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The Cellist of Sarajevo: Themes - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Then there’s the third type, the group Kenan falls into. They stand, mouths gaping, and watch as others run or help. He’s surprised he didn’t run, isn’t part of the first group, and he wishes he were part of the second. Galloway 163
        
        Keenan is incapable of making himself help the injured people at the brewery and is just standing by but he wishes it could be different.
      - "He knows that if he wants to be one of the people who rebuilt the city, one of the people who have the right to even speak about how Sarajevo should repair itself, then he has to go outside and face the men on the hills" Galloway 244
        
        Kenan finally figured out that he has to help others and finds a way to do that well. He knows that he will have to face the men on the hills but now he is ready and he symbolizes that by going back to get the water for Mrs. Ristovski which he had abandoned earlier as a act of self preservation and fear.
      - It takes courage to
        kill a man, and he doesn’t possess such courage. A man who can barely leave his family to collect
        water without falling down outside the door could not possibly do what Ismet does. Galloway 51
        
        Keenan doesn't want to kill anyone but by not fighting he is basically standing by and being useless to everyone except for his family but even that is starting to be unsure as he is losing his strength.
  - - - "Someone hands it to Dragan, and he holds it, feeling useless." Galloway 175
        
        Dragan had seen everything that had happened but now he feels guilty because he had done nothing to help Emina and the other man who got shot right after. He feels useless when he is given Emina's coat and he regrets not doing anything before as he was just standing by.
      - "All that matters is getting the body off the street" Galloway 235
        
        Because he was unable to do anything earlier he decides that he does not want the body in the street to be videoed so he puts his own life on the line just to get the body away. He feels like he did the right thing afterward by not standing by and helping instead so he does not have to feel disappointed in himself.
- - - - "Yet she doesn’t want to pull her trigger. All
        because she can see that he doesn’t want to pull his." Galloway 154
        
        Arrow has a change of character here when she humanizes the sniper that she was supposed to kill. She sees the sniper closing his eyes with his hand relaxed and not on the trigger and she knows that she does not want to kill him because he is like her. He feels the same connection to the music as she does and she can tell that he does not want to kill the sniper because of this connection. She feels shame in killing him and although she does she knows that if she had the voice she wouldn't have.
      - "She hears music, and, this time, she does not fire.
        'No,' she says. 'I won’t.' "Galloway 226
        
        She sees the old man in the street and although she understands what the new commander had been telling her and she knows that there is a good chance that the man down there is a enemy of her, she does not see the swagger of an important man and she sees him simply as a civilian who does not deserve to die. When she is saying that she does not shoot while listening to the music this time she is referencing when she shot the sniper as she shot him while the music was still playing. By telling the commander that she was not going to shoot she is going back to her core and the things that ground her. She has never killed a civilian and never wants to and by denying the command of the officer she is staying true to herself and giving herself the chance to find her old self again to connect back to her original identity.
      - “I am Arrow, because I hate them. The woman you
        knew hated nobody.” Galloway 13
        
        At the start of this book Arrow is shown as a young woman who is constantly thinking ahead and seems to have no time for the past. She uses a fake name to separate her old self from the new because her old self was innocent and never hated anyone the way she hates the men on the hills. Arrow makes sure to keep her thoughts straight ahead and in the moment in order to not let her old self come in and make her regret what she has become. Through this she is denying the guilt she should be feeling by blocking her feelings from herself.
      - "My name is Alisa" Galloway 258
        
        She finally accepts her identity and lets her old self come out again and she is no longer trying to avoid her memories of the past and how she used to be in a bad way. She had always had this in herself but she just didn't allow it to come out and wreck her life while she was a sniper as she didn't want to be empathetic towards the men on the hills.
  - - - Then there’s the third type, the group Kenan falls into. They stand, mouths gaping,
        and watch as others run or help. He’s surprised he didn’t run, isn’t part of the first group, and he
        wishes he were part of the second. Galloway 163
        
        Kenan feels shame as he is getting water and the shells land and instead of helping other or even running away he stands there helpless because he does not know what to do. He thinks about the three groups of people, the helpers, the runners and then the group he falls into the group that does nothing even though they could. He wishes that he could be a part of that group but he in incapable of making himself move to help other and couldn't even look for the dog.
      - "He knows that if he wants to be one of the people who rebuilt the city, one of the people who have the right to even speak about how Sarajevo should repair itself, then he has to go outside and face the men on the hills" Galloway 244
        
        Keenan realizes that he has no reason to not be one of the people who helps others. He knows that he is going to have to face the men on the hill and wishes there were another way but also knows that if he doesn't he won't be able to live with himself. He starts this off by going back for the bottles for Mrs. Ristovski and by doing that he starts to prepare himself for what he is going to have to do in the future but he finds his identity and now he won't have to be disappointed in himself.
      - He’s afraid of dying. Galloway 51
        
        Kenan was talking to Ismet and was thinking about the fact that he did not want to die. He felt guilty for thinking this but he justified himself by saying that he would not want to kill even more than die.