Hemans presents Casabianca, the child who dies on a sinking ship because he remains waiting for his father's command instead of fleeing, as a boy with nobility and courage. He is described to be standing on the deck and calls out three times, asking his father if he can leave his post. And there isn't an answer because his "chieftain lay / Unconscious of his son." (15 - 16). Hemans describes him with "brave despair" (24) and "the noblest thing" (39).
She depicts him this way, but within the story, it really seems as though, it wasn't a brave thing to do to remain on the burning ship, but a stupid one. Throughout the poem, I don't think that this kid has guts, I think that the kid should be smart enough to realize that his father wouldn't want him to remain on a burning ship. Hemans likes to write about these characters that are facing tragedy, in hopes that the tragedy gives the story beauty, but I don't find Casabianca, someone to emulate.
Hemans also likes the tragedy of the female sculptor, Properzia Rossi. The story goes that she was very talented and very in love with a Roman Knight. Her love for him leads to her death and he has only indifference for her.
The poem paints her love for him as one of "passion and of beauty more" (1) but I find that Hemans is once again using tragedy to make the main character seem like a hero. The speaker of the poem is Properzia Rossi and she goes on and on about her love for a man though he doesn't share the same feelings. To me, this isn't beautiful but I wish that the character didn't make her last work for a man who doesn't love her but instead, made it because of her rare talent or even just for herself, or even to defy the man who she gave so much unrequited love to.
The poems seemed similar to me in that Hemans uses their tragedies in hopes that we will appreciate the main characters, but in the realities of the background stories, I found no reason to call them heros.
I agree that they are not heroes but are we meant to sympathize with them? While reading Casabianca I went back and forth between feeling bad for the boy and, like you said, feeling frustrated at the fact that he cannot make his own decision -- perhaps the conflict of the two emotions depict the frustration Hermans wanted to portray of society at the time, the concept that however dumb or irrational a decision may be, one must obey their superiors and thus for that reason we should sympathize with them
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