Casabianca symbolism

deck, him, flame, wreck, dead, storm, blood, creature, form, flames, word, father, death, voice, task, chieftain, son, shots, breath, hair, fires, ship, flag, child, banners, thunder, sound, winds, sea, mast, helm, pennon, thing, heart

The piece of imagery that I find most symbolic in this poem is the fire. All throughout the poem fire is mentioned. At first, the fire is menacing, but not a very big threat. By the end of the poem however, the fire becomes the main antagonist of the story, eventually burning away the ship, the boy and his father. I believe that the fire may represent all of the burdens that we all must undertake in life. I see this because in the poem, Hemans says,

“And shouted but once more aloud,

My father! must I stay?

While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,

The wreathing fires made way.”

I take this as meaning that even though he he wants no more than to leave, he stays because he knows that he has to stay through what his father says. Through this the fire is making everything that he does harder, burdening him and costing precious time and putting his life at danger.

Another important symbol that is in this poem is the boat. This poem could have been set in any place. I feel that this setting is put in place to stress the helplessness of the boy in the story. Let’s face it, there is basically no way to get away from a fire on a boat. This setting is also put into place to show the significance of the fire because it brings it to the forefront of the reader’s mind.

As a whole, I interpreted this poem to be an allegory of adolescence. The boy is constantly waiting for his father’s approval just like all adolescent boys do. It is always a criteria for young men to have the approval of their father, this is seen in many lines throughout the poem. Also the flames in this poem help represent the transition in his life because at the end, it says a line about the noblest thing that perished was “that young, faithful heart.