The Diving Bell and The Butterfly - SuperSummary Study Guide

The Diving Bell
and the Butterfly
Jean-Dominique Bauby
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly SuperSummary 1
Table of Contents
O V ERV IEW 3
C H A P TER S UM M A RIES & A N A LYS ES 5
Prologue 5
Chapter 1 6
Chapter 2 7
Chapters 3-4 8
Chapters 5-6 10
Chapter 7 12
Chapter 8 13
Chapter 9 14
Chapter 10 15
Chapter 11 16
Chapter 12 17
Chapter 13 18
Chapter 14 19
Chapter 15 20
Chapter 16 22
Chapter 17 23
Chapter 18 24
Chapter 19 25
Chapter 20 27
Chapters 21-22 28
Chapter 23 30
Chapter 24 32
Chapter 25 32
Chapter 26 34
Chapter 27 35
Chapter 28 38
K EY FIG URES 40
Jean-Dominique Bauby 40
Céleste 40
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Théophile 40
Florence 40
Sylvie 41
Claude 41
TH EM ES 42
The Resilience of the Human Spirit and Will to Life 42

The Paradoxical Coexistence of the Magical and the Mundane 42
The Fleeting Nature of Life and Pleasure 42
The Struggle with Embodied Identity 43
S YM B O LS & M O TIFS 44
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 44

Women and Feminine Figures 44
Assorted Anonymous Medical Staff 45
Coldness/Darkness 45
IM P O RTA N T Q UO TES 46
ES S A Y TO P IC S 55

Overview
This memoir is a series of autobiographical vignettes that was composed over the span of
two months (July-August, 1996) by Jean-Dominique Bauby, with the help of a publishing
assistant named Claude. He dispatches from room 119 of the Naval Hospital at Berck-sur-
Mer, France. The vignettes do not follow a chronological order, and interweave recollections
of various eras in Bauby’s life with his contemporary reality.
Bauby suffered a massive stroke on December 8, 1995 that left him with locked-in syndrome:
almostcompletely paralyzed, save for a limited ability to move his head, and to blink his left
eye, the faculties of his mind were nonetheless left completely intact. Using a special
alphabet ordered according to the frequency that each letter is used in the French language,
Bauby’s interlocutors (his various visitors, Claude, and some hospital staff) read out the
letters and wait for Bauby to blink in correspondence with the letter he desired. In this
manner, he was able to both carry out labored conversations and compose his memoir.
The book begins with a prologue that details Bauby’s physical and mental state. He likens his
physical state to being inside of a diving bell, while a butterfly symbolizes the intact agility of
his mind. The book then launches into a series of vignettes, which cover a range of topics.
Bauby relays episodes from his former life in crisp, vibrant detail and recounts the imaginary
musings and vivid dreams which take his mind on flights of fancy while his body lies in his
hospital bed. He also depicts the medical staff that cares for him, the travails of his new life,
and the tender, wistful joy that characterizes his continuing relationships with his loved ones.
These include his former partner Sylvie, the mother of his young children Théophile and
Céleste, and his assortment of close friends.
His narrations of his previous life include several episodes from his childhood, a day at the
horse races spent with his good friend Vincent, a traveling vacation with a former lover named
Joséphine, and his days at the offices of Elle magazine, of which he was editor-in-chief. The
vignettes from his new life with locked-in syndrome includea recounting of a day spent at the
beach with his children and Sylvie, a visit from an ill-tempered ophthalmologist, and
depictions of the staff members and fellow patients which whom he shares the hospital. His
imaginary or dreamed excursions include his imagined conversations with Empress Eugénie—
the wife of Napoleon III, an extremely vivid dream in which he and Bernard have been caught
up in political intrigue in a speakeasy hidden in an automobile graveyard, and his somnolent

wanderings in a wax museum that enshrines his hospital experience.The penultimate vignette
relays, in great detail, the day of his grievous stroke, effectively mirroring the prologue by
grounding the reader in the chronological and material reality of his situation, and reining in
(for a moment) the more fantastical elements of the narrative.
Jean-Dominique Bauby died on March 9, 1997—a year and three months after the
catastrophic stroke that left him with locked-in syndrome, and just two months after the
publication of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue
Prologue Summary
In the prologue, we are introduced to the narrator, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who writes from a
first-person point of view. He opens by describing his awakening at the break of day. He
relays, “My heels hurt, my head weighs a ton, and something like a giant invisible diving bell
holds my whole body prisoner” (3). He then surveys his room as it emerges from the waning
darkness. He reveals that he has been confined to his bed for the past six months, and that
his life as he knew it was “snuffed out” on Friday, December 8th of the previous year.
Bauby explains that a massive stroke, which he terms a“cerebrovascular accident”, has
grievously injured his brain stem (4). Somewhat sardonically, he muses that, in the past, such
a massive stroke simply resulted in death—but given the advances in medical technology that
characterize the age in which he lives, he has survived. He has survived with “locked-in
syndrome”. The syndrome leaves him completely paralyzed save for his ability to blink his left
eyelid. He is unable to speak or move, but his mind is completely intact. Essentially, he is a
prisoner in his own body.
Bauby reveals that he was in a deep coma for twenty days, and that he endured several
subsequent weeks of groggy semi-consciousness before fully awakening at the end of
January. He now lies in Room 119 of the Naval Hospital at Berck-sur-Mer, from which he
“writes.”
He hears seven chapel bells and feels pain in his hands, although he cannot ascertain
whether it is a burning pain or an icy sensation. He stretches, although his limbs only move a
fraction of an inch. He then remarks that his diving bell becomes less restrictive as his “mind
takes flight like a butterfly” (5). He muses that, within his own imagination, there are myriad
things to do: from wandering in space to visiting King Midas’s court, to sliding down beside
the woman he loves and stroking her sleeping face, to discovering Atlantis. He then reveals
that a worker from his publisher will soon arrive dictation of what he playfully terms his
“travel notes” and begins to painstakingly craft his sentences in his head.
At 7:30, a duty nurse enacts a routine he knows well: she draws the curtain, checks the

tracheotomy and drip feed, and turns the TV on so that Bauby can watch the news. He sees
that, presently, a cartoon “celebrates the adventures of the fastest frog in the West” and then
muses, “And what if I asked to be changed into a frog? What then?” (6).
Prologue Analysis
The Prologue lays out important factual information that the reader needs in order to ground
themselves within the timeline and facts of Bauby’s life. It is especially important that Bauby
does this at the outset of the book, because its remainder is comprised of a series of
vignettes that wander chronologically—interspersing narration of Bauby’s current state with
recollections of his life prior to his stroke, and even recounting of his hospital-bed dreams. It
also sets a tone that will remain consistently marked by both wonder and sarcasm, levity and
gravity. The central motifs of the diving bell and the butterfly are introduced. The diving bell is
a symbol of Bauby’s restrictive physical state and the manner in which locked-in syndrome
cuts him off from communication and a full experience of human life. The butterfly,
conversely, represents the resilience and persistence of his mind and of his indomitable spirit.
He ends the chapter with a playful question (“And what if I asked to be changed into a frog?
What then?”) as both a playful jab at his physical transformation and a prelude to the flights
of fancy that characterize many of the ensuing vignettes.
Chapter 1
Chapter 1 Summary: “The Wheelchair”
Bauby opens this chapter by recounting the day that his wheelchair arrived in his hospital
room. On that day, a bevy of white-coated medical staff, including nurses, orderlies, a physical
therapist, an occupational therapist, a psychologist, a neurologist, interns, and even the
department head arrive in his room for the unveiling of the chair. Bauby, however, confesses
that he could not make the connection between the wheelchair and himself, and instead
thought that he was being ejected from his room to make room for another patient. Because
no one had yet clearly articulated his situation to him, he had clung to the belief that he would
soon very quickly recover his ability to move and speak.Rather than thinking about such a
thing as a wheelchair, his mind was occupied with “a thousand projects: a novel, travel, a play,
marketing a fruit cocktail of [his] own invention” (8).
On this day, the members of the medical staff dress him by painfully manipulating his limbs
into clothing. Two attendants then lift him from the bed by his shoulders and feet, and dump

him “unceremoniously into the wheelchair” (8). It is through these occurrences that Bauby
realizes that he has crossed the threshold into being a full-fledged quadriplegic, rather than
merely a patient with an uncertain prognosis. Sardonically, he remarks that the medical staff
came close to applauding this moment, which he clearly recalls with grief that is,
notwithstanding, laced with his unique levity and wit. He recounts his feelings of utter
devastation as the medical staff pushes him all the way across the medical floor to check for
any spasms the chair and movement might trigger. He laments his physical helplessness and
fully realizes his new life as a paralyzed person who uses a wheelchair. He reveals that he
sees the wheelchair as a life sentence, and that the realization of the truth of his new life is
“as blinding as an atomic explosion and keener than a guillotine blade” (9).
Then, the numerous medical professionals suddenly leave his room, and the orderlies lay him
back in bed. He closes the chapter on a melancholic note—recalling the abandoned
wheelchair in the corner of the room, his father’s favorite quiz show on the television, and the
streak of rain on his windows.
Chapter 1 Analysis
In this chapter, the wheelchair serves as a symbol of Bauby’s new life with locked-in
syndrome. The manner in which he greeted it—with a lack of understanding that it was meant
for him—mirrors the way in which he was slow to accept that his stroke inaugurated a drastic,
permanent, and grievous change to his life. The shock of realizing that the wheelchair is for
him thus mirrors the shock of the sudden realization of his new reality. His depiction of the
gaiety and gravitas that the medical staff adopt on this occasion highlights both their tender
care and their ultimate inability to fully comprehend his perspective as someone with locked-
in syndrome. And the way that they suddenly take leave of him, leaving him with the
melancholic sight of the abandoned wheelchair, the hum of the television, and the rain-
streaked windows, depicts Bauby’s bereavement, his isolation, and his entrapment.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 Summary: “Prayer”
Bauby opens this chapter by intimating that, although shocking, the revelations that
wheelchair provided are helpful. They have helped him to be more realistic by giving up on his
grandiose plans and freed his friends to speak freely, rather than sugarcoating the situation.
As it is no longer taboo, he and his friends begin to openly discuss locked-in syndrome. He

reveals that it is an exceedingly rare condition. And because he is able to swivel his head, his
is not a classic case. He also reveals that, if his nervous system decides to start working
again, it will do so at an extremely slow pace. Therefore, he can expect several years to go by
before he can wiggle his toes. He also that, in the long term, he can hope to be able to eat
without a gastric tube. He also hopes to be able to eventually breathe on his own, and to
speak. His short-term hope, though, is to be able to swallow the saliva that endlessly pools in
his mouth.
He then reveals that “in every corner of the world, the most diverse deities have been solicited
in [his] name” (12-13). As a result, he has taken to assigning each of the spirits being invoked
for him a specific task. For example, the little packets of Japanese incense hanging on his
wall have been assigned to his larynx. A Cameroon holy man enlisted by a friend has been
assigned his right eye. The monks of a Bordeaux brotherhood, who regularly dedicate prayers
to him at the behest of his mother-in-law, have been assigned his hearing problems. Each of
these assignments, however, pales in comparison with the prayers of his daughter, Céleste,
who recites a small prayer for her father every evening before she goes to sleep. About the
prayers, Bauby remarks: “Since we fall asleep at roughly the same hour, I set out of the
kingdom of slumber with this wonderful talisman, which shields me from all harm” (13).
Chapter 2 Analysis
Here, Bauby reveals the acceptance that has replaced the shock and denial that characterized
Chapter 1. The poignancy of the contrast between his lofty long-term goals and the much
more humble short-term goal of being able to control the saliva that pools in the corners of
his mouth provides a vivid window into the new concerns that plague the existence to which
he must now adjust. However, he is clearly invested in depicting his resilient sense of wonder
and imagination, which he does while narrating the imaginative way in which he has parceled
out his ailments and assigned specific complaints to particular prayers being uttered on his
behalf. The great tenderness with which he relays his daughter, and his depiction of her
nightly prayer for him as “a wonderful talisman, which shields [him] from all harm” is a lovely
testament to his abiding love and admiration for her.
Chapters 3-4
Chapter 3 Summary: “Bathtime”
This chapter recounts Bauby’s experience of being bathed. It begins at 8:30 in the morning,

when a physical therapist named Brigitte arrives. She exercises his arms and legs. He reveals
that he has lost 66 pounds in twenty weeks, and then muses with playful sarcasm that when
he began a diet a week before his stroke, he did not dream of such a dramatic result.
Bauby recounts that he can now move his head 90 degrees, which he does in order to include
the slate roof of the building next door and his son Théophile’s drawing of Mickey Mouse in
his line of vision. His time with Brigitte ends with a facial massage. He reveals that there is a
numb zone in his face, as well as areas in which he still has feeling and movement. The line
that demarcates one zone from the other runs across his mouth, rendering him only capable
of a half-smile. He muses that this physical condition faithfully mirrors his internal state, and
that the commonplace event of bathing has become one that invokes subtle and intricate
emotions.
On one day, he might find it amusing to be 45 years old and have his bottom wiped and
diapered like a newborn. On another day, he might shed a tear at the unbearable sadness of
the very same action being performed on him. His weekly bath fills him with both pleasure
and sadness. Still, being able to feel pleasure while being soaked in the tub brings back vivid
memories of being able to enjoy a leisurely bath with a tea or a Scotch and a good book or a
pile of newspapers. He muses, though, that he scarcely has enough time to wallow in his
sadness, as he quickly finds himself being wheeled back to his bed on an extremely
uncomfortable gurney—because he must be dressed by 10:30 and ready to go to the
rehabilitation center. He closes the chapter by recounting that he has refused the hideous
jogging suit offered to him by the hospital, opting instead to be attired as he was when he
was a student. He muses that, like the bath, the clothing could easily bring back painful
memories of his previous life. He instead chooses to see them as proof that he still wants to
be himself. “If I must drool, I may as well drool on cashmere,” he remarks (17).
Chapter 4 Summary:“The Alphabet”
In this chapter, Bauby explains how he communicates with people. He uses an alternate
alphabet, printed in a notebook, which is ordered according to the frequency that each letter is
used in the French language. Visitors read off letters, and Bauby blinks at every desired letter
in order to spell out words and sentences. He calls this method of transcribing his thoughts a
code. The notebook is also used to transcribe his thoughts and conversations, and he likens it
to a Delphic oracle’s record. He provides a playful image of himself, alone in his room at night,
imagining the letters of his alphabet the letters as the members of a chorus line which dances

