What idea(s) does this poem suggest to you about hopelessness and ambitions?
As one goes through life and tries to pursue one’s ambition, one sometimes hits upon hopelessness. The poem Sarajevo Bear deals with ambition and hopelessness. The Bosnians’ ambition was so powerful that it overcame the hopelessness of the situation. Ambition may be defined as “a strong desire to do or achieve something typically requiring determination and hard work.”1 The ambition of the people of Bosnia was to achieve independence for their country. It required to overpower the Yugoslavian Army. In the poem, Sarajevo Bear, we see people feeding the bear to keep the bear alive. In order to bring food for the bear, they have …show more content…
The people of Sarajevo are just like the animals in the zoo, the siege representing the zoo cage has made them captives and live targets for the snipers. Like the animals, they could stay in their hidings letting the fear of dying imprisoned and confined them till the end. Or they can forget about the hopelessness and strive to reach their ambition-freedom. Furthermore, the Sarajevo Bear poem talks about “leaves” as the barriers that protect the bear caregivers from the deadly bullets of the sniper. When the leaves fell from the trees, the sniper had a clear view of the people feeding the bear. They did not give up feeding the bear regardless of the consequences to them.
To achieve their ambition, a self-governing country, the people of the city of Sarajevo had to overcome hopelessness and desperation of their situation. As a result, feeding the bear was their objective to accomplish. “When there is something you want, do not give up - no matter how hopeless it seems, even when you have lost hope”3 -bear being the hope. As a matter of fact, they face many obstacles but they never lost hope. They persevered and eventually they achieve independence from