CASABIANCA BY FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS

Imgery: flames, burning deck, shots, fires, thunder, waving hair and heroic.

In the poem Casabianca poet Felicia Dorothea Hemans uses Imagery to describe the bravery of the little kid who is waiting on his father last words and is afraid to abandon the ship without his father which he thinks is worse than dying in the flames. Even though poet used different types of imagery in this poem but she tried to focus more on visual and auditory imagery by describing a bloody battle pf ships in the sea.
In the first stanza poet just described boy’s physical location on the ship and how flames are covering the whole ship all around him which is a great example of visual imagery including burning deck, battle‘s wreck and flames and it shows that how much that child is suffering through just to listen to his father. Then again in second stanza poet shows the reader all the heroic characteristics of this little child standing alone in flames to find his father who is just lost in other dead bodies on the ship and poet described child qualities in these lines, “As born to rule the storm; A creature of heroic blood, A proud, though childlike form (line 6-8).”

According to me I think these are examples of tactile images which touch the hearts of its readers and make them to think that he is not any cowardly boy, he is a child with the heart of a brave man. Poet continues to evoke readers senses through the use of auditory imagery too, when she wrote that how little boy yelled out aloud so that his father can hear him “He called aloud--” aloud in this line is not just a word comes out from boys mouth with force but it was accompanied with his last remaining hopes, that’s why I think poet left two hyphen after aloud. But sound of the gun over powered his voice which the poet describes “And but the booming shots replied (line 19).” It is also a great example of auditory image. Even though he fell down on the board due to gun shots, he didn’t stop calling his father and at last flames covered his whole body which poet described by using simile in these lines, “And streamed above the gallant child, Like banners in the sky (lines 31-32).”

In her last two lines she summed up all the most important thing of this poem that is bravery and never leave loved one’s behind or someone with a deep attachment like in this poem young kid just stood their like a stone for his father without having any fear of flames that could turn him into ashes and they did too at the end but main thing in here is that poet wants to show little kid courage and how much he was determined to ask his father first before abandoning the ship which obviously any father will say yes but I think he want to see if his father is still alive.