hand in hand across the expanse of his walls.
Bauby says that crossword fans and Scrabble players have a head start with using his code,
and that girls do better with it than boys. He also states that some people, through practice
and frequency of use, know the alternate alphabet by heart and do not need to read it from
the notebook. He muses about what conclusions anthropologists would draw if, in the year
3000, they were to flip through his notebooks—which contain haphazardly scribbled remarks
interspersed with gibberish.
He then contrasts the different categories his visitors fall into. For example, nervous visitors
become flustered and self-deprecating, which places less burden on him, since they are eager
to fill in the blanks of both sides of the conversation. Shy people place a heavier
conversational burden on him to drive the conversation. Meticulous people are very precise
with the code and never presume to predict or finish his words. He ends the chapter by
playfully recounting a time in which a more impulsive person jumped to conclusions about
him remarking about the moon (lune) when he was really asking for his glasses ( lunettes).
Chapter 3-4 Analysis
These two chapters provide vivid glimpses into Bauby’s new life in the hospital. While Chapter
3 does address the indignity that he feels at being treated like a newborn baby due to his
paralysis, he does not fail to inject his musings with an unflagging sense of both humor and
great emotional nuance. His rejection of the hospital jogging suit, which he deems hideous,
and his subsequent insistence upon being able to wear his own clothes both signal the
strength and resilience of his spirit. Similarly, his depiction of the laborious work that he and
his interlocutors must undertake in order to communicate is interlaced with his delicate and
highly-detailed observations of his visitors, which he communicates through his classification
of the various foibles that they exhibit within their usage of the alphabet. Here, too, his
powers of observation and his facility with words and nuanced detail assert the enduring
agility and strength of his mind and spirit.
Chapters 5-6
Chapter 5 Summary: “The Empress”
In this chapter, Bauby discusses Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III. She is his
hospital’s original patroness, and a stained-glass window depicts her likeness in its main hall.

The hall also contains a letter in which the deputy stationmaster of Berck’s railroad depot
describes her visit to the hospital in 1864. Bauby takes a flight of fancy in in his writing about
this letter, which he has read many times. He imagines himself caught up in the action of the
visit that it describes—mingling with the Empress’s ladies-in-waiting, following her from ward
to ward, and imagining her yellow-ribboned hat, her silk parasol, and the scent of her royal
perfume.
He even recalls a time that he imagined confessing his woes to her. In this episode, he was
shocked by what he initially perceived as a stranger’s face, which was reflected in the stained-
glass window. He describes the face as one that looked as if it has emerged from a vat of
formaldehyde, with a twisted mouth, mangled nose, tousled hair, and a frightened gaze. He
observed that one of its eyes was sewn shut, and that the other was goggled, before suddenly
realizing that the face was his own. He then recalls that, upon this realization, he began to
laugh at the totality of his calamity—not only is he “paralyzed, mute, half-deaf, deprived of all
pleasures, and reduced to the existence of a jellyfish, but [he] was also horrible to behold”
(25). He then continues with his flight of fancy, recalling that Eugénie was at first taken aback
by his laughter, before becoming infected by his mirth and joining in with him. He even muses,
with a self-deprecating playfulness, that he would have invited her to join him in a dance, if he
could. He closes the chapter by stating that, since that flight of fancy, he always detects a
hint of amusement in the empress’s smile whenever he sees it.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Cinecittà”
Bauby opens this chapter by musing that the Naval Hospital—with its large, intricate
silhouette—must be a sight to behold. He tells us that the words “City of Paris” have been
emblazoned on the façade of the hospital’s most imposing annex, which was originally
created for sick children in need of a healthier environment than Paris hospitals. He observes
that the hospital has retained an isolated status—it is in actually in the Pas de Calais region,
although on paper it is regarded as Parisian.
He then intimates that he is very observant of all the goings-on of the hospital, and relishes
the opportunity to be taken on alternate daily paths through it, so that he may see new faces,
encounter new areas of the hospital, or catch a whiff of food being cooked. He states that he
arranges for these deviations in his routine by purposefully failing to alert any given person
pushing his chair when they have taken the wrong route. He then recounts that it is in this
manner that he became fortunate enough to glimpse a lighthouse while emerging from the

elevator on the wrong floor. He states that he has placed himself under the lighthouse’s
protection, and that, furthermore, it is through the lighthouse’s guidance and benevolence
that he can sometimes navigate himself to Cinecittà—a region in what he terms his
“imaginary geography of the hospital” (29).
Cinecittà is what he has decided to name a perpetually deserted terrace in the Sorrel ward of
the hospital. He tells us that his room is in the Sorrel ward, and that there are other wards,
such as the Ménard. Each of these wards is named after an eminent surgeon. He tells us that
“the vast balconies of Cinecittà open onto a landscape heavy with the poetic and slightly
offbeat charm of a movie set” (28). Bauby then describes the view from the balconies in
highly evocative, emotional, and lushly sensory detail. He also reveals that, when he is in
Cinecittà, in his mind, he becomes the greatest director of all time—either making edits to
classic films such as Touch of Evil or Stagecoach, or becoming the protagonist of Jean-Luc
Godard’s Pierrot le Fou. He ends the chapter with a wistful image of himself at Cinecittà
during the winter, warmly bundled up while watching the lighthouse as it sweeps the horizon
with hope-filled light after sunset.
With Chapters 3 and 4 detailing the banalities and small indignities of his new existence,
Bauby spends Chapters 5 and 6 reveling in the power of his imagination, which remains
completely intact, even as his body lies inert in the hospital. These two chapters showcase
the wonder and richness of the sallies of his mind. Here, Bauby asserts that he can make use
of both his new physical reality—exemplified by the Empress—and the intact faculties of his
imagination—exemplified by the imaginary territory which he has christened Cinecittà (the
name is based in the root word “cine”, meaning motion picture)—to conjure wondrous images
full of lush detail and playful humor as well as the subtle pathos of both loss and resilience.
Here, he is allowing no room for self-pity, instead asserting the redeeming power of his mind
and his indomitable will to live. His astonishing ability to fashion sumptuously-detailed new
adventures, even as he remains a quadriplegic, is a testament to the sheer power of his mind,
and a bold declaration of unassailable will to enjoy the richness of life.
Chapter 7
Chapter 7 Summary: “Tourists”
In this chapter, Bauby tells us that the Naval Hospital—which he interchangeably calls

“Berck”—shifted its focus away from caring for children after World War II. He then breaks
down the categories of patients that are housed by the hospital. In one section there are
comatose patients “at death’s door” (31). Bauby states that the presence of these patients
looms over the others, “almost like a guilty conscience” (31). There is also a wing for the
elderly and one for obese patients. He then specifies that the bulk of the hospital’s patients
are “survivors of sport, of the highway, and of every possible and imaginable kind of domestic
accident” (32). Since these patients remain in Berck for temporary periods—until they have
sufficiently recovered from their injuries—Bauby terms them “tourists.”
He then specifies that there are a few other patients like him—“broken-winged birds, voiceless
parrots, ravens of doom, who have made [their] nest in a dead-end corridor of the neurology
department” (32). He sardonically remarks that he and his compatriots spoil the view for
others. He then paints a picture of the physical therapy room, in which “the tourists” are
allowed to perform their exercises with minimal supervision, while he lies, prone, and tied to
an inclined board that slowly raised to a vertical position. He listens to the jolly conversation
of the “tourists” beneath him, but observes that, once he turns to try to join in on the fun, they
avert their eyes.
Chapter 7 Analysis
Here, Bauby continues to showcase his remarkable powers of observation, as well as his deep
sensitivity to the world around him. His choice to term the patients that will soon leave the
hospital “tourists” betrays a bit of resentment and jealousy, although those negative
sentiments never outweigh the grace and which consistently anchors his voice. Through this
“tourist” designation, Bauby is able to lament his position as one who is locked-in, while
simultaneously asserting his acute awareness of how he is seen by those whose afflictions
are not nearly as grave nor permanent as his own. His keen awareness of the discomfort and
silence that befalls the tourists when he tries to join them also demonstrates the way that the
syndrome has cut himself off from the world of the able-bodied—not only by virtue of his
physical shortcomings, but through the disgust and aversion that his body and condition
incite.
Chapter 8
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Sausage”
In this chapter, Bauby reveals that, over the last eight months, the only food or drink he has

actually swallowed are a few drops of lemon-flavored water and half a teaspoon of yogurt. He
tells us that he receives his daily calories from two or three bags of brownish fluid per day,
administered directly to his stomach through a tube.
He then contrasts this current state of affairs with a vivid recounting of his ability to summon
sumptuous meals from his memories through the power of his imagination. In his mind, he
treats himself to whatever meal he fancies at any given moment—from a perfectly-tender
boeuf bourguignon to a simple soft-boiled egg with buttered and salted toast. He further
elaborates: “indigestion is never a problem. Naturally, I use the finest ingredients: the freshest
vegetables, fish straight from the water, the most delicately marbled meat” (36). He then
provides more details about his imaginary feasts, specifying that not only they are always
perfect, but they also match the seasons. He ends the chapter by revealing that sausage is
one of his favorite foods, and that his fondness for it dates back forty years. When he was a
child, he would ask his grandfather’s nurse for a sausage every time he visited his
grandfather’s gloomy apartment. While he only has a vague recollection of his grandfather,
his memory of the sausage remains crisp and vivid.
Chapter 8 Analysis
In this chapter, Bauby depicts the grief of his current existence through the stark and
powerful contrast that he makes between being fed through a tube and the simple joy of
eating and preparing good food. Although this depiction of grief is still couched in a
celebration of his own ability to conjure delectable meals through the power of his
imagination, the poignancy of loss still surfaces. His use of sumptuous, evocative detail
therefore reads not only as an assertion of the persistence of his spirit and imagination, but
as a dirge for the pleasures he once enjoyed.
Chapter 9
Chapter 9 Summary: “Guardian Angel”
Here, Bauby introduces his speech therapist, Sandrine, whom he refers to as a guardian angel.
He reveals that, while most of his friends have adopted his special alphabet system, Sandrine
and a female psychologist are the only ones among the medical staff who use it. The majority
of the staff attempt to divine his attempts at communication through his limited facial
expressions, winks, and nods, while certain cruel others slip out of the room while pretending
not to see his attempts at communication. These facts make Sandrine’s twice-daily

appearance an especially comforting respite which “at once sends all gloomy thoughts
packing” and makes the “invisible and eternally imprisoning diving bell” of his condition seem
“less oppressive” (40).
Sandrine does marvelous and laborious work as a speech therapist, which Bauby calls an art.
He likens her assistance with his enunciation of the alphabet on his birthday to a lovely
present, although the exercise was exhausting and his voice did not feel like it was his own.
Sometimes, his loved ones call during his time with Sandrine, and he catches the fragments
of life that they offer like one might catch a butterfly. His daughter Céleste, who will be nine in
five months, tells him about her adventures with her pony. Bauby then wonders if the silence
he is forced into takes a toll on his loved ones. When his partner Florence asks if he is there,
he himself wonders if he is.
Chapter 9 Analysis
Here, we see the recurrence of the diving bell and the butterfly as contrasting symbols.
Sandrine is depicted as a figure that eases the oppression of the diving bell within which
locked-in syndrome has enclosed him, and his fleeting, treasured correspondences with his
loved ones are likened to butterflies. The butterfly—fragile, evasive, beautiful, and delicate—is
a perfect analog to not only the bits of love and connection the syndrome has rendered
elusive, but to his former life as a whole. We see that not only is the book a treatise on what
he has lost, it is an entreaty to all, even the able-bodied, to treasure all of the bits of life that
they can. The open question with which he ends the chapter—his unanswered inquiry as to
whether he is still the same person at all, acutely depicts the bereaved purgatory into which
he has been cast: his mind remains unchanged and as nimble and free as it was prior to his
stroke, while his body has completely broken.
Chapter 10
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Photo”
Bauby opens the chapter by recounting the last time he saw his 92-year-old father, which was
during the week of his stroke. He recounts, in vivid detail, the way that he tenderly gave his
father a shave. He recalls that, even in his old age, his father has “lost none of his splendor”
(44). He recalls a black-and-white photograph of himself as child that had been stuck into the
frame of a large mirror in his father’s house: “I was eleven, my ears protruded, and I looked
like a somewhat simpleminded schoolboy. Mortifying to realize that at that age I was already

