A main theme

    Throughout the novel, many themes begin to emerge as the characters try to survive the siege corrupting their town. One significant theme that is constant through the whole novel is the theme of change. The cellist of Sarajevo is a novel that is based around change, and how three characters learn to cope and deal with it. As the novel begins we are introduced to three characters, and their lives during the war. Every once in a while we will get a glimpse of how they lived before, and more importantly, how the war has changed them.

    Kenan is a man, and a father living in the town during the war. He has two kids, a wife, and a dog, a very typical family. Before the war Kenan lived a very normal with all the necessities needed to get by. Now that the war has hit Sarajevo, suddenly everything he had, and everything he thought he knew was abruptly taken away. Now, Kenan must wake up early multiple times a week to fulfill a daunting task, to gain a simple necessity- water. He must put his life in danger traveling miles across town carrying up to six heavy water jugs, just to live. The source of water at the brewery is the only reliable source in the town, and without it- life itself would be impossible.

“Carry too little and you’ll have to repeat the task more often. Each time you expose yourself to the dangers of the streets you run the risk of injury or death. But carry too much and you lose the ability to run, duck, dive, anything it takes to get out of danger’s way.” ( Galloway 24 )

On these mornings that Kenan must wake up to get water for his family, it becomes harder and harder every time, but he knows he must fulfill his duty to himself, and his family to get water. Kenan is a single father living in Sarajevo. His family had the chance to flee before the war. This is directly the change Dragan had to learn to deal with and overcome. This quote explains how Dragan will often day dream of escaping from the war to live with his family.

“ He’s back in Sarajevo. There’s no tunnel pass in his pocket, and there never will be. No one is getting out of town now. Certainly not him.” ( Galloway 184 )

A sign from tunnel Dragan imagines escaping from

Often when dragan will day dream of running away to live with his family, he will have a moment of reality after each time, coming to the realization that he can not run away until the war is done. Arrow potentially deals with the most change in the novel. At the beginning she had only ever shot at targets, never real people. She was the best sniper working for the town, and because of this was hired to protect the cellist. Arrow’s involvement in the war never would have happened if her father hadn’t have been killed. That is the beginning of change for Arrow, her fathers death had allowed the commander to ask her to become involved.

“ She would learn later that her father, who is a police-man, had asked Nermin to leave her out of it. He was killed in one of the first battles of the war.” ( Galloway 69 )

If Arrow’s father was never killed in the war, she would have continued to live the somewhat normal life that can be lived through war, but her fathers death was the beginning of her moral dilemma to come.