it like, to be a sniper?—has no answer.”

As she addresses the reader of her hypothetical memoir, Mila shows her philosophical side as she turns to a famous Russian literary work. She admits, humorously, to being familiar only with the novel’s famous opening, as though confessing to a fault. Her words convey that survival is varied, in contrast to the monotony and finality of death. War is its own universe, with Mila as the reader’s tour guide.

“Her eyes pierced me. May I never see such a look in the eyes of my own child. No mother should see such a thing. ‘Are you a good shot, Sergeant?’ the girl asked. ‘Yes. I’ve got a rifle with special gun sights.’ A breath everyone in the squad seemed to hold together, and then: ‘Kill them,’ said Maria. ‘However many you see, kill them all.’”

Mila’s encounter with Maria brings a kind of secondhand trauma, as even the sight of Maria is “piercing” and makes Mila think of her desire to protect her own child. Mila and her comrades are unified in a moment of witness and collective unity. Maria’s desire for vengeance brings a sense of purpose to their mission. This episode underlines that the early years of the war were an existential struggle for many Soviet citizens.

“‘What do you believe in, Mila?’ I thought about that, feeling the burn of rough liquor in my throat. ‘Knowledge, to light the path for humankind,’ I said at last. ‘And this’—patting my rifle—‘to protect humankind when we lose that path.’ ‘You lead us down the path,’ Kostia said, ‘I’ll have your back.’”

Mila’s philosophical side endures even in her new role. She sees herself as a defender and preserver in both identities: Knowledge of the past is possible only when humanity is safeguarded from invasion. Kostia’s response shows that he respects every aspect of her personality, both soldier and scholar, and this exchange highlights a growing bond that is key to the plot.

“He rose, giving a mental tip of his hat to the distant marble figure of President Lincoln inside the monument. A theater performance spattered with presidential blood and brains; now that had been an assassination with style.”

The anonymous sniper betrays his sense of ego and self-importance as he mocks a president and embraces kinship with another assassin. This scene also exposes that his status as a social outsider extends beyond the norm. The man views assassination as a performance, something to be carried out with “style,” indicating his amorality and disregard for human life.

“‘Jump, little Mila!’ I didn’t stop to think. I slung the rifle off my shoulder, nipped the barrel through the loop of his binoculars, and with a wrench and a twist flipped them out of his hands over the ship’s rail. ‘Jump for them yourself,’ I said, hearing them splash far below, and turned to go.”

In this scene, Alexei addresses Mila as he has before, as a plaything to be taunted at his whim. In contrast to Mila’s past responses, however, she takes her weapon and flings his binoculars, turning his words against him. She showcases her new confidence, revealing how war has changed her personal life as well as her marksmanship skills.

“I rolled it around my mouth, savoring the last drop of sweetness, not sure what to feel. Except...lighter, a very little. For everyone else—my family, in my letters; my men, in my platoon; even Kostia, in our partnership—I had to be invincible. But before Kitsenko, I could be afraid. Be tired. Be human.”

Mila’s moment of emotional comfort comes with indulging a luxury, the rare wartime pleasure of chocolate. Lyonya (Kitsenko) offers her another luxury—that of vulnerability. This gift foreshadows the success of their romance, as Mila feels no need to compartmentalize or hide for him.

“I wrinkled my nose. ‘Surely there isn’t paperwork to document who’s living as your dugout girlfriend?’ ‘Milaya, this is the Soviet Union.’ Lyonya pushed a tin mug into my hand—tea, hot and sugared just the way I liked it. ‘There’s paperwork for everything.’”

Lyonya and Mila’s banter rests on the peculiarities of Soviet life. Mocking and satirizing bureaucracy is both a popular and literary tradition. Lyonya accompanies the joke with tea, another cultural touchstone and domestic ritual. Most importantly, he is willing to joke about her inability to obtain a divorce, demonstrating patience with the realities of her life.

“Kostia looked at me. ‘Comrade Senior Sergeant?’ he asked formally. I took a long breath and held up my hand. I hadn’t slept in a week; my eyes were swollen to slits; I had a belly full of vodka, a heart full of hatred, and a soul full of grief—but my hand was steady as a rock.”

Kostia’s uncharacteristic turn to formality demonstrates that he is acting not as a friend but as a fellow soldier. Mila catalogs her physical and emotional suffering, taking stock of her losses. They are, however, ultimately unimportant: In war, only her shooting hand matters.

“I’d heard two of the Moscow suits arguing over my appointment while I was getting fitted for the uniform skirt I was now wearing: ‘Should have chosen that tank driver from the Leningrad literary program, Vassily Something. Who wants a woman on a delegation? Too emotional, too difficult to control.’ ‘But this one’s pretty, and she’ll present the USSR in a more favorable light.’”

