76 pages • 2 hours read
Steven GallowayThe Cellist of Sarajevo
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
The Effects of War
All of the characters in the novel, in some way, show how war has an effect on the human heart and psyche. Dragan and Kenan constantly question their own lack of courage. Their fear for their own lives, exacerbated by their fear for their family members, has turned them both into trembling, fearful men who have lost their joy in, and hope for, a better life. This fear and depression eats away at the psyche in a way that few that have not experienced war can ever imagine.
What is even harder for Kenan is witnessing his wife and children go without good food, water, and electricity. One of the most heartbreaking moments in this novel comes when Kenan wants to wake his wife and children to enjoy the electricity that has momentarily returns. He pictures his children’s laughter and smiles as they watch their favorite TV shows, however, before he can wake them, the lightbulb goes off, telling him the electricity is, once again, dead.
But if any character shows how much war affects the human heart and psyche it is Arrow. Arrows metamorphosis from a gentle, studious, college student into a crack sniper is Galloway’s chief statement about the corrupting nature of war. Arrow has to retreat into a world of hatred to survive, just as Dragan retreats into himself as a form of protection against the trauma of war. We come to see that Arrow has lost all sense of who she really is. Although we initially admire her for her courage in defending Sarajevo against the men in the hills, by the end of the novel we come to admire her more for choosing to sacrifice her own life, rather than taking one more.
The Redemptive Power of Art
In The Cellist of Sarajevo, life becomes meaningful through creative attempts to make sense of it. This is a core idea in the history of philosophy, from Schopenhauer to the existentialists,
Through the cellist’s music, Sarajevo’s citizens—and Sarajevo itself—are transformed. When the cellist plays the destroyed buildings seem, literally, to become stitched back together again. The characters do not have to tell us that they have been changed by the music; we can see it in their actions. Dragan not only crosses the street, he crosses it slowly, defiantly, and with pride. Arrow lays down her gun and takes back her own name, refusing to take part in the spectacle of violence and futility that this war has become. And Kenan not only gains the strength to salvage water one more time, but also the strength to salvage his city as well.
The Endurance of the Human Spirit
Galloway’s novel explores the endurance of the human spirit. All of these characters endure, despite impossible odds, the world they have been given and, through the cellist’s music; they find a way to prevail as well.
This struggle of the spirit is captured by Galloway in these characters’ struggles for food, water, and survival. However, their experiences are elevated beyond the mundane by the cellist’s gift of music. They all come to see something larger at work in their experience, and begin to find a more spiritual dimension to their lives. There is a strong indication by the end of this book that all of the main characters have experienced a kind of revolution of spirit that will enable them to keep on going, with a heightened sense of purpose to their lives.
The Importance of Catharsis
Galloway also explores the importance of epiphany and catharsis in our lives through the journeys of his characters. Before all these character can triumph over their chief maladies of spirit, they must all achieve a new vision of their lives through the gift of the cellist’s music, which acts as an impetus for change in other’s lives.
Dragan comes to see that communion with others is a vital force in the human experience. His change of character is revealed at the end of the novel when he finally reaches out to another human being, in the form of a simple greeting to a passerby.
Arrow reclaims her identity as a human being and not a killer by reclaiming her name and refusing to take even one more life.
And Kenan learns that he cannot let fear and anger rule his life if he is to live fully.
All of these characters ultimately experience a complete revolution of spirit, indicated by Galloway through Dragan and Kenan’s vow to rebuild the city, to create beauty out of carnage and through Arrow’s reclamation of her real name, Alisa.
