Imagery: Burning deck, battle's wreck, beautiful and bright, heroic blood, childlike form, flames rolled, faint in death, booming shots, waving hair, wreathing fires, banners in the sky, fragments strewed
In the first line of Hemans’s Casabianca, the title character was standing on a burning deck, a lone figure surrounded by an enveloping flame that posed as an imminent threat to his life. All those that remained with him on the deck had already passed on to the next life. The author described the flames as lighting the battle’s wreck, highlighting the devastation that occurred on the boat and increasing the tragedy of the situation. However, the boy stood out with his quiet defiance, not running to safety as the rest of the crew had, “beautiful and bright” yet a “childlike form.” His persistence to remain until his father, already at Death’s door, would give him the word to go is reiterated each time the boy speaks into the darkness, “Say, father, say if my task is done?” or “Speak father! If I may yet be gone!” The rolling flames could also portray the boy’s inner turmoil of either staying with his father or playing the part of a coward. His pride and fierce loyalty, nevertheless, prevents him from seeking safety. All the while, the flames have slowly encompassed the length of the boat, running up the flag pole and catching the flag on fire, causing it to appear like “banners in the sky.” This magnificent fire display could be interpreted to act as a marker of the boy’s bravery and loyalty to his father, implying that his noble idea to wait for his father’s dismissal deserves such a beautiful and disturbing tribute. However, that tribute ended up taking the boy out of the picture with a bang; only the wind knew where he was. Hemans went on to say that “the noblest thing that perished there was that young, faithful heart.”
Hemans, as a woman, probably had strong ideas about family values and unity and she clearly emphasized her beliefs in Casabianca. Through the poem, she seems to point out that a person of true character can withstand the darkness and face danger to hold on to their convictions. Though ending with a tragic note, the poem seems to have elevated the boy to the status of a hero. His life may have had an abrupt ending, but what he epitomized would live on in the minds of the readers.