a confirmed dunce,” he muses (44). In the photograph, he is at a miniature golf course.
He then intimates that both he and his father are, in different senses, locked-in and locked
away from each other. Bauby cannot leave the hospital, and his father can no longer climb
down the steps to his apartment nor voyage to see him. His father does call him occasionally,
and Bauby compassionately notes that it must be difficult for his father to speak to a son
who cannot speak back.
At the end of the chapter, Bauby states that his father has sent him the aforementioned
photograph of himself. At first, Bauby cannot understand why. Then, he begins to remember
the time the photograph was taken—an occasion on which his parents took him to a “windy
and not very sparkling seaside town. In his strong, angular handwriting, Dad had simply
noted: Berck-sur-Mer, April 1963” (45). The photograph was taken at the very same place
where Bauby now finds himself.
Chapter 10 Analysis
This chapter displays the depth of emotion and observation that Bauby is capable of, as well
as his sense for irony. The way that he and his father now mirror each other, in their distinct
conditions of being locked-in, brings a sense of deep grief to the narrative. The irony that
imbues the fact that the photograph depicts him as a child in Berck-sur-Mer, where he now
finds himself permanently moored, heralds both a full-circle serendipity and a bitter grief. We
seem to be invited to ask the question: was Bauby destined for this fate?
Chapter 11
Chapter 11 Summary: “Yet Another Coincidence”
Here, Bauby recounts that, shortly before his stroke, he re-read Alexandre Dumas’s The Count
of Monte Cristo. He recalls that one of the book’s characters, Grandpa Noirtier, is a
nightmarish figure whom no one would ever aspire to be. “A living mummy” who is “three-
quarters of the way into the grave” and who can communicate only by blinking one eye,
Grandpapa Noirtier is “literature’s first—and so far only—case of locked-in syndrome” (47).
Bauby muses that his re-reading of the novel cannot have been a coincidence. He reveals that
he had been toying with the idea of writing a modernized, subversive version of the novel, in
which vengeance remained the driving force, but the protagonist was a woman. He playfully
likens his idea to treason against the literary gods, for which he is now being punished with

locked-in syndrome. He also playfully confesses that sometimes he feels that Grandpapa
Noirtier haunts the halls of the hospital. In a flight of playful superstition and in order to “foil
the decrees of fate,” he is now planning a “vast saga in which the key witness is not a
paralytic but a runner” (48).
Chapter 11 Analysis
Bauby’s coincidental re-reading of The Count of Monte Cristo, which contains perhaps
literature’s only character who suffers from locked-in syndrome, shortly before his stroke, is
here rendered as a playful kismet, while the specter of Grandpapa Noirtier ominously wheeling
through the hospital halls on a rusty wheelchair imbues the chapter with an unmistakable
sense of doom. Here, we see Bauby delicately balancing levity with a keen sense of the
darkness into which his stroke has plunged him. He chooses, though, to end the chapter on a
bright note, documenting, with playful tenderness, the particular foray into superstitionthat
animates his planned literary project in which a runner is the protagonist.
Chapter 12
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Dream”
Bauby tells us that the dreams that he had during his coma sometimes come back to him in
vivid detail. In this chapter, he recalls one of them. In it, thick snow is falling. It covers an
automobile graveyard that he and his best friend Bernard are walking through. For three days,
he and Bernard have been trying to get back to a France immobilized by a general strike. They
find themselves in the automobile graveyard as a result of traveling difficulties brought on by
the strike. Their attire is ill-equipped to keep them warm. Piles of junk cars loom above them,
stacked on an overpass that bisects the graveyard.
He and Bernard arrive at their appointment with an influential Italian businessman. At his
headquarters, they knock on a yellow steel door with a sign that contains instructions for
treating electric shock. The watchman who admits them is Radovan Karadzic, leader of the
Bosnian Serbs. Bernard tells Karadzic that Bauby is having trouble breathing, and Karadzic
performs a tracheotomy on him. He and Bernard then proceed to a study in the cellar, which
has the look of a nightclub. The owner is a clone of Fiat’s former chairman Gianni Agnelli. A
hostess seats him at the bar, where, instead of glasses, there are tubes that dangle
downwards. At the behest of a barman, Bauby inserts a tube into his mouth, and fluid that
utterly fills him with warmth begins to flow. It flows until he wants to stop drinking, and he

tries to signal to the barman, who meets his request with an enigmatic smile. He soon finds
himself drugged, and his vision distorted. Bernard speaks to him, but all he hears is Ravel’s
Bolero.
Within the dream, he awakes later to the sound of an alarm. The hostess hoists him onto her
back and tells him that they must get out because the police are on their way. Outside, night
has fallen and the cold is bitter. They manage to evade the police, but his body remains
leaden—petrified, mummified, vitrified. He fears that his friends will too become immobile. He
longs to warn them. But, in the dream, as in reality, he cannot utter a single word.
Chapter 12 Analysis
This dream, told in extremely sharp detail, serves as a metaphor for the sense of entrapment
that Bauby feels, while showcasing his remarkable gift for storytelling. The vivid sensory
detail with which he retells the dream is utterly enrapturing, and its pervading images of
isolation, bitter coldness, and bodily immobilization effectively serve as mirrors for Bauby’s
waking life. Intriguing, too, is the figure of Bernard. Even in the environment of a dream, the
deeply warm camaraderie that clearly exists between the two men comes into sharp relief.
The retelling of a dream, then, becomes both a container for both the existential aches that
Bauby feels, as well as a showcase for the diverse and enduring faculties of his mind—both
its rich, imaginative faculties and its enduring capacity for emotional depth and solid human
connection.
Chapter 13
Chapter 13 Summary: “Voice Offstage”
Here, Bauby reveals that his right eyelid was sewn shut in late January. It was sewn shut by
the hospital ophthalmologist, whom Bauby describes as arrogant, brusque, sarcastic, and
utterly lacking in care or bedside manner. The doctor barks out “six months” and cannot be
bothered to try to decipher the questions that Bauby tries to relay with his eye, even though it
is his job to look at eyes. Bauby tells us that his right eye must be sewn shut for six months
because it is at risk for an ulcerated cornea due to the fact that it no longer blinks.
Bauby muses that perhaps the hospital employs the nasty-tempered ophthalmologist so that
he can serve as the scapegoat for the resentments of its long-term patients, as no other
members of the staff elicit such bad feelings through careless behavior. He reveals that,

although he feels the need to love and admire just as desperately as he needs to breathe, he
also nurses a modicum of resentment and anger in order to keep his mind sharp. He likens
this practice to the way that a pressure cooker has a safety valve that keeps it from
exploding.
He then tells us that The Pressure Cooker would be the title of a play he hopes to write, which
would be based on his experiences in the hospital. He has also thought of calling his play The
Eye and The Diving Bell. Set in he hospital, it would follow the trials and travails of an
“ambitious, somewhat cynical” and heretofore “stranger to failure” Mr. L (55-56). It would
document Mr. L’s changing relationship to his family and friends, and his associates with the
advertising agency that he helped found. It would document the way Bauby has seen all the
certainties of his life disintegrate, and his discovery that his closest companions have
become strangers. In the play, a voice offstage would speak Mr. L’s inner monologue.
Bauby closes the chapter with a description of the play’s final scene, which he already knows.
It is a scene in which the stage is bathed in darkness except for a halo of light center stage,
around the bed. Mr. L jumps from the bed and walks around the eerily-lit stage. The offstage
voice then exclaims, “Damn! It was only a dream!” (56).
Chapter 13 Analysis
Here, we see Bauby engaging in a fatalism that he only allows to pervade his story in brief
flashes. And even then, his searing, critical portrait of the ill-tempered ophthalmologist is
tempered by his gracious admission that he is the hospital’s sole truly bad caregiver. His
vision for The Pressure Cooker, while on the one hand demonstrating the incorrigibility of his
imagination and capacity for creation, also reveals his deep sense of loss and mourning for
the life that he once had. The eerie andpoignant scene that he imagines as the play’s final
scene reveals the grief that he feels at the utter finality of his condition. And yet, his
persisting desire to depict his grief through the use of art demonstrates a generosity of spirit
and his enduring gift for expression.
Chapter 14
Chapter 14 Summary: “My Lucky Day”
This chapter is an ironically-titled vignette of one of Bauby’s unlucky days. The alarm on the
machine that regulates his feeding tube has been beeping piercingly for half an hour. Sweat

has unglued the tape that binds his right eye, causing his eyelashes to torturously tickle his
pupil. The end of his urinary catheter has come undone and he is soaked in urine. He sings
the lyrics to an old Henri Salvador song to soothe himself: “Don’t you fret baby, it’ll be all
right” (57). The nurse comes and turns on the TV. It plays a commercial with a personal
computer spelling out the question: “Were you born lucky?” (57).
Chapter 14 Analysis
Although Bauby spends much of the book reveling in the power of his imagination and of his
dauntless spirit, the vivid description of suffering that characterizes this chapter reminds the
reader that the pain and helplessness of his condition bear equal weight in his new existence.
The sharp irony contained in the question “Were you born lucky?” after a description of a
litany of unlucky occurrences showcases his eye for biting and dark humor.
Chapter 15
Chapter 15 Summary: “Our Very Own Madonna”
Bauby opens this vignette by stating that his friends have jokingly asked him whether he has
considered a pilgrimage to the catholic holy site at Lourdes, in order to ask for a miracle from
the famous Madonna that is housed there. This chapter tells the story of the time that he
went to see the Madonna, during a traveling vacation that he once took with a former lover
named Joséphine.
It was a tense and quarrelsome journey, as he and Joséphine had many contentions between
them, both possessed stubborn attitudes, and were also improvising the entire trip—without
any solid plans for accommodations or destinations. Another sore spot in the relationship
was Bauby’s absorption in a six or seven-hundred-page book called Trail of the Snake .
According to Bauby, the book “told the tale of Charles Sobraj, a kind of wayfaring guru who
charmed and robbed Western travelers between Bombay and Kathmandu”—although he
confesses that he cannot remember the slightest detail of the book, and even that summary
may be inaccurate (60). What he does remember is that he became so enraptured in the book
that it took his attention away from his vacation, and that Joséphine claimed that his
absorption in it signaled his disinterest in her. He wonders whether Joséphine directed their
path to Lourdes in order to break the hold that the book had over Bauby.
When they arrived in Lourdes at the height of pilgrimage season, the heat was suffocating

and the city was packed. They consequently had trouble finding a hotel room. When they did,
Bauby observed that the bathroom was designed to accommodate a wheelchair—because
the city was accustomed to housing the many ill and crippled who come to the Madonna
asking for miracles. In vivid detail laced with irony, Bauby recounts the day that he and
Joséphine journeyed to see the Madonna. They, young and able-bodied, found themselves
among a procession of paraplegics. Bauby recalls that he ventured a smile at one wheelchair-
bound person, who stuck his tongue out at him in reply. He even mused aloud that it could be
dangerous for him if the Madonna did choose to make an appearance, as her power might
paralyze someone in perfect health like him. He recalls that this disrespectful remark turned a
dozen heads and caused Joséphine to call him an idiot. They were then herded into the
underground basilica of St. Pius X, in which Mass is celebrated from 6:00 AM to midnight.
Afterwards, they went shopping and Joséphine, an avid collector, found a bust of Madonna
haloed with winking lightbulbs that seemed like it was destined for her. Bauby paid an
extravagant amount for it, in order to claim it as his present to her.
Later, back in their hotel room, and under the flickering light of the bust, Bauby told Joséphine
they would have to break up upon their return to Paris. Joséphine responded knowingly
before slipping into sleep—indulging her talent for being able to slip into sleep and away from
conflict. Bauby then decided to indulge one of his favorite pastimes—a night walk. When he
returned the room and dove back into his book, he discovered that Joséphine had scrawled a
message in his book by writing huge single letters on its pages, rendering the pages totally
unreadable. Luckily, it was in a portion that Bauby had already read. Nonetheless, the
message read: “I love you, you idiot. Be kind to your poor Joséphine ” (68).
Chapter 15 Analysis
Here, Bauby’s depictions of the vivid details of a doomed love affair, and of his happenstance
pilgrimage to the famous French holy site, are imbued with a sense of wonder and longing, as
well as bittersweet irony. The fact that he has now transformed into a quadriplegic, who could
ostensibly journey to the Madonna at Lourdes in order to ask for a miraculous healing from
the Virgin, imbues his recollection with a deep sense of grief and loss. The fact that the love
affair failed takes on a new weight as he recalls the youthful dalliance from his hospital bed,
where he will most assuredly not get a second chance. The vivid concrete and emotional
detail which he uses to depict both Joséphine and their traveling vacation takes on
extraordinary weight, given his new, locked-in condition. Every physical detail about the ease
with which he traveled is imbued with a sense of loss. This grief, however, does not overtake

the sumptuous sensory detail contained in this vignette, which invites the reader into an
experience of the fullness of life. This vignette is very much invested in making subtle
contrasts between the life Bauby once lived, and the one he has become moored within. One
thing that remains unchanged, however, is his vast intellectual appetite, exemplified here
through his voracious hunger for Trail of the Snake . Clearly, this intellectual appetite is the
thread that binds Bauby’s two lives together.
Chapter 16
Chapter 16 Summary: “Through a Glass, Darkly”
This chapter strikes a sharp contrast to certain other chapters in which a sense of wonder
and imagination triumph, such as chapters 5 and 6. In this chapter, Bauby highlights his deep
sense of loss and separation. It is telling that he chooses to do so in a chapter that depicts a
visit from his children and estranged wife. From this choice, we can extrapolate that he feels
the pain of his grief most acutely when in the company of those nearest to his heart. His
longing to be able to hold and caress his son, the loving and acute detail with which he
depicts his daughter’s agility and energy, and the quiet, intimate moment between himself
and Sylvie contain minute details that each attest to the depth of his loss and the acuteness
of his longing to be able to fully return to his former life.
“Through a Glass, Darkly” could refer to 1 Corinthians 13:12, which, in the King James Version
of the Bible, states: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know
in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known.” This verse refers to the mortal
experience, in which only part of divine knowledge is known. In it, the apostle Paul asserts
that in his earthbound life, he has limited knowledge, but when he comes face to face with
God, he will come into a fuller knowledge. The phrase of this verse that Bauby chose to use as
a chapter title riffs on this idea, casting locked-in syndrome as analogous to the condition of
being mortal, and his children cast as divine entities. Through this titling, Bauby shows that
his condition has effectively cut him off from fully knowing and experiencing the divine
presence of his children. So beloved are they to him that they are like the light of God. The
locked-in syndrome, while still allowing a sliver of their light to come into his apprehension, is
like a darkened piece of glass that stands as a distorting barrier that definitively separates
him from them.
Chapter 16 Analysis

