How does Ivo Andric use imagery in The Bridge on the Drina?

Andric's descriptions of nature are lush and moving. Human beings fare less well, for Višegrad knows many villains across three and a half centuries. Detailed imagery of the torturing and impalement of a 16th century saboteur precedes later beheadings and hangings, which seem almost benign in comparison. Andric describes his people's need to create fables and live by them. He shows Christians and Muslims despising one another but peacefully coexisting. Western cultural modes are introduced and compete with tradition in a Darwinian survival of the fittest. Western technology is more destructive. Particularly among Muslims there are individuals who absolutely resist change. Both religions wonder why God lets the other survive. Among the brutal and the angry, Andrić sprinkles innocents, fools, and dupes. He shows a Jewish widow who builds a business and uses its profits to support her still downtrodden relatives. In the final chapters, Andrić debates the political and philosophical questions that his own generation carries into World War I.