Casabianca By Felicia Dorothea Hemans

1.)Images

-“burning deck”

-“battle’s wreck”

-“beautiful and bright”

-“born to rule”

-“heroic blood”

-“proud”

-“flames rolled on”

-“booming shots”

-“brave despair”

-“wreathing fires made way”

-“banners in the sky”

-“a burst of thunder sound”

2.)

The image of the words “the flames rolled on”, gives the readers a sense of rush that the flames are approaching the boy, and that the boy needs to move on or he will die from the flames, which he did. The flames will not stop to see if the boy will escape, it is an unstoppable force that will eat away everything in its way. The image of the boy asking his father if his “task” is done, is ridiculous. The boy wants to survive, but his ignorance of his situation, made him die. As pointed out before, the boy should have move on; this could be seen in life too. For example, as cliché it may seem, survival of the fittest is seen in this poem. The boy was too innocent to be on the flaming ship, that he died.

Another image is seen in the boy. The description of the boy as “beautiful and bright”, “born to rule”, and “proud” could be interpreted that great people could be gone in an instant because of their greatness. This boy was born to rule but that was shot down when his loyalty ended his downfall. Loyalty in this poem is seen as a negative connotation. The flames surround the ship and the boy is yelling to his father if he could leave, shows that, though the boy is in grave danger, he respects his father and asks for permission. The poet, Hemans could have wrote this because she wanted the readers to feel pity and sadness for the boy, but underneath she wanted the readers to understand that loyalty and greatness has limits that could put one life in danger.

Connecting the two images, the poet has put the title, Casabianca, also known as the ship of the poem, as a show. Meaning that the boy and the ship are important but the boy’s ignorance or as the poet wrote “young, faithful heart”, was the “noblest thing that perished”. I do not agree with that, and Hemans wrote this knowing that the reader would have this intrepetation, and as stated above she was being sarcastic.