Characterization In Steven Marloway's The Siege Of Sarajevo

The Siege of Sarajevo was an event in which two-hundred thousand people lost their lives. The book I had the pleasure of reading was “The Cellist of Sarajevo” by Steven Galloway. The purpose of this literature was to bring light to the “Siege of Sarajevo” that occurred between 1992 and 1996 and to show the humanity/inhumanity found within. The novel elicits many ideas which can be narrowed down to: war, symbolism, structure, character developments and historical context which will all be explained in-depth. Overall The Cellist of Sarajevo was a gripping piece of writing which captured these human qualities in a way that made it unforgettable. First off, The Cellist of Sarajevo was not structured in a typical way. The novel does not go by a chapter by chapter style, instead it goes by character. There are three characters in the story whose perspectives are shown throughout, Kenan, Arrow and Dragan. After each section it alternates between each character’s point of view. This way of presenting the book kept things interesting instead of the classic “Only one main character” approach. This way we could compare each character’s similarities and differences and see how the fall of the city impacts them. It should be noted that George R.R Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” novel series follows a similar formula that …show more content…
It would have been refreshing to see a fourth character’s perspective, one of the “men on the hills” aka a Yugoslav People’s soldier. One of Galloway’s talents was painting these characters as normal human beings and showing their struggles and doubts, seeing an “enemy” soldier in action, who’s killing innocents would be captivating as it would step away from the norm. Another interesting idea would be having a character who is out of the ordinary. A person who is brave, confident and an excellent fighter, because people like that do exist. Galloway did not seem to take much risk in the character