In the book “The Cellist of Sarajevo,” by Steven Galloway, one of the major themes throughout the book is survival. Through this theme we are able to see the various coping mechanisms employed by the key characters of the book in order to deal with the influences of war. We see closely what these human beings must do in order to survive and to retain their mental soundness. By seeing these different coping mechanisms and from knowing why they are being employed, we are able to see connections between the characters that helps us to realize the humanity in ourselves as well as others, and it ties us all together in an effort to avoid black and white thinking that we see in the book that comes about from dehumanizing others over differences, which is the cause of the war.
Arrow, Kenan, and Dragan are all main characters in “The Cellist of Sarajevo” that the author uses to familiarize us with this concept of survival. We see how each of them struggles every day as they concern themselves over whether this day will be the last one for them or their loved ones. As they go about their tasks through out the day, we see this continued thinking and their struggle to keep a positive outlook on things so that they can keep themselves from thinking that they wished that today was their last day. This is particularly important in wartime as Galloway points out “There’s a strange sense of relief in knowing where the danger is. It’s much easier to deal with than an unfocused sense of doom” (33) and in wartime the latter is usually the case.
The character Kenan struggles with the knowledge that without him that his family will have to go without food and water and that they will not survive. Kenan copes with this knowledge by joking about supplies with his wife so that he can keep the fear from rising up inside of him when he thinks about their dismal situation. He also does it so that he can share a connection with his wife before heading out into the dangerous situation of scouring the burned city of Sarajevo for food and water. She brings him comfort and he knows that “it’s not so much her words that bring him comfort, but the fact that she still says them.” (16)
Dragan deals with his psychological stress from the war by avoiding talking to anyone. He “can barely bring himself to nod a polite hello to a stranger, let alone talk to an old friend, he isn’t yet willing to risk his life to avoid a social exchange…he wonders if it’s possible that a day will come when he makes a different choice.” (66) He feels that as long as he doesn’t talk about the war to anyone, then the war can’t really be going on. Instead, Dragon finds solace in his solitude and in thinking about his beloved city the way that it had been pre-war time.
Arrow finds her solace in taking orders. She becomes a sniper because she feels that it is her duty to the city and in doing so she is able to relinquish guilt or having to think too much because she has other people telling her what to do an what to think. When she first takes the position it is under the condition that she “won’t blindly kill just because you (her commander) says she must…with each passing week she’s less and less certain that there will be an end to all of this. The parameters of their deal are dangerously close to irrelevant.” (59). For a while, they do become nonexistent.
All three of the lead characters use different coping mechanisms in their attempts to survive. Dragon uses escape avoidance, Kenan seeks social support from his wife and Arrow abandons her cognitive processes to that of others. Although they find different ways of trying to survive the fact that all of them are employing these coping mechanisms in an attempt to survive is what pulls them together. Also, in employing these coping mechanisms, all of them lose a part of themselves during these times of war that they are unable to get back until they bond together. It is this that the author uses to show us that survival is engrained in all of us and it is part of what connects us and it is through looking out for each other that we are truly able to improve our chances of survival. Kenan knows that the character of a human being is important in his thinking that “though he can’t quite put his finger on the specifics…he believes that the character of those who will build the city again is more important than the makeup of those who destroyed it.” (48)
Arrow is the character that Galloway allows us to see this through the most. She goes through out the book killing whoever she is told to kill without hesitation or consideration. It is when her commanders have her watching the cellist that she is no longer able to think of her targets as an objective but she actually begins to see him as another human being. She begins to leave flowers for him and eventually comes to even admire him. It is through him that she is able to remember a time before the war and that she begins to question her desire to kill other human beings, because now she is truly able to see the other people as human beings. In the end she comes to the conclusion that “whether they are on the hills or in the city, no one will tell her to hate.” (230).
Arrow is also able to see how dehumanizing others has helped her to dehumanize herself and let fear and hatred control her. In the end she decides not to kill anymore and although it leads to her death she is at peace with it because she realized that sometimes surviving is just not enough. In the end, what is important is that she remembers who she really is and before she dies “she says, her voice strong and quiet, ‘My name is Alisa.’” (231).