This chapter strikes a sharp contrast to certain other chapters in which a sense of wonder
and imagination triumph, such as chapters 5 and 6. In this chapter, Bauby highlights his deep
sense of loss and separation. It is telling that he chooses to do so in a chapter that depicts a
visit from his children and estranged wife. From this choice, we can extrapolate that he feels
the pain of his grief most acutely when in the company of those nearest to his heart. His
longing to be able to hold and caress his son, the loving and acute detail with which he
depicts his daughter’s agility and energy, and the quiet, intimate moment between himself
and Sylvie contain minute details that each attest to the depth of his loss and the acuteness
of his longing to be able to fully return to his former life.
“Through a Glass, Darkly” could refer to 1 Corinthians 13:12, which, in the King James Version
of the Bible, states: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know
in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known.” This verse refers to the mortal
experience, in which only part of divine knowledge is known. In it, the apostle Paul asserts
that in his earthbound life, he has limited knowledge, but when he comes face to face with
God, he will come into a fuller knowledge. The phrase of this verse that Bauby chose to use as
a chapter title riffs on this idea, casting locked-in syndrome as analogous to the condition of
being mortal, and his children cast as divine entities. Through this titling, Bauby shows that
his condition has effectively cut him off from fully knowing and experiencing the divine
presence of his children. So beloved are they to him that they are like the light of God. The
locked-in syndrome, while still allowing a sliver of their light to come into his apprehension, is
like a darkened piece of glass that stands as a distorting barrier that definitively separates
him from them.
Chapter 17
Chapter 17 Summary: “Paris”
In this chapter, Bauby reflects on his visits to Paris, ultimately concluding that he is fading
away. “My old life still burns within me,” he says, “but more and more of it is reduced to the
ashes of memory” (77).
He contrasts his two recent visits to Paris. On the first one, his heart jumped when his
ambulance bore him past the high-rise in which he used to work as the editor-in-chief of Elle.
He initially recognized the building next door: a 60’s antiquity which he observes is now
scheduled for demolition. He thinks that he sees someone he knows on the street, musing
that perhaps his former co-workers have glimpsed his ambulance down below. He sheds a

few tears as the ambulance passes the café that he used to frequent, and intimates that he
can cry quite surreptitiously, as people think that his eye is merely watering.
He then contrasts the acute emotions of his first visit with his stony feelings upon his second
visit, in order to demonstrate his withdrawal and distance from his former life. He recalls that,
on his second visit, Paris appeared to him as a simulacrum, like a rear-screen projection. “The
streets were decked out in summer finery, but for me it was still winter”, he says (78). The city
retains its standard beauty and bustle, and Bauby remarks that “Nothing was missing, except
me. I was elsewhere” (79).
Chapter 17 Analysis
In this chapter, Bauby persists in a rather dark turn, although the darkness is not felt as
acutely as in Chapter 16. He begins Chapter 17 with an intimation of resignation: despite the
intact faculties of his mind, which he has put on wondrous display, his former life is slipping
from him, and he is sinking into grief. He portrays the rapid progress of his grief by
contrasting his two visits to Paris. In the earlier one, his removal from his former life is not felt
as acutely, and he is thus able to feel a sense of anticipation, excitement, and hope upon
sighting his old haunts. In the later visit, all sense of hope has been sucked from him, as he
has spent a longer time with locked-in syndrome, and he can now tangibly feel his own
absence from his former life. Thus, Paris becomes unreal to him, signaling he is much more
emotionally withdrawn, and he baldly states that nothing is missing from the cityscape
except himself—even though his body is, physically, there. This duality of being both present
and absent mirrors not only the loss of his former life, but also the ongoing and unending loss
that living inside of a broken body entails.
Chapter 18
Chapter 18 Summary: “The Vegetable”
Bauby opens this chapter by quoting the first of a series of letters that he has chosen to send
out to some sixty of his friends and associates, as a “samizdat bulletin” to inform then en
masse, since he cannot hope to answer every one of their letters individually. In the letter, he
specifies that as of June 8, it will be six months since his stroke. He tells his friends that he
initially refused to believe the seriousness of his condition, and that he thought he would
soon be back to his life, albeit with the help of a few canes.

Bauby then reveals that he knows about the Paris gossip regarding him. He likens those who
speak ill of him to vultures congregating around the disemboweled carcass of an antelope. He
vividly imagines his detractors as they trade rumors about him at the Café de Flore: “Did you
know that Bauby is now a total vegetable?” they ask each other pettily, as they enjoy their
meals (82).
While he began his bulletin as a way to redeem his character and assert his humanity, it has
also reconnected him to many of his friends, although a few still remain resolutely silent. It
comforts him to know that he is laying the rumors to rest, and informing his friends that they
can visit him in his “diving bell” if they so choose. He closes the chapter by reveling in the
beautiful letters that he receives, which range from those which contain serious discussions
of the soul and the meaning of life (curiously written by those with whom he had only
superficial relationships) to those which simply recount the small events of daily life—“roses
picked at dusk, the laziness of a rainy Sunday, a child crying himself to sleep” (83). He muses
that these affirmations of life and of his own humanity guard against the predatory rumor mill
that seeks to tear him down.
Chapter 18 Analysis
Here, Bauby showcases the playful self-deprecation that makes intermittent appearances
throughout the narrative. His decision to title the chapter “the vegetable”, after the derogatory
term that his naysayers are bandying about, displays his willingness to not take himself too
seriously. It’s not all fun and games, though, as he is clearly hurt by the gossip surrounding
him, and not without his own sense of vengeance—he resentfully refers to those gossiping
about him as “vultures” after all. Here, the image of the diving bell recurs, again as a metaphor
for the locked-in syndrome that keeps him mostly inert and inaccessible, although it can
sometimes be disturbed by the loving presence of friends. This chapter also sees Bauby
erecting the many words of love that he has received, in tangible letter form, as a bulwark
against the deleterious rumors that swirl in Paris around him. It is with this image that he
chooses to end the chapter. This choice effectively asserts his belief in the triumphant power
that love and genuine connection has over petty negativity.
Chapter 19
Chapter 19 Summary: “Outing”
This chapter is a vignette of a visit to the beach. Although the day brings stifling heat, Bauby

would like to leave the hospital for thetown of Berck. Since the last time he went was during
winter, he would like to see the town during summer. Even though the journey across three
pot-holed and puddled parking lots is grueling for his body, he makes the journeywith Claude,
the young woman to whom he is dictating this book, and his best friend, Brice.
Brice talks at length with Claude about Bauby’s former life, leaving no stone unturned,
recounting his “quick temper, [his] love of books, [his] immoderate taste for good food, [his]
red convertible” (86). Claude marvels at all the details, telling Bauby that she did not know all
of that about him, and Bauby wonders what kind of person all of the new people in his life—
the ones who did not know him before the stroke—think of him and his character. He also
remarks that the townspeople do not pay him much mind, as they are accustomed to seeing
people like him from the hospital.
They stop at a set of stairs that reminds Bauby of the entrance to the Porte d’Auteuil metro
station in Paris. He recalls that he used to climb them as a child while returning from the old
Molitor swimming pool. He recounts rather mournfully that the swimming pool has now been
demolished, and stairs are now an impossible task for him.
They then pass a “well-known hospital character” called Fangio (87). Fangio, unable to sit, is
“permanently condemned to either a vertical or a horizontal position” (87). He can, however,
maneuver around at an astonishing speed on a self-operated vehicle, from which he yells,
“Look out—here comes Fangio!” (87). Bauby muses that he is acquainted with Fangio, but has
no real idea of who he truly is. The chapter ends when they have reached the very end of the
promenade—the destination that he has truly been holding out for all day. He savors a
delicious aroma emanating from a small shack standing on the path that leads away from the
beach. Although someone remarks that it is a terrible odor, Bauby confesses that he never
tires of the smell of French fries.
Chapter 19 Analysis
This chapter displays Bauby’s artfully-spun musings about what it means to know a person.
In it, he develops the theme that to know another human being is a complex, layered and
mysterious process. Thus, his musings are layered. On one layer is the question of his own
identity, and how others know him. This is exemplified through the interaction between Brice
and Claude. Brice, a member of his former life, knows Bauby in intimate and intricate ways.
Claude, a foil to Brice who only knows Bauby by virtue of Bauby’s condition and his new life, is

thus astonished by all of the details about Bauby that Brice has to offer. Conversely, Claude
also knows Bauby in an intimate way that Brice does not. Bauby continues with this theme as
he ruminates about Fangio, a larger-than-life figure whose true character nonetheless
remains opaque. The suspense that Bauby purposefully builds around the scent that he has
sought all day—demonstrated through his choice to save the revelation about French Fries
until the very last sentence of the chapter—mirrors the idea that knowledge of others is
layered, complex, enigmatic, and often surprising.
Chapter 20
Chapter 20 Summary: “Twenty to One”
In this chapter, Bauby braids the hospital visit of his very loyal friend Vincent with a
recollection of a day, ten years ago, that he and Vincent spent at the horse races.
He and Vincent used to work at a small newspaper together. Bauby remembers Vincent as
impulsive, remembering that it was part of his job to rein in Vincent’s more ridiculous ideas.
This poses a striking contrast against the way that Bauby depicts Vincent’s careful,
methodical, and dedicated progress to his hospital room. He imagines Vincent weaving
expertly along the minor road that winds through a few townships before leading to Berck.
Bauby recounts that he and Vincent were inseparable while working at the newspaper. A track
correspondent gave them a tip about a horse named Mithra-Grandchamp—saying that he was
a guaranteed winner because the odds on him were twenty to one—and also gave them the
password to Aladdin’s cave of racing. Bauby imagines Vincent on the outskirts of Berck as
Vincent wonders what the hell he is doing there.
He and Vincent spent so much time enjoying the dining room at the racetrack that they did
not make it in time to bet on Mithra-Grandchamp with the money that had been given to them
by their colleagues at the newspaper. All they could do was watch helplessly as the horse
won by a landslide. Bauby then pictures Vincent’s car sliding into the hospital parking lot. He
imagines that his visitors need a moment to steel themselves there, before entering “the
automatic glass doors, elevator number 7, and the horrible little corridor leading to Room 119”
(93). He imagines that many of them need to collect themselves before entering his room, and
intimates that a few of them have even fled—“their resolve abandoning them on [his] very
threshold” (93).

Vincent then enters the hospital room. Bauby intimates, “I have become so inured to the look
on people’s faces that I scarcely notice the transient gleam of fear” (93). He attempts to
compose his features into what he hopes is a welcoming smile. He sees that Vincent hasn’t
changed at all. He remembers that on the day of the race, Vincent had lamented their
foolishness and uttered his favorite expression: “When we get back to the office we’ll be
history!” (94).
Bauby ends the chapter by confessing that he had forgotten all about their day at the races.
He says, “The memory of that event has only just come back to me, now doubly painful: regret
for a vanished past and, above all, remorse for lost opportunities” (94). He remarks that his
life feels like a string of near misses. To him, Mithra-Grandchamp now feels analogous to the
women he failed to love, the chances he failed to take, and the moments of happiness he
allowed to slip away. He ends the chapter by recalling that he and Vincent were, after all, able
to pay all of their colleagues back for the loss.
Chapter 20 Analysis
This chapter has an intriguing structure. Rather than neatly dividing his recollection of an
event that happened ten years ago and Vincent’s contemporaneous visit into two mutually-
exclusive and distinct timelines, Bauby braids the two incidents together. This allows him to
contrast Vincent’s normally raucous and impulsive character against the careful, purposed,
and methodical way in which Bauby imagines the journey to his bedside. In so doing, Bauby
clearly signals the admiration that he has for Vincent, and his appreciation for the fortitude,
solemnity, and commitment that Vincent summons in order to visit his old friend. This
narrative braiding also forms the message that Bauby’s reality is itself a mixture of the past
and the present, by virtue of both his strong imagination and his longing for the fun, beauty,
and companionship of days past.
Chapters 21-22
Chapter 21 Summary: “The Duck Hunt”
Bauby tells us that one of the discomforts of his condition is its effect on his hearing. While
his right ear is completely blocked off, his left ear “amplifies and distorts all sounds farther
than ten feet away” (95). This means that the sound of TV ad morphs into the noise of a
coffee mill drilling right next to his ear drum, the voices of hospital workers sound like those
of “stockbrokers trying to liquidate their holdings”, and “a floor waxer sends out an auditory

foretaste of hell”, despite his efforts to tell staff about his affliction (95-96). He recounts the
story of a very young neighbor whose velveteen duck “emitted a reedy, piercing quack” on any
of the numerous times that someone would enter their room. He humorously says that the
patient went home before he could carry out a plan to kill the duck—although he keeps his
scheme ready. He also recounts the story of a woman who awoke from a coma with
dementia, who “bit nurses, seized male orderlies by their genitals, and was unable to request
a glass of water without screaming ‘Fire!’” (96).
However, when “blessed silence” returns, Bauby is able to “listen to the butterflies that flutter
inside [his] head” (97). He intimates that, in order to hear them, one “must be calm and play
close attention, for their wingbeats are barely audible” (97). He ends the chapter by musing
that he must have butterfly hearing, because although his hearing is not improving, he is
hearing the butterflies better and better.
Chapter 22 Summary: Sunday
Bauby observes that the reddish-yellow brickwork of the hospital buildings assumes the exact
shade of pink as the Greek grammar book which he used in high school. This color conjures
fond memories of “a world of books and study, in which we consorted with Alcibiades’ dog
and the heroes of Thermopylae” (99). He contrasts the color, called “antique pink” by
hardware stores, against the cotton-candy pink of the hospital corridors and the mauve of the
baseboards and window frames, which resemble the wrapping on a cheap perfume.
Bauby tells us that he dreads Sundays, because if there are no visitors, there is never anything
to break the monotony that the absence of his physical therapist, speech pathologist, and
psychiatrist creates. Even the sponge bath he receives on Sundays are inadequate—and more
akin to being drawn and quartered than hydrotherapy—as the nursing staff “is plunged into
gloomy lethargy by the delayed effects of Saturday-night drinking, coupled with regret at
missing the family picnic, a trip to the fair, or the shrimp fishing on account of the Sunday
duty roster” (100).
On Sundays, he must be careful to make the right choice in TV programming, as whatever he

chooses is likely to stay on for hours without attendance. He observes by the small and
forlorn Health Department calendar on his wall that it has already become August.
“Mysterious paradox: time, motionless here, gallops out there” he muses, as he imagines that
his friends, along with their wives and children, have “scattered to the summer winds” (101).

