Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory, Imagination, and Freedom
Isolation vs. Communication
Resilience and Determination
Irony and Humor
Summary
Analysis
Bauby is having a difficult morning. The alarm on his feeding tube beeps incessantly, he is sweating profusely, his right eyelid—taped shut since the sutures have been removed—is irritated from said sweat, and his catheter has become detached, leaving him drenched in his own urine. Bauby can do nothing, though, but lie inert and hum to himself while “awaiting rescue.” When a nurse finally enters the room, she switches on the TV before even looking at Bauby—a commercial plays in which a computer spells out the question: “Were you born lucky?”
In this brief anecdote—as sad and pitiful as it is funny—Bauby shows how his particular situation has taught him patience and stoked his sense of humor. In awful, uncomfortable moments, Bauby can do nothing to extricate himself from them—he must simply lie in wait for either his circumstances or mood to change, and often, he must force himself to change his mood first.
Themes
