Fear and Duty
The novel is set in during a siege of the characters' city, and as escape is nearly impossible, they find themselves in a tough situation, not being able to get out of the conflict zone and under threat every day. During this siege, some men and women chose to enroll in the army to try and protect their city while others decided to do everything they could to avoid being dragged into the war even more. Motivated by fear, those people decided to ignore their shame and do everything they could to survive. The main male characters in the novel are not soldiers, but rather men who manage in one way or another to avoid being drafted. While they do acknowledge that their fear is now controlling their life, they hope that one day they will be able to rebuild the city destroyed by the war and in that manner to contribute to the well-being of those living inside the city.
Morality
Arrow is the only character in the novel who is capable of harming another person. She is a sniper who is told to kill whoever she decides must die and she is careful not to kill any civilians. When she is told to obey a new commander, she decides to disobey even though she knows that it will cost her life. The reason she chooses to put her own life in danger is because she decides that killing a possible innocent person would mean giving up her own set of morals. Her former commander shared the same attitude and was killed because of it. These actions show that even though war can affect a person’s sense of morality, there will always be people who will be willing to sacrifice anything for the greater good.
The Power of Music
The world in which the characters live is a cruel one and every day is a fight for survival. The characters in the novel are concerned with having enough food to feed themselves and their family and other things might initially seem unimportant. When the cellist begins playing in the market, many are unsure what he wants to achieve through his music. The people hearing him play see him as foolish, thinking that he puts his life in danger for nothing. Little by little, though, the people hearing him play are impressed by his music and learn to appreciate it. Hearing the cellist play becomes one of the main reasons why they want to continue living and the music teaches them that there is more to life than fear and the fight to survive. The cellist’s music teaches the people that even though the war has affected their lives in ways that can’t be fully comprehended, there is still beauty and hope in living.
Randomness and Chance
Several of the characters remark upon the random nature of survival in Sarajevo, for there seems to no overarching plan or meaning as to who keeps crossing intersections and surviving shellings to see another day, and who is cut down by a sniper's bullet (interestingly, on the other side of the rifle Arrow too acknowledges that sometimes how she chooses who dies is indeed completely random). This can be a profoundly disorienting way to live one's life, but as there is nothing else one can do, giving in to this reality can offer some sense of "peace."
Retaining Humanity
Most of the characters in the novel aren't heroes in a traditional way; except for Arrow killing soldiers, they are just trying to survive, carrying out quotidian tasks. But what makes them heroic is that they are committed to retaining their humanity even in the face of the constant violence and death, deprivation, and destruction of everything they knew and held dear. The cellist plays music even though it is immeasurably dangerous. Dragan makes human connections and crosses the intersection at a walk, not a run, to show the men on the hills that they are not destroying his will to live. Kenan keeps making his trek to get water for his family and his neighbor. And Arrow decides to give herself up even though it means the loss of her life because she will not compromise her ideals.
Human Connection
The characters are largely solitary figures and they occasionally struggle with human connection—something that makes sense given the insane circumstances in which they live. Dragan prefers being alone and has cut off most of his former associates because it is simply too hard; Kenan mostly sees his family and his irritating neighbor; Arrow works and lives alone; the cellist plays alone. Yet by playing music, refusing to kill innocent people, engaging with friends at the marketplace and continuing to tote water for an ungrateful neighbor, and saying hello to a stranger on the street, the characters demonstrate that human connection—no matter how small or seemingly inconsequential—is what makes life worth living.
City and Identity
The characters watch as their city and their concomitant memories of the good times they spent in that city vanish in the relentless shelling of the men on the hills. They struggle to come to terms with what was once familiar now seeming foreign, inhospitable, and perhaps forever changed. Yet ultimately they defend their city and refuse to leave it—Arrow kills the men who want to ruin it, Dragan decides even if he could get out he would not want to, and both Dragan and Kenan know they want to be around for the rebuilding. They love Sarajevo and know that people like them must be the ones to preside over its rebuilding, no matter when that actually is or how hard it actually is.