He imagines himself sneaking into their summer quarters, in order to observe a pack of
children returning from the market on bikes, as even the older children rediscover their
innocence along the “rhododendron-lined Breton roads” (101). He also imagines them boating
around the island—someone stretched out on the bow of the boat, eyes closed, with their arm
trailing in the water. He imagines a small cat with a broken leg slinking into shady spots in the
priest’s garden, and a group of young bulls skirting over a fragrant marsh in the Camargue
delta country.
He muses that, all over the country, mothers everywhere are tired of preparing the “legendary
forgotten ritual” of lunch (102). He muses over the small library of books compiled on his
windowsill, softly lamenting that no one will arrive to read to him today, before stating that
Olympic wrestling is child’s play compared to the labor of waggling his head in an attempt to
dislodge black fly that has begun digging into his nose.
Nearing the end of the book, and quite far from the flights of fancy that characterized earlier
chapters, these two chapters highlight the drudgeries of Bauby’s hospital life. Although the
light touch that characterizes much of his writing still makes an appearance in these two
chapters, the reader can here feel the weightof locked-in syndrome settle in. Here, Bauby’s
talent for sensory imagery is used to its fullest extent. But instead of recalling the wonders
and fullness of his imagination, this imagery depicts the persistent horror of his physical and
mental afflictions. The auditory details, rife with figurative speech that demonstrates the
torment of his hyper-sensitive ear, paint a vivid picture of the acute sensory discomfort that
locked-in syndrome creates. So, too, does Chapter 22’s final image of a fly on Bauby’s nose
that refuses to be moved. Here, we see a cataloguing of banal and mundane complaints
whose weight becomes ever more burdensome within the diving bell of his syndrome. In
contrast to the earlier chapters, these chapters thus develop a narrative arc that traces the
psychic and physical toll that the syndrome has exacted on Bauby.
Chapter 23
Chapter 23 Summary: “The Ladies of Hong Kong”
Bauby loved to travel in his former life. He counts himself fortunate to have stored up “enough
pictures, smells, and sensations over the course of the years to enable [himself] to leave
Berck far behind on days when a leaden sky rules out any chance of going outdoors” (103). He

catalogues some of his choices: the sour smell of a New York bar, the odor of a Rangoon
market. The “white icy nights of Saint Petersburg or the unbelievably molten sun at Furnace
Creek in the Nevada desert” (103).
He tells us that, this week, he has flown to Hong Kong at dawn every day in his imagination, in
order to attend a conference for the international editions of what he still calls “his magazine”
(103). He has trouble filling in the details of these imaginary tripsdue to the fact that, in his
former life, some small misfortune or happenstance always prevented him from actually
making the journey to Hong Kong. On one occasion, he gave up his seat for a Jean-Paul K.,
who was later taken hostage by terrorist group Hezbollah. He intimates that, although he was
fond of Jean-Paul, he never saw him following his incarceration and release—perhaps
because he was ashamed to be “editor in chief in the frothy world of magazines while [Jean-
Paul] wrestled with life on its most brutal terms” (104). However, “Now I am the prisoner and
he the free man”, he muses (104).
He pictures his colleagues wrestling with daylong barrages of questions in Chinese, English,
Thai, Portuguese, or Czech, as they try to answer what he sarcastically calls that “most
metaphysical of questions: ‘Who is the typical Elle woman?’” (105). He pictures them
wandering down the cosmopolitan streets of Hong Kong, “trotting behind the eternal bow tie
of our chief executive officer as he leads his troops to the charge” (105). He imagines them
asking whether they should go to Macao, or to the Felix Bar in the Peninsula Hotel, which was
decorated by the French designer Philippe S. He confesses that he himself would choose the
second location, out of vanity. His own portrait, taken a few weeks before his stroke, is
emblazoned on the back of one of the chairs there, as he is “one of dozens of Parisians whose
portraits Phillipe S. incorporated into the décor” (106). He playfully muses that he does not
know whether his chair is more popular than any of the others, and entreats the reader to
never tell the barman what happened to him and thereby incur the superstitions of the
Chinese.
Chapter 23 Analysis
Although there are some linear threads that can be traced based upon a chronological read,
such as the one outlined in Chapter 22’s analysis, this chapter reminds us that Bauby is
making use of the vignette form to resist neat categorization and chronology. The reason this
chapter accomplishes thisis: instead of continuing with the banality and weight portrayed by
Chapters 21 and 22, Chapter 23 returns to indulging Bauby’s twin talents of being able

todepict vivid, wondrous, and wholly imaginary imagery and being able to inject wonder into
the most ordinary of ideas. Though he has never been to Hong Kong, his intricate imaginings
of the city still manage to transport the reader. The wistful manner in which he tells us about
the chair that bears his image—which he will surely now never see—tempers the levity with
mourning that, for this brief chapter, does not sink into despair.
Chapter 24
Chapter 24 Summary: “The Message”
Bauby muses that, although his part of the hospital resembles an expensive private school,
the cafeteria crowd couldn’t be further from private school students: “the girls have hard eyes,
the boys tattoos and sometimes rings on their fingers. There they sit, chain-smoking and
talking about fistfights and motorbikes” (107). He conjectures that Berck is just one stop in
their journey from abused childhoods to jobless futures, and that he sees “neither pity nor
compassion in their eyes” when he is wheeled past them and they fall silent (107). He
observes that a small typewriter with a sheet of pink paper stuck in the roller stands on a
table cluttered with empty cups. He muses, “Although at the moment the page is utterly blank,
I am convinced that someday there will be a message for me there. I am waiting” (108).
Chapter 24 Analysis
In this chapter, Bauby’s selection of detail mirrors the central contrasting images of the diving
bell and the butterfly, although those two images are themselves not present in this chapter.
He draws a distinct contrast between the gritty, joyless, and hopeless crowd of patients in the
cafeteria and the brightly ethereal image of the typewriter and the as-yet unmet promise of a
magic message appearing on its pink sheet of paper. The dissonance created between these
two competing images is very similar to the contrast that the diving bell and the butterfly
create. On one side there is death, heaviness, dull restriction, while on the other there is hope,
magic, wonder, and bright potential. Bauby’s existence is characterized by both, because
while he does not shy away from reality, he is equally determined to celebrate the wonder and
beauty of his life. This contrast can also be understood to work in tandem with the non-linear
structuring of the book at large. By virtue of his strong and persistent imagination, Bauby’s
life is just as full of vivid remembrances of the past and an apprehension of the hope for
beauty to come as it is of the pain and banalities that his physical paralysis produces.
Chapter 25

Chapter 25 Summary: “At the Wax Museum”
Here, Bauby recounts a dream of visiting Paris’s wax museum, the Musée Grévin. In his
dream, the museum design remains true-to-life, but the wax figures—“these boys in T-shirts
and girls in miniskirts, this housewife frozen with teapot in hand, this crash-helmeted youth”—
have been replaced by the nurses and orderlies who attend to him (109).
He recalls that, at first, some of the hospital staff terrified him, as he saw them “only as [his]
jailers, as accomplices in some awful plot” (110). He later hated those who lacked gentleness,
and those that left him all night with the TV on. He admits that, for a few minutes or a few
hours, he would cheerfully have killed them. With time, however, as he got to know them
better, he understood that they each carried out their duties as best they could. He even gave
them secret nicknames known only to himself and observed each of their individual quirks
and foibles.
He admits that his dream did not adequately capture the details of the hospital personnel,
“northerners whose ancestors have always lived on this strip of France between the Channel
coast and the rich fields of Picardy” (111). He muses that it would take a medieval miniaturist
to truly capture them in their fullness, and that he has grown fond of each of these people
whom he nonetheless sardonically terms his “torturers.”
Entering a different room in the dream-museum, he finds himself in a perfect reproduction of

Room 119—except that the photos, drawings, and posters on its walls have become “a
patchwork of ill-defined colors” (112). On the bed, there is “a hollow in the middle of the yellow
sheets, bathed in pallid light,” instead of his own body, and the “members of his personal
bodyguard that spontaneously sprang up around [him] immediately after the disaster”
surround it (112). There is Michel, sitting on a stool and writing in the notebook in which
visitor write down all of Bauby’s remarks. Anne-Marie arranges a bouquet of forty roses. There
is Bernard, “holding a memoir of diplomatic life in one hand and with the other executing a
theatrical barrister’s gesture that [is] pure Daumier” (112). Florence pins children’s drawings
on a corkboard, “her black hair framing a sad smile” (112). Patrick leans on a wall, lost in
thought. Bauby reflects that this group of loved ones “projected a great tenderness, a shared
sorrow, an accumulation of the affectionate gravity” that he feels whenever they visit him
(112-113).
Bauby recalls that he tried to explore more of the dream-museum, but a guard flashed a light

in his face, and he awakened to a nurse shining a pen-light in his eye, rather ironically asking
him whether he wanted his sleeping pill right then, or an hour later.
Chapter 25 Analysis
In this vignette, Bauby again teases out the central tension between the diving bell and the
butterfly, although those two images are not explicitly present. On the one hand, the diving
bell can be seen as analogous to waking life, while the butterfly is exemplified in the
wondrous magic of a dreamscape. On another level, the imagery of the dream itself illustrates
a delicate tension between the surrealistically heightened (the idea of a wax museum as a
place where icons are rendered in hyper-realistic detail) and the earthbound ordinary (the
figures are not iconic giants, but rather the everyday members of the hospital staff). This
tension also pervades his depictions of the loved ones as they appear in his dream, most
especially Bernard, who is both ordinary and evocative of the stylized figures that populate
the famous paintings of Daumier. This driving paradox of the book develops several themes:
the coexistence of the magical and the banal, the devastation of a complete and irrevocable
loss that a catastrophic stroke produces, and the commingling of the wondrous and the
commonplace in the ordinary life of any human being—disabled or not. It comes to a sardonic
fruition in the chapter’s final image: that of a dreamed security guard who transforms into a
real-life hapless nurse who has just awakened Bauby—and roused him from an enrapturing
dream—to see if he wants a sleeping pill.
Chapter 26
Chapter 26 Summary: “The Mythmaker”
Here, Bauby recounts his childhood friend Olivier. Olivier was a pathological liar with a talent
for delighting his schoolmates with fantastical tales about his life: “If he had not spend
Sunday with Johnny Hallyday, it was because he hadgone to London to see the new James
Bond, unless he had been driving the latest Honda” (115). He would confabulate endlessly:
being an orphan by morning and having four sisters by mid-afternoon. On any given day, his
father, who was in reality a civil servant, could be the inventor of the atom bomb, the Beatles’
manager, or General de Gaulle’s unacknowledged son. Bauby recounts that Olivier grew up to
work in the advertising agency, where he “wields his inexhaustible faculty for gilding every
lily” (116).
Bauby remarks that he should not feel morally superior to Olivier—and that he in fact envies

him for his mastery of the art of storytelling. Bauby muses that he is unsure whether he will
ever have Olivier’s gifts, although he is “beginning to forge glorious substitute destinies for
[himself]” (117). He can make himself a Formula One driver. He has cast himself as a soldier
in a TV series that documents histories great battles. He has fought alongside Vercingetorix
against Caesar, helped Napoleon secure victory, been wounded in the D-Day landings, and is a
“Tour de France long shot on the verge of pulling off a record-setting victory” (117).
Chapter 26 Analysis
Olivier was indeed a real person, whom Bauby depicts with crisp detail. However, Olivier also
functions as a symbol. He symbolizes both youth—in its fleeting whimsy and freedom—as
well as Bauby himself. Here, Bauby intimates that he is aware of his own status as a
mythmaker, and he winkingly delights in it. He pays homage to one of the first talented
storytellers he knew, and signals his aspirations to follow in his footsteps. The reader’s
experience with the book is thus an open invitation to evaluate whether Bauby can match
Olivier’s skills, or not.
Chapter 27
Chapter 27 Summary: A “Day in the Life”
In this chapter, Bauby finally recounts the events of the day of his stroke—Friday, December 8,
1995. He muses that, since beginning the book, he has intended to describe the last moments
of his former, normal life. He confesses that, having put it off for so long, the prospect of re-
telling it makes him dizzy.
On the morning of December 8, he awakens, perhaps a bit grumpily, beside “the lithe, warm
body of a tall, dark-haired woman”—his new girlfriend Florence (119). The gray, muted city of
Paris is in the grips of a transport strike, which is fraying the nerves of its millions of denizens.
He mechanically carries out quotidian tasks that now seem miraculous to him: shaving,
dressing, and drinking a hot chocolate. On that day, he had an appointment to test the latest
model of a German automobile, and the importer had given him the gunmetal BMW and a
driver for the entire day.
He and Florence exchange rushed goodbyes, “their lips scarcely brushing together”, before he
runs down the stairs that smelled of floor polish—the last smells of his past. Once he gets
into the car, the crisis-riddled traffic reports are punctuated by the Beatles song “A Day in the

