By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.
He likes the attic of an aging house.
His fingers make a hat about his head.
His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead.
He loops in crazy figures half the night
Among the trees that face the corner light.
But when he brushes up against a screen,
We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:
For something is amiss or out of place
When mice with wings can wear a human face
He likes the attic of an aging house.
His fingers make a hat about his head.
His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead.
He loops in crazy figures half the night
Among the trees that face the corner light.
But when he brushes up against a screen,
We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:
For something is amiss or out of place
When mice with wings can wear a human face
Roethke wrote “The Bat” in an attempt
to make others see that fearing the unknown is wrong. Roethke went through
stages of mental health and because of this he was fired from not one but two
different teaching positions. The doctors at the time couldn’t diagnosis him. The
school’s feared his outbreaks instead of trying to get him help.
People today fear what they don’t
understand. I think that is part of the reason this poem hold so much meaning.
People will always fear the unknown. The only way to fix this problem is to
educate ourselves. Knowledge is the key. Roethke used the image of the bat
because some many do believe the stories of “blood sucking creatures”. The true
is the bats are mostly harmless and even benefit humans by eating bugs such as
mosquitoes.
Roethke
depicts the bat as whimsical, which isn’t a common portrayal of a bat. The end
rhymes create a clear line between each statement. He assumed people that there
is no need to fear the bat. Roethke created an abstract diction by choosing
words like brushes, amiss, and crazy figure. This subconsciously furthers the
notion of false or unclear knowledge verses the truth and fact. He didn’t want
humans to fear the bat because it is similar to them, just like he didn’t want
himself and other mentally ill people to be feared because they are slightly
different. Some of the most gifted individuals in our history were once feared
because they were “weird”, “odd” or “different”. These words shouldn’t be used
as negative connotations of people things or object s we don’t understand
I
personally think, Roethke just wanted people to try to understand the things
they fear. You might be shocked to discover the thing you feared is more like
you than you thought.
