The Cellist of Sarajevo
Madeleine Albright once said, “What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change.” This quote relates to free will versus fate because Madeleine Albright states that whenever someone makes a choice, they can change themselves and the environment they are in. In the same way, Steven Galloway relates the idea of free will versus fate in his novel The Cellist of Sarajevo. Furthermore, The Cellist of Sarajevo includes a historical background based on the Siege of Sarajevo, which took place from the 5 of April, 1992 to the 29 February, 1996. Galloway has written a specific and non-fictional event of the cellist who played the cello for twenty-two days. Therefore, the story in this novel takes place during a span of twenty-two days. During the twenty-two days, a Cellist plays the cello for those people who were killed by a mortar blast while they were waiting to buy bread. Furthermore, the cellist is known to have a great impact on everyone and especially on the three main characters during the Siege of Sarajevo.

The setting of the novel does not begin by explaining the Bosnian War (The Siege of Sarajevo). Instead Galloway uses the in media res (in the middle). In media res is defined as the event of the plot that was already in progress at the start of the story in order to create excitement. At the same time flashback is used so that the audience can know what events have already happened.
Moreover, throughout the novel Kenan is one of the three main characters being referenced. Kenan spends most of his days doing everything to keep his family alive, which is for him to go to the water station and bring water for his family. Not only does Kenan bring water for his family but he also brings water for his neighbor, Mrs. Ristovski. Nonetheless, Kenan feels “afraid…useless…powerless…” and petrified “like a wet and frightened dog” to go outside where there is danger. Later on the story, Kenan starts to change and is left with a choice. This illustrates that Kenan is a dynamic character, a character that changes his personality trait or develops his personality as the story goes.

Dragan is also one of the main characters in the novel. Dragan is demonstrated as a very cynical person and is likewise pessimistic about life. This is illustrated by Dragan saying to Emina, “No one is coming…We’re here on our own, and on one’s coming to help us….” What Dragan is trying to say is that there will be no one to rescue them or even come to rescue them. In addition, at the beginning of his story, it indicates that Dragan is living in the future instead of living in reality. As the story goes on, he encounters Emina. Emina is significant to Dragan because she is a foil to him, meaning she emphasizes Dragan’s negative character traits. For that reason, he realizes how life is significant and perceives that he has a choice for his own life.
Among the three main characters that are left is Arrow. Arrow was just a girl like anyone else in Sarajevo; however, when war began, she was no longer an innocent girl. As a result, she becomes a sniper who kills the men on the hills. As for this, the name Arrow is not her real name, it is a persona, a made up character and personality. The reason why Arrow does not use her real name is because according to her, “I am Arrow, because I hate them. The woman you knew hated nobody.” Afterwards, Arrow receives a mission to protect the Cellist. Even though Arrow does not meet the Cellist in person, she makes sure that the Cellist is safe from the men on the hills. Because of the music that the Cellist plays every day, Arrow struggles with an internal conflict and yearns to be herself once more.

Galloway writes this book in a magnificent way so that the readers can enjoy the book. Galloway has created a theme that can be related to human nature. A theme that stood out was: Everyone has a choice concerning our personality and the resulting actions. People have good and evil as a human and must choose our course. This theme is able to be analyzed because for example Arrow, she killed the men on the hills due to her hatred. However, she had and has a choice to either kill or love them. Besides the setting of the story that the characters are going through exposes an indirect and direct meaning of the theme. For instance Dragan and Kenan have similar ideas of humans having a choice in their lives. Similar to what Dragan have said, “…There’s what he can do, and what he can’t. There’s right and wrong and nothing else. The world is binary. Shading will come later”, Kenan have also said something related to this. . Moreover, Galloway has used the characters to exemplify our human nature. All in all, Galloway has presented this theme in his novel in a pervasive way.

Although the novel explains the story very well, the point of view shift is confusing. At times it is difficult to follow along with the characters and since the chapters are divided among the three characters, going back and forth and remembering what the previous character said is sometimes extremely hard. For example while reading a chapter about Kenan, it is confusing who the character is because when Kenan said, ‘they’re not cowards, and they’re not heroes’, the readers might think that it was from the Dragan’s point of view. However, Dragan did not say that statement but did say something very similar to what Kenan said. Thus, the point of view shift is especially challenging and bewildering for ESL students. The point of view shift is hard for the ESL students because of the fact it has different chapters of diverse characters throughout the novel. This can be a problem for the ESL students due to the flow of the chapters and also trying to keep on track who the character is, while the reader is reading.