Life”. Its lyrics continue to punctuate the events of the day in his retelling.
The BMW glides along, a private world of luxury helmed by a pleasant driver. He tells the
driver of his afternoon plans to pick up his son from his mother’s place, which is twenty-five
miles outside of Paris. He plans to bring him back to the city in early evening. He intimates
that he and Théophile had not had a heart-to-heart talk since he moved out of the family
house in July. He plans to take him to the theater, and then to eat oysters at a restaurant. He
is dropped off at his office, and plans to meet his driver at 3:00 PM.
The sole message on his desk entreated him to return a call to Simone V., former minister for
health and a revered figure at the magazine. His assistant volunteers that Simone may be
unhappy with her photo in the last issue. He skims the issue and finds the offending photo,
which does indeed ridicule her, despite her iconic status among the magazine staff. He calls
Simone V. and attempts to persuade her of her respected status at the magazine, although he
is neither accustomed nor suited to the diplomacy that is normally the duty of production
chief Anne-Marie.
He then attends the editor-in-chief’s luncheon and consumes his last drink—water. He thinks
that the main course was beef, and sardonically muses that perhaps they all contracted mad
cow disease, which has an incubation periodof fifteen years. The only illness reported that
day, however, was that of President Miterrand, who would yet live for another month. He
sneaks out of the luncheon without saying goodbye to anyone, and it is already 4:00 PM. The
driver graciously apologizes, saying that they will be caught in a traffic jam. For an exhausted
moment, Bauby considers abandoning his entire plan.
When they pass the Raymond-Poincaré Hospital at Garches, Bauby recounts that he cannot
pass it without recalling the time that he was aboard a bus that hit and instantly killed a man
who had dashed out of the hospital and into traffic without looking. After hours of police
questioning, a different driver took over, and passengers in the back shakily sang the Beatles’
“Penny Lane”. Bauby wonders what songs his son will remember when he is 44.
After an hour and a half, they reach the house where Bauby spent ten years of his life. Fog
hangs over the garden, which once was filled with mirth. Théophile sits on his backpack at
the gate, waiting and ready for the weekend. He recalls that he would have liked to call
Florence, but that she was at her parents’ place for the Jewish Sabbath. He expects to speak
with her after the play.

From this point forward, everything becomes blurry for Bauby. Nevertheless, he takes the
wheel of the BMW. He begins to function in slow-motion, barely recognizing the landscape
which should be very familiar to him. He has begun to sweat and see double. At the first
intersection, he pulls over and staggers from the car, then collapses on the rear seat. He
figures that he must get back to the village and to the home of his sister-in-law Diane, who is
a nurse. Once there, Théophile runs and gets her, and her decision is quick: they must get to
the clinic, as quickly as possible.
This time, the driver is behind the wheel, going as fast as he can. Bauby feels as if he has
swallowed an LSD tablet, although it never occurs to him that he may be dying. The car plows,
honking, through traffic, and Bauby tries to say, “Slow down. I’ll get better. It’s not worth
risking an accident” (126-127). However, no sound comes from his mouth, and his head
begins to wobble on his failing neck. They arrive at the clinic and people run frantically about
while he is transported, limp, into a wheelchair. His eyes are dazzled by the neon lights of the
corridor while strangers reassure him, and he can hear the finale of “A Day in the Life”. Before
he loses consciousness, he thinks, “We’ll have to cancel the play. We would have been late in
any case. We’ll go tomorrow night” (127). He wonders where Théophile has gone before
sinking into a coma.
Chapter 27 Analysis
The prologue and Chapter 27 function as literal and figurative bookends in this work. They
each provide concrete details that ground the vignettes, which are prone to flights of fancy
and follow no predictable structure. This is far from accidental, however, as The Diving Bell
and the Butterfly is purposefully structured in this manner in order to mirror the playful
anarchy and mischief that characterizes Bauby’s inner life. By saving this detailed
recollection of the last day of his life as an able-bodied man for the penultimate chapter of the
book, Bauby displays his talent for suspenseful storytelling. He has given the reader intimate
glimpses of both his former and his current life. He has detailed the joys that welled up in
abundance from both his previous life and the enduring power of his mind, as well as the
newfound sorrows that his new life bred. And now, he finally recollects the day that serves as
the impetus for the entire work—thereby answering many lingering questions that the reader
may have about how, exactly, he came to be in Room 119 of the Naval Hospital at Berck-sur-
Mer.

Here, he continues to display his talent for the selection of poignant detail, revealing that even
in his last moments in an able body, he failed to see the gravity and devastation that was
befalling him: he mused that he would have to cancel his trip to the theater just before losing
consciousness and his ability to move at all. The ordinary details of the last day of his
previous life here take on crystalline detail and heavy significance—as they are everyday
things, routinely taken for granted, that Bauby will never experience again. Theophile’s
presence is especially moving, as the image of him sitting in outside the fence of a foggy
garden becomes layered with gravitas by the catastrophe that is about to befall his father.
The foggy garden is not only a metaphor for the domestic life that has fallen apart due to
unspecified reasons, but also a stand-in for the purgatory in which Bauby now finds himself.
A place that once overflowed with life and joy, it is now obscured and inaccessible, in the
same way that Bauby’s intact consciousness has become barred from a full physical life.
Chapter 28
Chapter 28 Summary: “Season of Renewal”
The summer is now nearly over, and the nights have grown cold. Each day brings the familiar
faces of the linen maid, the dentist, the mailman, the nurse who has just had a grandson, and
the man who broke his finger on a bed rail last June. The start of his first autumn season at
the hospital makes one fact very plain: Bauby has begun a new life, confined within the
hospital walls to both his bed and his wheelchair.
September brings the end of summer vacations in the greater world, and also a new season to
the hospital. Bauby inaugurates this new season with a new accomplishment of his own: his
newfound ability to grunt a song about a kangaroo which has been taught to him as a form of
speech therapy. He laments, however, that he has only heard faint rumblings of the outside
world’s return to work and responsibility. He will hear more once his friends start journeying
back to visit him. Théophile has new sneakers which light up every time he takes a step.
Claude reads back to him the pages that they have so “patiently extracted from the void every
afternoon for the past two months” (131). He admits that he is pleased with some pages and
disappointed with others. He wonders if they will add up to a book. He takes in Claude—her
dark hair, pale cheeks, the long bluish veins on her hands, the big blue notebook that she fills
with her neat handwriting, her pencil case full of spare pens—and thinks that he will put these
details in the scrapbook of his mind as mementos of the summer’s hard work.

He observes a hotel room key in her half-open purse, as well as a metro ticket, and a hundred-
franc note folded in four. This sight leaves him thoughtful and confused. “Does the cosmos
contain keys for opening up my diving bell?” he asks (131-132). “A subway line with no
terminus? A currency strong enough to buy my freedom back? We must keep looking. I’ll be
off now” (132).
Chapter 28 Analysis
As Bauby has already effectively bookended the work with Chapter 27, Chapter 28 does not
return to the fantastical imagery that is exemplified by previous vignettes. This vignette is
mainly concerned with filling in the concrete details of Bauby’s life, as he settles into the
rhythms of the hospital and fully accepts his new condition. He reflects on the comings and
goings of the world and the lives that continue on without him, while detailing his own new
success of being able to grunt the song taught to him in speech therapy. This signals both
his acceptance of his life and the persistence of a quiet grief whose shadow will never lift.
However, he chooses to end the book not on a note of sallow despair, but one of tender hope
—again evoking the central tension posed by the competing images of the diving bell and the
butterfly. Yes, he remains paralyzed. Yes, the world and its people continue their busy lives
without him. But, he will still ask questions of the cosmos. He will still look for hope where he
can find it.

Key Figures
Jean-Dominique Bauby
Bauby reveals much of his character through his careful, precise, and lush prose. Throughout
the book, he reveals himself to be a highly sensitive, intelligent man with a vibrant and
nuanced emotional and intellectual life. His recurring penchant for self-deprecation, even in
the midst of a catastrophic illness, demonstrates a good sense of humor. His tendency to
launch into flights of fancy without any qualifiers is a product of his mischievous, imaginative
spirit. He repeatedly asserts compassionate understanding for all of those around him, even
the hospital staff that do not treat his body with the most care—thus displaying a generosity
of spirit and a humane empathy.
Of equal weight in Bauby’s character is the depth of love and grief that he can feel. In fact, it is
in the moments that he is expressing the deepest love that his sense of bereavement
becomes must acute—signaling that while he is clearly capable of the most transcendent of
human emotions, he is also no stranger to the depths of despair and darkness. It is true,
however, that his sense of wonder, imagination, and magic ultimately take up more narrative
space than his forays into darkness—suggesting that, ultimately, Bauby’s character is most
strongly dominated by his sense of hope and his thirst for the good and beautiful in life. He is
part realist and part jokester, but he is most consummately a dreamer and a lover.
Céleste
Céleste, Bauby’s eight-year-old daughter, is an important recurring figure throughout the

memoir. It is her nightly prayerfor her father that brings Bauby the most comfort. Her
rambunctious and wild ways are tempered by the tender, gentle love that she expresses for
her father. Céleste is a beacon of life, vitality, innocence, and joy.
Théophile
Céleste, Bauby’s eight-year-old daughter, is an important recurring figure throughout the

memoir. It is her nightly prayerfor her father that brings Bauby the most comfort. Her
rambunctious and wild ways are tempered by the tender, gentle love that she expresses for
her father. Céleste is a beacon of life, vitality, innocence, and joy.
Florence

Although it is not stated outright, Florence is implied to be the woman with whom Bauby had
an affair. He left the family home and began living with Florence shortly before his stroke. She
is depicted as lithe, warm, long-limbed, and beautiful. Bauby plainly adores her.
Sylvie
Sylvie is Bauby’s somewhat estranged wife and the mother of his children. Although she visits
him regularly and is depicted tenderly holding his hand during a visit to the beach, the fact
remains that Bauby had left her for another woman shortly before his stroke. A clear picture
of her full characteristics is not given.
Claude
Claude is the young, pretty, black-haired assistant sent by the publisher to use Bauby’s
special alphabet to transcribe the memoir. Bauby thanks her in the epigraph of the book, as
her studious, patient, and dedicated labor was key to the production of his memoir.

Themes
The Resilience of the Human Spirit and Will to Life
Locked-in syndrome is an apt name for the condition in which Bauby lives following his
stroke. His consciousness and mental faculties, completely intact and lacking none of the
agility and vitality that characterized him prior to the stroke, became locked inside of a
paralyzed body. Despite this physical condition, Bauby refuses to let his spirit die. The
persistence of his spirit and his will to find and enjoy the beauty and pleasures in life, old and
new, is the thread that binds each distinct vignette of his memoir together. Even the vignettes
that portray the darkness that would inevitably and naturally beset him are rendered in such
bright, intelligent, and precise detail that the reader can easily understand them as an
affirmation of life, an assertion of emotional intelligence, and a declaration of the will to live—
despite mighty difficulties.
The Paradoxical Coexistence of the Magical and the Mundane
Bauby’s sense of wonder is a constant throughout his memoir. On one level, the reader can
see his vivid recollections of crystalline memories of his former life, conjured in precise detail
from his hospital bed, as a searing duality. While he undertakes one life in a paralyzed body,
his previous adventure-filled life persists. On another level, however, we see him creating new
observations full of wonder and beauty—again, while housed in an inert body. This testifies to
the continuing coexistence of the magical and the mundane, even in his new life as a
profoundly disabled person. His choice to render the hospital staffin shimmering and
transcendent detail attests to his ability to witness and marvel in their full humanity, as well
as his own. Amid the deep suffering he does not shy away from portraying, Bauby is able to
conjure up enduring images of wonder and beauty. Through this sustained dichotomy, he
forms the message that life is composed equally of the magical and the mundane. He often
takes it one step further by finding the magical within the mundane. In so doing, he attests to
the power of the human spirit and its ability to experience, understand, and create beauty—
despite the mortality that will ultimately disturb and claim it.
The Fleeting Nature of Life and Pleasure
Many of the marvels Bauby recounts are delicately imbued with a shadow of grief and loss.
This is a natural consequence of the catastrophic loss he has suffered. Beyond that, though, it
is a purposeful literary conceit. By choosing to describe the precious and fragile beauty of his

children, for example, alongside his existence inside of the diving bell that closes him off from
them, he forms a treatise on the fragility of all life. The vivid, searing beauty of his
recollections invite the reader not only into his own inner life, but to take stock of their own
lives, and enjoy them while they can. Bauby’s own life as he knew it was snatched from him,
irrevocably and suddenly. While he persisted in creating and experiencing beauty following
his stroke, the musings that flowed from him after that catastrophic event were necessarily
informed by his deep loss. The central motifs of the diving bell (representing limitation,
mortality, and the enclosure of his illness) and the butterfly (representing life, beauty,
pleasure, and imagination) pose a central conflict. One of the salient messages to be gleaned
from this conflict is that life, as beautiful and full as it can be on any given day, is also
extremely fragile.
The Struggle with Embodied Identity
At various points throughout the memoir, Bauby intimates that locked-in syndrome has
produced a profound struggle with his identity. This struggle is an entirely new thing,
because, as an able-bodied person, Bauby enjoyed the privilege of simply enacting his
identity, rather than being forced to grapple with a disjuncture between the physical and the
psychic self. Now, however, as a victim of locked-in syndrome, Bauby must grapple with
fundamental questions about himself. Is he still fully himself if he lacks the ability to control
his body? How much of his sense of self was based uponthe way his body could be used to
make his ambitions reality, and how much of it was based upon his inner life alone? Must the
connections between his emotional and embodied life remain unbroken and unobstructed for
him to fully be himself? He wrestles with all of these questions and more as a consequence of
essentially becoming a fully-formed consciousness that floats, despairingly and enragingly,
and inside an inert body that will not obey it. Ultimately, through the scintillating facility with
which Bauby creates an artful, emotionally and intellectuallychallenging memoir, the memoir
asserts that the truth of one’s identity lies within the depths of their spirit. Bodies, yes, are
undoubtedly an important aspect of one’s identity. But the psyche is ultimately the thing that
animates and founds the identity.

