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Essay / The Cellist of Sarajevo Book Report
The Cellist of Sarajevo, a novel written by Steven Galloway, is set in the city of Sarajevo, during the Bosnian War in the 1990s. Galloway chose this setting to tell the stories of eyewitnesses present during the siege of Sarajevo and to give its reader an idea of the point of view of the inhabitants of Sarajevo during the siege. The tone given by the author is gloomy and depressing, to accompany the miserable city around the characters. The main story takes place in a market, where a mortar shell exploded, killing 22 people. The setting is essential to the story as a cellist plays Albinoni's Adagio in the market square to commemorate the 22 victims of the attack. CharactersSay no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Antagonists, Men on the Hills, Colonel. Karaman. The cellistThe main character of the story, he was the principal cellist of the Sarajevo orchestra because of the siege. Arrow is a sniper in the Sarajevian Defense Corps. She was tasked with protecting the cellist for the 22 days he played. His foils are the men on the hills, as well as Colonel Karaman after his departure from the defense corps. He is a father and husband, on a quest to get to the brewery and bring back water for his family. His relationship with The Cellist is that he goes to hear him play. Its flagship is the snipers who monitor intersections. He is a worker in a bakery, father and husband. His relationship with The Cellist is that he goes to hear him play. His flagship is enemy snipers guarding intersections as he attempts to cross in his quest to obtain food. She is an elderly woman and a neighbor of Kenan. She has no connection with the main character. She is a friend of Dragan and remained optimistic throughout the siege. Her relationship with The Cellist is that she goes to hear him play. His foil is shot by a sniper while trying to deliver medicine to someone in need. Nermin Filipovic is a sergeant. in the Sarajevan Defense Corps and one of the few soldiers with real military experience. He tasks Arrow with protecting the cellist. He is Arrow's second-in-command, a ruthless man who only cares about winning the war, no matter the cost. He resigns from Arrow's protection of the cellist. Her flagship is Arrow after she quits and becomes a fugitive from the Defense Corps. The cellist is a wise young man who was the principal cellist of the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra before the war. He is wearing a clean tuxedo and sitting in the middle of the street where the mortar fell. At the beginning of the story, he sits at the window of his apartment and plays his cello until he feels hope returning. Sometimes he plays the Adagio on days when he struggles to feel hopeful. He considers it a valuable currency, specifying that he did not know how many Adagio's he had left and that he did not want to waste them stupidly. What motivates him is to commemorate the death of the 22 victims of the bomb attack on the market square. He wants to give hope to the Saradjevans by playing Albinoni's Adagio once a day for each of the 22 victims. At first the cellist only played for his own hope of coming back, but after the mortar shot he played not only for himself but also for the city of Sarajevo and the Sarajevos, thus making him dynamic. I believe this character is believable because he is a symbol of hope and what humanity is capable of in dire circumstances. Plus, The Cellist was based on a real personwho lived in Sarajevo during the siege. Arrow is a young military sniper with a unique skill: being able to instinctively calculate shots. Before the war, she was a college sniper and relatively pretty. She wears a standard military uniform and is usually equipped with a rifle. Arrow sees himself as a weapon, focusing solely on his mission and killing as many attackers as possible. She feels that she has reason to hate the men on the hills for what they have done. She is motivated by hatred and by giving up her name and taking the name Arrow, she is able to defend her city, kill those who deserve to die, and remain relatively innocent at the end of the war. After being tasked with protecting The Cellist, Arrow began listening to music and felt her humanity returning to her. She realized that she didn't want to kill or hate the men on the hills, that her old self didn't hate anyone and that she still had a deep love for her city and what it stood for. This marks a change in her character, making her dynamic. I think Arrow is a believable character, his transformation into seeing himself as a weapon to kill attackers and defend his city seems like a completely possible character change for a person, given the circumstances. Additionally, I believe that the fact that the cellist's music was powerful enough to restore her humanity at the end of the novel was a credible and compelling demonstration of how a person can be saved from themselves. At the beginning of the story, we see Arrow deciding which of the two soldiers she should kill, then she goes to Nermin's office and is tasked with protecting the cellist. Kenan begins his quest at the brewery to find water for his family and Mrs. Ristovski. Dragan goes to the bakery to get a meal so he doesn't have to eat his sister's food. Arrow kills the enemy sniper and reports to Nermin. Kenan has to take a detour from his usual route because of the sniper guarding the intersection. Dragan sees an old friend Emina on the street and they talk about the war and what is happening. Nermin tells Arrow that he can no longer protect her and that she should flee Sarajevo, shortly after, Nermin's office explodes and he is killed. Kenan finally arrives at the brewery and begins to fill his jugs with water. Emina tries to cross the intersection and is shot in the arm and a man wearing a hat is shot dead in the middle of the street. After the death of Arrow's commander, she is reassigned under the control of Colonel Karaman and given the ability to choose her own targets. As he fills his jugs with water, Kenan is knocked to the ground by the explosion of a mortar shell. Dragan sees a man filming the intersection and decides that his Sarajevo will not have a body lying in the street and begins dragging the now hatless man to a shelter. Arrow leaves the Corps and is hunted by Karaman's men but still ends up protecting The Cellist and feels his humanity and love for the city returned to him. Kenan returns home with his jugs of water, 4 days later he leaves for another run but feels optimistic about the future. Dragan decides that he will not give in to war-torn Sarajevo by running, and crosses the intersection without being shot, and decides to see The Cellist on the last of 22 days. Theme In Galloway's The Cellist of Sarajevo, several themes are present, but I believe the most important is hope. Before the attack on the market square, the cellist played his cello until his hope returned. On days when he struggled to feel his hope, he would play Albinoni's Adagio, saying it was getting harder and harder to do so..