... , actual and ideal from the perspective of a narrator wishing to live immortally or die easefully. The way that music functions in the poem defines the way the narration views the answer to such questions; the authoritative force of the poem lies in the indeterminacy of the final line and the previous cycle of repression, transference, and return that the narrator's psychology delineates through music ... of several forms. The music of life, music of death, and the music of immortality are all part of the whole of the play, the ... the bird-song illicits, but is slow to remove the pain, ...

• Word Count: 1517
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... . She questions whether she lives her current life in order to protect those of her past. She further continues by asking the question, "What do we pray for? We pray for food as all do, and for health and for the increase of our kind.....". The final point Atwood states in determining what it is to be a living creature, above all else, to survive ... her belief of reincarnation and her previous life as a bat is merely a small issue within the writing. Due to the fact that reincarnation is a highly objectionable subject, one must read further into the writing to attain what is inarguable ...

• Word Count: 603
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate