76 pages • 2 hours read
Steven GallowayThe Cellist of Sarajevo
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapter 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4, Section 1 Summary
As Kenan prepares to go and get water for his family he realizes that today is the final day the cellist will play the adagio. He has been going to hear the cellist play every day since the shelling at the brewery: “Each day at four o’clock he stands in the street with his back pressed against a wall and watches as the city is reassembled and its people awaken from hibernation” (220).
Although he dreads going out today and facing the men on the hills, he finds strength in the thought that today is the final day of the cellist’s adagio to honor the dead and in his conviction that he will be one of those who rebuild the city: “He knows that if he wants to be one of the people who rebuild the city, one of the people who have the right even to speak about how Sarajevo should repair itself, then he has to go outside and face the men on the hills” (220).
Kenan braces himself for the day ahead, and knocks on Mrs. Ristovski’s door.
Chapter 4, Section 2 Summary
Dragan is in a daze, feeling overwhelmed with a sense that life is surreal. Of course, we know that this is one of the effects of war, but Dragan is wondering why, suddenly, lies seem to be truth and truth, lies. Surviving such harsh conditions requires immense psychological strength and one can only convince themselves that the present is palatable at a price: “Is the real Sarajevo the one where people were happy, treated each other well, lived without conflict? Or is the real Sarajevo the one he sees today, where people are trying to kill each other, where bullets and bombs fly down from the hills and the buildings crumble to the ground” (222).
He realizes that he’s been standing at the same intersection for over two hours, “stuck in a kind of no man’s land, kept but not kept from going to the bakery, where a small loaf of bread waits for him” (222).
He finally finds the courage to cross the road by thinking of the cellist, who will play his adagio today at four for the final time. As he thinks about this, he takes his first step into the street. Usually, when crossing the street, he breaks into a run, to try to avoid sniper fire. But today, he finds, his feet will not run. Then, suddenly, he realizes that “If he doesn’t run, then he’s alive again. The Sarajevo he wants to live in is alive again” (224) and “he cares [about that] now, more than ever” (224).
He also realizes that reality can be transformed by his perspective on it, and today, he chooses a more optimistic view, one in which “The war will end, and when it’s looked back upon it will be with regret, not with fond memories of faded glory. In the meantime . . . . if he wishes to live, he must do what he can to prevent the world he wants to live in from fading away” (222-23).
Dragan thinks of all the people around him who inspire him with their own courage. He then realizes that he has been “asleep since the war began” (223) and that “in defending himself from death he’s lost his grip on life” (223).
Normally, he would head immediately for the bakery, but, feeling the bottle of pills that Emina was going to deliver in his pocket, he knows that today, he will be late.
As he passes an elderly man on the street, he is suddenly inspired to say hello.
Chapter 4, Section 3 Summary
Arrow lies in bed, listening for the footsteps that have finally arrived outside her door—the footsteps of Hasan’s men who have to kill her for refusing to shoot an unarmed, elderly civilian.
She thinks of the last day the cellist played and what she heard in his song; she suddenly saw everything with startling, crystal clarity: “The men on the hills didn’t have to be murderers. . . . She didn’t have to be filled with hatred. The music demanded that she remember this, that she know to a certainty that the world still held the capacity for goodness. The notes were proof of that” (228).
And it is because she has heard the cellist’s song and remembered the goodness in the world that she is able to fact her own death.
As the men burst down her door, she says only, “My name is Alisa”, reclaiming and returning to her real self.
Chapter 4 Analysis
By the end of the novel, we see major changes in our chief three characters because of the gift of courage that the cellist has given them through his music. Arrow reclaims her true identity and refuses to kill again, realizing that such an act will reduce her to the level of the enemy snipers. Her reclamation of her real name, Alisa, signals a catharsis of the spirit that will enable her to die nobly and with grace.
Dragan realizes that to begin living a true life now, he needs to imagine a future that he can take a creative part in. He must have hope, and the cellists’ music has helped him to imagine a better existence, now and in the future. Dragan’s revolution is signaled by his greeting to the elderly man, which suggests his willingness to try to make a connection with other human beings. Instead of pretending the city is remains as it was before the war, Dragan has decided to help build a new “city on the hill”.
Kenan, too experiences catharsis. He is overcoming his depression and anger enough to imagine taking part in a new Sarajevo, one that he will help construct. He realizes that all around him are stories of survival and triumph over extreme odds and that if he truly wants to be a part of the new city, he must contribute to the struggle to get there, to get to the end of the war and the beginning of Sarajevo’s renewal.