Mila emphasizes that the Soviet commitment to gender equality has its limits. The officials ignore that her military service should be its own qualification for a diplomatic mission. Men still stereotype her and exploit her for her looks, despite her achievements as a sniper. These officials, or “Moscow suits,” are closer to Alexei or the American sniper than to the men in Mila’s life who have supported her career.

“‘Wear it,’ he murmured into my skin. The kiss started at the blade of my shoulder and finished over my spine at the scar’s tailing end. ‘Wear it with pride.’”

This scene illustrates the deepening intimacy between Mila and Kostia. He assures her of her worth, urging her against associating her suffering with stigma. Without words, he also assures her that her scars do nothing to alter his view of her beauty or desirability. Like Lyonya, Kostia accepts every aspect of Mila and implicitly rejects stereotypes about femininity and to whom it can belong.

“‘In Russia we believe that if we fail, we die,’ I stated. ‘And I have seen nothing in this war to make me disbelieve that.’ ‘But life isn’t always going to be war, Lyudmila,’ she said gently. ‘And you’ll do yourself a grave disservice if you live your every moment—not just your wartime moments, but your gentler ones—by a standard as harsh as “never miss.”’”

Eleanor’s friendship shows that women can also be a source of strength for Mila. Eleanor urges her to forgive herself and embrace fallibility, offering a vision of life beyond battle. This marks a turning point in Mila’s emotional journey, where she will begin to view her multifaceted humanity as an asset, like her shooting skills.

“Why hadn’t he realized? You didn’t want to, the answer came. You didn’t think it was possible. Well, it was. Lady Death, here in the flesh. A pint-sized Russian woman who had just thrown back her head on an American stage and told every red-blooded man in that audience to stop hiding behind her back.”

The anonymous sniper admits that his embrace of gender stereotypes has led him to a crucial strategic error. Though he does not intend to praise her, his language emphasizes her willingness to speak truth to power: She is a woman unafraid of men. Mila’s enemy begins to reevaluate her accordingly, if out of a desire to destroy her rather than respect her.

“‘I am the one saying no, Alexei.’ The storm of roiling emotions in me was tipping rapidly in favor of rage. From the damp-handed Mr. Jonson’s blind insistence to Alexei’s smug persistence to Laurence Olivier’s hand returning over and over to my hip—why could I not seem to make anyone hear the word no?”

In this confrontation, Mila emphasizes her own agency. She catalogs the ways men constantly pursue her, ignoring her wishes: Jonson is “insistent,” while Laurence Olivier invades her personal space “over and over.” Men who otherwise have nothing in common are united in their refusal to see her personhood.

“Is it because the tone of absolute authority issuing commands will get feet moving whether they intend to or not? Perhaps it is simply that when a woman with the name Lady Death looks suddenly and fearsomely alert, mortals formed of mere flesh and blood know it is time to run.”

Eleanor emphasizes Mila’s power in the face of danger—Mila has “absolute authority” and is “fearsomely alert.” There is nothing here of the girl in pajamas, only a trained expert with relentless drive.

“I hissed the words through the dark between us like a viper, sinking each one deep. He’d never listened when I said no, never heard when I begged please, but he’d hear this. Maybe it was the only thing he was capable of hearing: that his grand dreams had blossomed for someone else. ‘I didn’t even want fame. All I wanted was to defend my home. I didn’t want fame, but I still got it—not you. You’re still just what you’ve always been: a dog eating scraps from someone else’s table.’”

Mila compares herself to a predator, finally able to make Alexei her target and reverse their historical dynamics. She recalls that he has never had to listen to her, and now she has the chance to force him into her reality. Her mission has never been selfish, unlike his constant ego-driven efforts that have made him into a “dog”—a pet who depends on her. As she taunts him with her success, the interaction is fitting for a final confrontation where she kills him rather than submit to his vision of the world.

“I shed Lady Death behind me, I shed the famous sniper of a thousand photographs, I shed my proud hopes of seeing Allied soldiers in Europe soon to buoy our eastern front—I shed everything but the sight of the child running toward me, ten years old, lanky with growth, his face alight. I flung my arms around him and then my legs buckled underneath me and I crashed to my knees in the snow, holding my son in a hug like steel, weeping unashamedly into his hair.”

Mila’s wording evokes metamorphosis and the undoing of wartime transformations. Upon her return home, Mila can let go of her past selves as if they were costumes or mere layers of skin. Her strength now is reserved for love, rather than self-preservation, as she embraces her son and her joy at their reunion.