Losing hope is like living in the darkness where you ignore the stars. Hope is easily lost in certain circumstances when people start to believe that the situation they find themselves in will never improve or will never be in their favor. In the novel "The Cellist of Sarajevo", the ongoing war causes the characters to lose all hope of surviving this war and living in the Sarajevo they once knew and loved. Hope is crucial to surviving the war, however, in the novel "The Cellist of Sarajevo" by Steven Galloway the characters Dragan and the hopeful side of Kenan are absent. One of the characters, Dragan, who helped his wife and son escape from Sarajevo, has no hope for himself anymore. First, Dragan's hopeless character is highlighted when he recalls pre-war Sarajevo. As Dragan describes, “That Sarajevo he remembers, the city he grew up in and was proud and happy of, probably never existed” (Galloway, 33). For people trapped in Sarajevo, like Dragan, the war drags on and there seems to be no end. To have hope, you must be able to hold on to your happy moments and wait for them to return. Dragan, however, can't even remember the times when he was happy in this city. Clearly, his inability to remember the old city he once loved dearly shows his loss of hope. Secondly, Dragan is shown as desperate as he expresses his opinion on what the cellist is doing. Dragan explains that "what the cellist wants is not change, or to make things right, but to prevent things from getting worse" (126). According to Dragan, the cellist doesn't fix things because that's no longer possible. This quote shows that Dragan now believes that the situation cannot return to normal, and that things cannot… middle of paper… only gives men more opportunities to kill him, shows that he is a hopeless man. character. To summarize, as the war continues, Kenan's hope of surviving the war begins to recede. In conclusion, the characters, Dragan and Kenan in "The Cellist of Sarajevo" by Steven Galloway, lose all hope of surviving the war and having their own life. get back to normal. The characters completely forget about the pre-war city as they are so mesmerized by their lives as citizens trying to survive a war. Dragan is a man who made his family flee Sarajevo before the war started and is now struggling to survive in this war camp. Kenan is another man who lives in Sarajevo with his family and risks his life doing everyday tasks, such as collecting water for the family. Hope is not thinking about all the misery around you, but keeping in mind the beauty that is still intact.