The poem “The Death of a City by Fire” by Derek Walcott is a semi-autobiographical poem, a memory of great fire of 1948 in Central Castries (the capital and largest city of Saint Lucia). The great fire attacked three-quarters of the city and left more than 2,000 people homeless. This cataclysmic event affected Walcott's life, as he was born in the center of Castries. Walcott initially describes the city's situation with helplessness and despair, but then realizes that one must not lose faith after the physical world fails to survive. Through this poem, Walcott expresses his theme that faith should not be a help in the man-made world, but rather be maintained in the immunity of nature through the use of figurative language, of diction, images and juxtaposition. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Throughout the poem, Walcott uses figurative language in order to reflect the despair and demolition brought about by the Great Fire of 1948. The speaker speaks of the "beliefs that were broken like a thread", because he felt betrayed by the false immunity he believed existed in the city's buildings. This comparison expresses the sudden loss of hope Walcott felt because of the fire. He also mentions the situation in which the poem was written "under a tearful smoking candle eye". While this helps to understand what was literally left behind by the fire, the expression that the eye of the candle was smoking in tears also reflects the sadness and despair felt by the locals. The extent of the damage caused by the fire is summed up in the title itself: “The Death of a City by Fire.” The city is personified because it is told that it has the ability to die. Although a city, a non-living organism, cannot literally die, personification represents what remains literally and emotionally of the city. The town is emotionally dead due to the large amount of hope everyone lost after the fire. Because all faith has been lost among the residents, there is a loss of life in the city. Walcott then develops the idea of ​​the physical death of the city by describing the physical destruction caused by the fire. During his memories of walking through the devastation, he vividly describes the "razed" buildings, the "collapsed" ground and the "torn apart" houses that were destroyed by the fire. His rich use of concrete diction effectively portrays the dark and painful picture of the city. His diction in describing the town reveals the severity of the scale of demolition the fire left for the residents. In addition to describing the emotional effects of the fire through literary devices and the literal demolition through diction, Walcott also communicates the lack of impact of the fire. about nature through its extensive use of imagery. He begins the poem by calling the firestorm the “burning gospel.” This metaphorical comparison suggests that the fire spread as quickly as a preacher would spread the gospel. The fire spread quickly and destroyed the "wooden world", but it left the "church sky" undamaged. This suggests that the sky was like the untouchable church and was not affected by the fire. Religious imagery continues to permeate the poem as the hills are compared to the "herds of faith." This comparison suggests that the hills are also untouched by fire, just like the sky. The religious imagery throughout the poem suggests that the fire was almost=1816688)