Patriarchy

One of the most recurring themes in Felicia Hemans' poetry is nostalgia: particularly a longing to return to the pure, unbroken innocence of youth. Having witnessed her own mother's marriage fall apart, Hemans had a similarly unsuccessful marriage that left her to raise five children in her mother's home. A growing resentment towards patriarchy would result, and manifest itself in several of Hemans’ works. While she would achieve a great deal of success and fame, Hemans' was ultimately unhappy with her life as she grew older, and her poetry reflects this. “Evening Prayer, at a Girls’ School” is a poem that highlights Hemans’ displeasure with men, suggesting that young girls are inevitably doomed to suffer in the name of patriarchy.

In “Casabianca”, however, we see that even young boys are not exempt from suffering at the hands of their fellow men. The poem tells of a young boy-sailor who, along with his father, was killed when their ship was destroyed in battle. Despite his “child-like” form, the boy is a brave “creature of heroic blood”(7), who does his best to imitate his father, the captain of the ship. As the boy repeatedly calls to his father, unaware that he has already perished, there is an explosion that reduces the young boy to “fragments” that are sent flying about the sea (36). The explosion is described as “a burst of thunder” (33), making it seem much more like an act of God than a blast from an opposing captain’s ship. Hemans’ capitalization of “Father” further emphasizes that perhaps the young boy is being forsaken on two levels – by both his own father and God, Father of all. Surely Hemans believed that a boy so young has no place in battle, and equal blame lies on his father, as well as God, for allowing the death of such a “young faithful heart” (40).