Symbols & Motifs

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The diving bell and the butterfly are two motifs which function both in conflict and tandem
with each other. They provide an animating tension that drives much of the text’s thematic
schema. The diving bell represents several distinct, but decidedly earthbound things,which
correlates to the way that locked-in syndrome fiercely constricts Bauby’s existence. At
various points within the memoir, the diving bell is a metaphor for the syndrome itself, a
window into Bauby’s physical experience, and a concrete representation of the barrier that
has gone up between himself and his former life, as well as between himself and his loved
ones. The butterfly, which often appears within the same passage as the diving bell, in turn
represents the delicate and fragile beauty of life, from which Bauby is physically (though not
emotionally nor intellectually) cut off. The butterfly, as a motif, often represents the pleasures
and beauties that lie just beyond Bauby’s reach. In that sense, it functions as a stand-in for
his former life, and for the vivid memories that lie, pulsing, at the edges of his consciousness,
waiting to be grasped. In another sense, though, the butterfly represents the beauties and
pleasures that Bauby has refused to forfeit, despite the stubborn failure of his body. Together,
the diving bell and the butterfly represent the ongoing tension between the unassailable limits
and the ferocious will to live that persists within Bauby’s many lives—his former and his
present ones, as well as his intellectual and physical existences.
Women and Feminine Figures
Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III, is the first female figure Bauby invokes in his
narrative. His imagining of her is full of mischief, playfulness, and lush sensory detail, as he
constructs her into a warmly benevolent and almost flirtatious presence. Florence, the lover
for whom he left his wife, is intermittently depicted as an extremely beautiful, loving presence.
He renders his speech therapist Sandrine as a literal guardian angel. Even Claude, the young
woman who takes his transcription of the book, is rendered as a lovely figure, radiating
gracious and fastidious kindness. Joséphine, one of the stars of Chapter 15, is portrayed in
poignant detail that betrays a deep affection, despite the contentious nature of their
relationship. The Madonna of Lourdes, although a bit more of a minor feminine figure in
comparison to the former examples, is still nonetheless purposefully invoked as a famously
beatific feminine entity. Even a nurse, who is a simple country girl, is depicted as a lovely and
softly robust presence. Céleste, his daughter, also functions as a paragon of innocence and

vitality, and a constant source of hope and strength. It is clear through these depictions that
Bauby sees women as paragons of beauty, pleasure, warmth, and virtue. They function as
beacons of grace and light, steadily anchoring Bauby throughout his tempestuous journey
through the grief and acceptance of his new life.
Assorted Anonymous Medical Staff
Although a few members of Bauby’s medical entourage make complete cameos complete
with their names/and or salient characteristics (Sandrine, his speech therapist, and the ill-
tempered ophthalmologist, and the various personalities upon whom he has bestowed
humorous nicknames in Chapter 25, for example) there is an outer ring of unnamed medical
staff. Although, or perhaps because of, their lack of names, this supporting cast of characters
comes to symbolize humanity at large. Sometimes, Bauby lists their failures and his
subsequent negative responses to them, which range from mild resentment to outright
murderous rage. However, Bauby inevitably cycles back to creating compassionate portraits
of them that showcase their humanity and assert that they are simply doing the best that they
can. He even gives them the treatment of icons when he recounts his dream in which they
have become memorialized in a wax museum. Through these recurring depictions, Bauby
effectively forms the thesis that each human life is precious, complex, and worthy of
tenderness and care—no matter if you catch someone on a bad day, or in the middle of an
annoying quick or foible. The anonymity of these characters also functions to solidify their
opacity, thereby foregrounding the message that each human being is a mystery, with a full
inner life that is all their own.
Coldness/Darkness
At various points within the memoir, Bauby invokes embodied coldness and/or darkness to
depict the pain and grief of his condition. In Chapter 12, for example, he spends many
passages recounting the bitter cold that characterized the landscape of his dream. The
dream, being an analogy to locked-in syndrome, thus functions as a window into his
experience, with the cold functioning as a symbol for the unstoppable tide of mortality and
the bitter and almost total physical restriction that the stroke ushered into his life.

Important Quotes
1. “Through the frayed curtain at my window, a wan glow announces the break of day. My
heels hurt, my head weighs a ton, and something like a giant invisible diving bell holds my
whole body prisoner. My room emerges slowly from the gloom. I linger over every item:
photos of loved ones, my children’s drawings, posters, the little tin cyclist sent by a friend the
day before the Paris—Roubaix bike race, and the IV pole hanging over the bed where I have
been confined these past six months, like a hermit crab dug into his rock. ”
(Prologue, Page 3)
Here, Bauby inaugurates his recurring motif of the diving bell. We see it here depicted as a
clear metaphor for locked-in syndrome: it is an oppressively powerful, invisible force-field that
restricts and encages Bauby, an immobilizing, impenetrable fence that inexorably separates
him from his loved ones.
2. “Up until [my stroke on December 8], I had never even heard of the brain stem. I’ve since
learned that it is an essential component of our internal computer, the inseparable link
between the brain and the spinal cord. I was brutally introduced to this vital piece of anatomy
when a cerebrovascular accident took my brain stem out of action. In the past, it was known
as a ‘massive stroke’, and you simply died. But improved resuscitation techniques have now
prolonged and refined the agony. You survive, but you survive with what is so aptly known as
‘locked-in syndrome.’ Paralyzed from head to toe, the patient, hismind intact, is imprisoned
inside his own body, unable to speak or move. In my case, blinking my left eyelid is my only
means of communication.”
(Prologue, Page 4)
The biting sarcasm that pervades this passage showcases Bauby’s slightly cynical and highly
entertaining sense of humor, which allows him to indulge in self-pity that—by virtue of its self-
deprecation and sarcastic wit—does not veer into histrionics. We see here that he uses this
sarcasm as a way to ingratiate himself to his reader, to render his difficulties with a measure
of wit and humor that never begs for pity or dwells in victimhood.
3. “Of course, the party chiefly concerned is the last to hear the good news. I myself had
twenty days of deep coma and several weeks of grogginess and somnolence before I truly
appreciated the extent of the damage. I did not fully awake until the end of January. When I

finally surfaced, I was in Room 119 of the Naval Hospital at Berck-sur-Mer, on the French
Channel coast—the same Room 119, infused now with the first light of day, from which I
write.”
(Prologue, Page 4)
Here, again, we see Bauby’s wicked sense of humor bubbling to the surface, as he likens a full
understanding of his new condition as “good news.” This quote also firmly establishes the
setting of the story. It importantly occurs at the outset—in the prologue—in order to give the
reader some concrete information before the narrative will quickly veer into flights of fancy
and imagination.
4. “My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is
so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King
Midas’s court.”
(Prologue, Page 5)
Here, we have the diving bell and the butterfly appearing in the same sentence. Bauby thus
inaugurates the central tension that animates much of the memoir’s thematic thrust. The
diving bell, as a metaphor for locked-in syndrome, will remain stalwart and almost
impenetrable in its oppression. However, there are moments in which it loosens, and frees the
“butterfly” of his mind to take flight. Here, the butterfly clearly symbolizes the intact agility
and strength of his mind and his spirit. Encumbered by the diving bell and fragile, yes, but still
aliveandyearning to be free.
5. “…I still could not imagine any connection between a wheelchair and me. No on had yet
given me an accurate picture of my situation, and I clung to the certainty, based on bits and
pieces I had overheard, that I would very quickly recover movement and speech. Indeed, my
roving mind was busy with a thousand projects: a novel, travel, a play, marketing a fruit
cocktail of my own invention. (Don’t ask for the recipe; I have forgotten it.)”
(Chapter 1, Page 8)
In this first chapter, Bauby depicts the difficulty with which he accepted his new life. The fact
that he made no connection between the wheelchair and himself speaks to his as-yet failure
to comprehend the permanence and gravity of his situation. This makes the plans that he
lists in this passage all the more poignant. The casualness of these ordinary hopes and
dreams—not lofty nor overly ambitious, but small and common—illustrates the totality of
what his stroke has taken from him. Not only are big plans out of reach for him, but the small

and workaday ones are inaccessible too.
6. “Yet all of these lofty protections are merely clay ramparts, walls of sand, Maginot lines,
compared to the small prayer my daughter, Céleste, sends up to her Lord every evening before
she closes her eyes. Since we fall asleep at roughly the same hour, I set out for the kingdom
of slumber with this wonderful talisman, which shields me from all harm.”
(Chapter 2, Page 13)
Here, Bauby has just finished listing all of the prayers, even the ones across the globe, that he
knows are being uttered on his behalf. All of these prayers, some of which are undertaken by
strangers, pale in comparison with the simple prayer that his dearly beloved daughter Celeste
utters for him every night. He regards this prayer as the most precious and comforting of all.
7. “A domestic event as commonplace as washing can trigger the most varied emotions. One
day, for example, I can find it amusing, in my forty-fifth year, to be cleaned up and turned over,
to have my bottom wiped and swaddled like a newborn’s. I even derive a guilty pleasure from
this total lapse into infancy. But the next day, the same procedure seems to me unbearably
sad, and a tear rolls down though the lather a nurse’s aid spreads over my cheeks.”
(Chapter 3, Pages 16 - 17)
Here, Bauby depicts the nuance of emotion and grief that now attends such a mundane and
everyday activity of getting clean. No longer able to perform the function for himself, he has
been rendered an infant by his illness. He admits to occasionally enjoying being babied, but
the more salient emotion is that of grief: grief at the loss of such a simple, everyday thing that
he once took for granted.
8. “Like the bath, my old clothes could easily bring back poignant, painful memories. But I see
in the clothing a symbol of continuing life. And proof that I still want to be myself. If I must
drool, I may as well drool on cashmere.”
Here, Bauby elaborates on his desire to wear his own clothes while he performs physical
therapy. His gentle self-deprecation reveals both his stubborn will and his willingness to
accept and adapt to his new circumstances.
9. “And then one afternoon as I confided my woes to [Empress Eugénie’s] likeness, an

unknown face interposed itself between us. Reflected in the glass I saw the head of a man
who seemed to have emerged from a vat of formaldehyde. His mouth was twisted, his nose
damaged, his hair tousled, his gaze full of fear. One eye was sewn shut, the other goggled like
the doomed eye of Cain. For a moment I stared at that dilated pupil, before I realized it was
only mine.”
In this quote, Bauby’s intricate flight of fancy with the Empress is rather brutally interrupted
by his own visage. Bauby’s initial inability to recognize himself fills the reader with the
poignancy of loss, and draws Bauby’s struggle with his own identity and his own body into
sharp relief. His stroke has produced a grievous and reverberating fracture in his life, one that
has rendered himself literally unrecognizable.
10. “And to complete the picture, a niche must be found for us, broken-winged birds, voiceless
parrots, ravens of doom, who have made our nest in a dead-end corridor of the neurology
department. Of course, we spoil the view. I am all too conscious of the slight uneasiness we
cause as, rigid and mute, we make our way through a group of more fortunate patients.”
Bauby’s sardonic and humorously cynical barb about himself and other patients like him—
that they “spoil the view”—here illustrates his awareness that his new body is now commonly
regarded as a grotesquerie, an eyesore, and a burden. However, this remark is couched within
sensitive and finely-drawn metaphors for himself and others like him, as they are “broken-
winged birds” and “ravens of doom”. This clash of brutal honesty and tender sensitivity is a
hallmark of Bauby’s voice, and also indicative of the central thematic conflict of the text.
11. “Quite apart from the practical drawbacks, this inability to communicate is somewhat
wearing. Which explains the gratification I feel twice daily when Sandrine knocks, pokes her
small chipmunk face through the door, and at once sends all gloomy thoughts packing. The
invisible and eternally imprisoning diving bell seems less oppressive.”
This is a recurrence of the motif of the diving bell. He further develops it as a metaphor for
locked-in syndrome, and intimates that the connection that Sandrine forges with him eases
some of the isolation that the syndrome has imposed upon him.

