"The Bat" by Theodore Roethke

"The Bat" conveys a fearful and foreshadowing tone while Theodore Roethke uses metaphor to compare "The Bat" to individuals unmet and experiences unencountered. At the forefront of the poem, the analogy seems calm, as "By day the bat is cousin to the mouse. / He likes the attic of an aging house." This illustrates that at times, the bat can be a motionless image, one that causes no harm to one who sees it. The next few sentences demonstrate the different personalities of the bat, as it is seen to both "[loop] in crazy figures" and "make a hat above his head." Like the unknown, the bat takes on several personalities and ideas, but it most often takes on the appearance of the last stanza: "something is amiss or out of place / When mice with wings can wear a human face." Here, the metaphor is explained to the reader, as this fearful picture of a human mouse shows that humans not yet seen in life take on this foreshadowed image of a fearsome mouse, with their intentions unknown. In lies Roethke's thesis, as he uses metaphor to illustrate that it is unclear what life has in store for every individual, but it will likely at first seem scary until "The Bat" is shown in its light.