The Bright Light of Sarajevo – analysis
Iambic pentameter
Themes
1. Persistence & power of love
- love survives and flourishes under the most difficult of circumstances
- Everyone is aware of the constant danger but still come out at night → portrays romance as
both a heroic choice and a hopeful, transformative force
- Act of hope and courage
2. Wartime life
- Sarajevans spend their days trying to supply themselves with the necessities of life: fuel,
water, and food; e.g. “meagre grams” of rationed bread…
- War gets absorbed into everyday reality, becoming a strangely mundane presence
- Cultural markers that distinguish enemy from friends vanish: “you can’t distinguish who calls
bread hjleb or hleb or calls it kruh”
Symbols
- Stars
“fragments of the splintered pleiades’’ symbol of fate & romance → determination to find
love persists in the face of terrible violence (link to theme)
- Bread
1. Symbolises everyday life → shows how little the Sarajevans possess, difficult to obtain
bread, becomes a means of survival
2. Ethnic division (main driver of conflict and war)
3. Tragic accident in 1992: “"blood-dunked crusts of shredded bread’’ → mundane and
tragic exists side by side
- Light
Symbolises hope in dark times
“Then match or lighter to a cigarette”, “a candlelit café” → hope, people reach out to each
other
Poetic devices
- Alliteration
"the Sarajevo star-filled evening sky/ ideally bright and clear for bomber's eye"
→ underlines the tension the young lovers live with: the /s/ sound feels whispery and hypnotic, but it
also sounds like bullets whistling through the air.
→ /b/ sounds feel shocking and explosive, just like the bombs that "bomber" might drop at any
moment.
[ @twilightxcafee notes – Reserved for customers only ]
Iambic pentameter
Themes
1. Persistence & power of love
- love survives and flourishes under the most difficult of circumstances
- Everyone is aware of the constant danger but still come out at night → portrays romance as
both a heroic choice and a hopeful, transformative force
- Act of hope and courage
2. Wartime life
- Sarajevans spend their days trying to supply themselves with the necessities of life: fuel,
water, and food; e.g. “meagre grams” of rationed bread…
- War gets absorbed into everyday reality, becoming a strangely mundane presence
- Cultural markers that distinguish enemy from friends vanish: “you can’t distinguish who calls
bread hjleb or hleb or calls it kruh”
Symbols
- Stars
“fragments of the splintered pleiades’’ symbol of fate & romance → determination to find
love persists in the face of terrible violence (link to theme)
- Bread
1. Symbolises everyday life → shows how little the Sarajevans possess, difficult to obtain
bread, becomes a means of survival
2. Ethnic division (main driver of conflict and war)
3. Tragic accident in 1992: “"blood-dunked crusts of shredded bread’’ → mundane and
tragic exists side by side
- Light
Symbolises hope in dark times
“Then match or lighter to a cigarette”, “a candlelit café” → hope, people reach out to each
other
Poetic devices
- Alliteration
"the Sarajevo star-filled evening sky/ ideally bright and clear for bomber's eye"
→ underlines the tension the young lovers live with: the /s/ sound feels whispery and hypnotic, but it
also sounds like bullets whistling through the air.
→ /b/ sounds feel shocking and explosive, just like the bombs that "bomber" might drop at any
moment.
[ @twilightxcafee notes – Reserved for customers only ]
