Search of Survival

             Many people find themselves reluctant to take a stance on theories of the supernatural and/or life after death. The subject of reincarnation, for example, is an issue that falls under scrutiny by both 'religion' and 'science'. In Margaret Atwood's "My Life As A Bat", the author uses this very topic, not as to question the reality of life after death, but to question the reality of life over life. The fact that reincarnation as a whole remains questionable upon the individual reader, Atwood works around the surrealism to inflict the reader with the fact that any living identity outside of the human race is, by society's standards, to be addressed as inferior.
             The essay, broken down into five numerical parts begins with the theme of reincarnation and slowly leads us into the theme of human superiority. She begins with the affirmation that she belongs to the firm believers of reincarnation. "In the previous-life market, there is not such a great demand for Peruvian ditch-diggers as there is for Cleopatra." (Atwood, 17). By establishing the fact that even in humanity, the lives of historical figures outrank the lives of mere society, she begins her introduction into the lives of those in the animal kingdom; targeting specifically and with detail, the bat.
             Atwood captures the essence of the bat in her explanation of nightmares she's had as well as society's' views on bats as movie plots in vampire films and deadly weapons and casualties of war tactics. Each degrading the life of a bat by the hands of human flesh, the same human flesh which Atwood later declares has a higher fear factor than that of an ordinary weapon.
             Whichever the scenario, we can come to the conclusion that humans have thus far throughout history made a mockery of bats through Hollywood, have been highly negligent of living creatures through World War II experiments and yet have somehow still managed to despise the creatures for being deadly creatures of the night.