12. “Sometimes the phone interrupts our work, and I take advantage of Sandrine’s presence
to be in touch with loved ones, to intercept and catch passing fragments of life, the way you
catch a butterfly.”
Quickly following on the heels of the diving bell, the butterfly makes another appearance here.
Bauby fleshes out the butterfly as a symbol of life, in all its fragility, wonder, and fleeting
beauty.
13. “Sweet Florence refuses to speak to me unless I first breathe noisily into the receiver that
Sandrine holds glued to my ear. ‘Are you there, Jean-Do?’ she asks anxiously over the air. And
I have to admit that at times I do not know anymore.”
Here, Florence, the lover for whom Bauby left his wife, makes an appearance. Her question,
and the musing that it produces within him, showcases the struggle with identity and
presence that locked-in syndrome has foisted upon him. In one sense, he is still himself, as
his mind has remained intact. In several crucial other senses, though, he is no longer himself
and his former life has been irrevocably taken from him. This conflict leaves Bauby to
struggle with the open question of his identity.
14. “Some evenings I have the impression that Grandpapa Noirtier patrols our corridors in a
century-old wheelchair sadly in need of a drop of oil. To foil the decrees of fate, I am now
planning a vast saga in which the key witness is not a paralytic but a runner. You never know.
Perhaps it will work.”
Here, Bauby evokes the only other victim of locked-in syndrome known to literature: The
Count of Monte Cristo’s Grandpapa Noirtier. In delicately ominous terms that still manage to
be playful and imaginative, Bauby paints an image of the character patrolling the halls. He
then playfully invokes his superstitious decision to abandon his plans to write an iconoclastic
and subversive version of the famous book (planned prior to his stroke) in favor of writing a
story that might court a miraculous healing for himself instead.
15. “The play follows Mr L’s adventures in the medical world and his shifting relationships
with his wife, his children, his friends, and his assocaiates from the leading advertising

agency he helped to found. Ambitious, somewhat cynical, heretofore a stranger to failure, Mr.
L. takes his first steps into distress, sees all the certainties that buttressed him collapse, and
discovers that his nearest and dearest are strangers. We would carry this slow transformation
to the front seats of the balcony: a voice offstage would reproduce Mr. L.’s unspoken inner
monologue as he faces each new situation.”
In this quote, Bauby provides some specific details about the play that he hopes to write. In
the play, Mr. L. is a stand-in for himself. This quote states what he hopes to depict and
accomplish through this work of art. With Mr. L. as his stand-in, he intimates his own
thoughts and preoccupations. Through the specification that Mr. L.’s voice would emanate
from offstage, he showcases the ongoing struggle with identity that the syndrome has ignited
inside of him.
16. “Théophile and Céleste are very much flesh and blood, energetic and noisy. I will never tire
of seeing them walk alongside me, just walking, their confident expressions masking the
unease weighing on their small shoulders. As he walks, Théophile dabs with a Kleenex at the
thread of saliva escaping my closed lips. His movements are tentative, at once tender and
fearful, as if he were dealing with an animal of unpredictable reactions. As soon as we slow
down, Céleste cradles my head in her bare arms, covers my forehead with noisy kisses, and
says over and over, ‘You’re my dad, you’re my dad,’ as if in incantation.”
In searing, poignant detail, Bauby depicts his shifting relationship with his children. The
bright, tender detail with which renders his children underscores his deep love for them. The
anxiety that presses upon them, and the new ways that they interact with his body, drive
home the irrevocable and unsurpassable fracture that locked-in syndrome has foisted upon
his relationship to them.
17. “Don’t be scared, little man. I love you. Still engrossed in the game, he moves in for the kill.
Two more letters: he has won and I have lost. On a corner of the page he completes his
drawing of the gallows, the rope, and the condemned man.”
In this quote, the hangman in Théophile’s game is a symbol for Bauby himself. Théophile, in
his innocence, cannot recognize the connection between the image of the condemned man
and his father. And Bauby, a doting father, does not see resisting his son’s desire to play the

game as an option. This quote, in is quiet irony and bittersweet tenderness, captures the
complexity of Bauby’s emotional life.
18. “They have left. The car will already be speeding toward Paris. I sink into contemplation of
a drawing brought by Céleste, which we immediately pinned to the wall: a kind of two-headed
fish with blue-lashed eyes and multicolored scales. But what is interesting in the drawing is
its overall shape, which bears a disconcerting resemblance to the mathematical symbol for
infinity. Sun streams in through the window. It is the hour when its rays fall straight upon my
pillow. In the commotion of departure, I forgot to signal for the curtains to be drawn. A nurse
will be in before the world comes to an end.”
The resemblance that Céleste’s fish bears to the infinity symbol here does the poetic work of
mooring the earthbound to the divine. Through this deceptively simple and keenly-observed
paradox, Bauby forwards the notion that we experience the divine through the very ordinary
love that we forge for each other. He also unites the treasured innocence of his daughter—an
experienced and understood thing—withthe transcendent, mysterious, and somewhat opaque
idea of the infinite.
19. “I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches the home shore
gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life still burns within me, but more and
more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory.”
This quote is a far cry from the light-hearted flights of fancy which characterized the book’s
earliest chapters. Here, we see Bauby coming into a full understanding and acceptance of his
grievous loss.
20. “I receive remarkable letters. They are opened for me, unfolded, and spread out before my
eyes in a daily ritual that gives the arrival of the mail the character of a hushed and holy
ceremony. I carefully read each letter myself. Some of them are serious in tone, discussing
the meaning of life, invoking the supremacy of the soul, the mystery of every existence. And
by a curious reversal, the people who focus most closely on these fundamental questions
tend to be people I had known only superficially. Their small talk had masked hidden depths.
Had I been blind and deaf, or does it take the harsh light of disaster to show a person’s true
nature?”


Here, Bauby recounts the mysterious phenomenon of receiving intimate, soul-stirring letters
that pose fundamental questions about human existence from people he was only
superficially connected to in his previous life. We see a lovely duality at play here that
develops the life- and humanity-affirming idea that each person holds untold depths and an
entire world unto themselves.
21. “I had a very young neighbor who was given a velveteen duck equipped with a
sophisticated detection device. It emitted a reedy, piercing quack whenever anyone entered
the room—in other words, twenty-five times a day. Luckily the little patient went home before I
could carry out my plan to exterminate the duck. I am keeping my scheme in readiness,
though. You never know what horrors tearful families may bestow on their young.”
Here, Bauby reveals the humorous irony that animates the chapter titles (“The Duck Hunt”).
His penchant for biting sarcasm and dark humor is on full display.
22. “Far from such din, when blessed silence returns, I can listen to the butterflies that flutter
inside my head. To hear them, one must be calm and pay close attention, for their wingbeats
are barely audible. Loud breathing is enough to drown them out. This is astonishing: my
hearing does not improve, yet I hear them better and better. I must have butterfly hearing.”
After reciting the torments his hyper-sensitive ear brings him, Bauby returns to the central
motif of the butterfly. His choice to insert this image of hope and beauty as a coda to his
depiction of excruciating suffering underscores his indomitable will to hope and his ultimate
desire to seek solace in the persisting beauty and grace of life, despite the harrowing
difficulties that he now faces.
23. “In Brittany, a pack of children returns from the market on bikes, every face radiant with
laughter. Some of these kids have long since entered the age of major adolescent concerns,
but along these rhododendron-lined Breton roads, everyone rediscovers lost innocence. This
afternoon, they will be boating around the island, the small outboards laboring against the
current. Someone will be stretched out on the bow, eyes closed, arm trailing in the cool water.
In the south of France, a burning sun drives you to seek the cool depths of the house. You fill

sketchbooks with watercolors. A small cat with a broken leg seeks shady corners in the
priest’s garden, and a little farther on, in the flat Camargue delta country, a cluster of young
bulls skirts a marsh that gives off a smell of aniseed.”
Here, Bauby renders, in graceful and rich detail, his imaginings of what life across France
must be like for various people on a Sunday afternoon. The lushness of his imagery
underscores the persisting power of his imagination. This passage is also inescapably
imbued by a sense of longing and grief: although Bauby can so richly imagine this scene, he
remains trapped within his body and will forever be unable to experience such a scene of both
sensory grandeur and simple ordinariness again.
24. “For a few minutes or a few hours I would cheerfully have killed them. Later still, as time
cooled my fiercest rages, I got to know them better. They carried out as best they could their
delicate mission: to ease our burden a little when our crosses bruised our shoulders too
painfully.”
Here, Bauby reveals the inner journey he underwentin regard to his medical staff. He
intimates that, in the earliest stages of his stay at the hospital, while he was still getting used
to the pains of his illness and the interactions with the medical staff that it necessitated, he
became murderously enraged at his caretakers. However, upon closer consideration of their
humanity, and the nobility with which they undertook their duties, he began to view them with
a compassionate recognition of their full humanity.
25. “Her purse is half open, and I see a hotel room key, a metro ticket, and a hundred-franc
note folded in four, like objects brought back by a space probe sent to earth to study how
earthlings live, travel, and trade with one another. The sight leaves me pensive and confused.
Does the cosmos contain keys for opening up my diving bell? A subway line with no terminus?
A currency strong enough to buy my freedom back? We must keep looking. I’ll be off now.”
This is the concluding passage of the memoir. In it, Bauby recites what he sees in Claude’s
purse. The passage showcases Bauby’s persistent sense of wonder and imagination. It
exemplifies his singular voice, which never succumbs to histrionic self-pity, but rather buoys
itself up through a thunderous and joyful affirmation of the indomitability of the human spirit.

Essay Topics
1. In contemporary American culture, disabled people regularly struggle with society’s

prejudice, fear, and discrimination. Write an essay that traces the historical roots of the
prejudice against disabled people and its contemporary productions of inequality. Then, use
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly as a sounding board for advocating for the full rights and
humanity of disabled people.
2. Write an essay that analyzes the vignette structure of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Connect this specific formal choice to the memoir’s content. What specific and distinct
meanings does Jean-Dominique Bauby create through his choice to structure his memoir as
a string of interconnected vignettes that could also stand alone by virtue of their self-
contained fullness? How does this approach to structure differ from a traditional,
chronological narrative? How does this structure serve and develop the memoir’s themes and
messages better than a more traditional, linear narrative would?
3. Write an essay that analyzes the central motifs of the diving bell as well as the butterfly.
Select specific quotes in which the motifs occur, and trace the development of both the
metaphorical and thematic meanings that the motifs generate as the memoir progresses.
4. Write a detailed character analysis essay for the character of Jean-Dominique Bauby. How
do his diction, selection of detail, and use of figurative language all work to develop a portrait
of himself as a man? What animates him? What concerns preoccupy him? How does the
central conflict of locked-in syndrome inform and create his identity?
5. Write an essay that produces a feminist analysis of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. What
roles do women play in the memoir? How do these roles comply with patriarchal expectations
of women as objects, caretakers, and/or the helpmates of men? Is Bauby’s admiration for
women couched in patriarchal or misogynistic notions that dictate the good and proper roles
for the traditional woman? Compare and contrast at least three female figures within the
memoir to clarify and support your argument.

6. Explain the Cartesian problem of the mind-body dualism. Give a brief survey of the
philosophical concerns and inquiries that this idea has created in Western culture. (Focus
especially on the aspects that most saliently connect to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)
Then, explicitly connect this philosophical problem to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Does
Bauby effectively answer the questions that this philosophical conceit poses? If not, what is
his engagement with and investment in the Cartesian idea? Use and analyze specific
passages from the book to anchor and support your argument and observations.
7. Identify a central theme within The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and identify three separate
characters, besides Jean-Dominique Bauby, who develop and contribute to that theme. Write
an essay that compares and contrasts these characters in relation to the development of the
theme. How do each of them make distinct contributions to the central message that you
have identified?
8. Trace and analyze Bauby’s use of sensory imagery throughout The Diving Bell and the
Butterfly. Identify three separate themes that his use of sensory imagery develops, and use
these themes as the basis for a five-paragraph, literary analysis essay.
9. Write an essay that analyzes Bauby’s engagement with the idea of identity in The Diving
Bell and the Butterfly. What, ultimately, is Bauby’s message about the formation of human
identity? How much of it is dependent upon embodied experience, and how much of it is
based upon one’s inner mental, physical, or spiritual life? Is one more important than the other
in terms of the formation and solidification of an identity?
10. Write an essay that identifies and analyzes the notion of duality in The Diving Bell and the
Butterfly. What dualities and/or paradoxes does Bauby develop, and why? What theme or
themes does the notion of duality ultimately build? Use direct quotes to support your
argument.


The Diving Bell and The Butterfly - SuperSummary Study Guide

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The Diving Bell and The Butterfly - SuperSummary Study Guide

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The Diving Bell

and the Butterfly

C H A P TER S UM M A RIES & A N A LYS ES 5

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The Resilience of the Human Spirit and Will to Life 42

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 44

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

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Chapter 1 Summary: “The Wheelchair”

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Chapter 2 Summary: “Prayer”

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Chapter 3 Summary: “Bathtime”

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Chapter 4 Summary:“The Alphabet”

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hand in hand across the expanse of his walls.

Chapter 3-4 Analysis

Chapter 5 Summary: “The Empress”

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Chapter 6 Summary: “Cinecittà”

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Chapter 5-6 Analysis

Chapter 7 Summary: “Tourists”

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Chapter 8 Summary: “The Sausage”

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Chapter 9 Summary: “Guardian Angel”

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Chapter 10 Summary: “The Photo”

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a confirmed dunce,” he muses (44). In the photograph, he is at a miniature golf course.

Chapter 11 Summary: “Yet Another Coincidence”

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Chapter 12 Summary: “The Dream”

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Chapter 13 Summary: “Voice Offstage”

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Chapter 14 Summary: “My Lucky Day”

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Chapter 15 Summary: “Our Very Own Madonna”

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Chapter 16 Summary: “Through a Glass, Darkly”

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Chapter 17 Summary: “Paris”

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Chapter 18 Summary: “The Vegetable”

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Chapter 19 Summary: “Outing”

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Chapter 20 Summary: “Twenty to One”

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Chapter 21 Summary: “The Duck Hunt”

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