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 watches through the window as the red bricks of the hospital buildings are saturated with the brilliant light of dawn. The shade reminds him of a Greek grammar book he loved as a high school student. In spite of the pleasant memories, though, Bauby is full of dread. Today is Sunday—he hates Sundays, because if he is “unlucky enough” to have no visitors, there will be nothing else to break up the long hours. On Sunday there are no visits from the physical therapist, the speech pathologist, or the psychologist. “Sunday,” Bauby writes, “is a long stretch of desert,” and even the nurses are gloomy and lethargic on this day of the week.
Bauby’s descriptions of the rhythms of hospital life largely focus on the constant chaos around him, the closeness of his proximity to others’ suffering, and the endless routines which mark his days. In this chapter, though, he focuses on what happens when stillness and languor descend—and he finds himself missing the distractions that allow him to pass the time as the days go by.
Themes
Looking at the calendar on the wall, Bauby is confronted by the paradox that is time. Though the “hours drag,” the months “flash by”—it is already August, and summer is nearly over. He closes his eyes and pictures his friends’ summer vacations with their families, and the luxurious, lazy days they’re no doubt spending boating, painting, and swimming. As he does so, a small fly lands on his nose—he tries to wiggle his head to shake it off, but he cannot dislodge it.
While all of Bauby’s friends are enjoying their summers and taking refuge in the long hot days of summer, to Bauby, these hours are a curse. He feels profoundly trapped, unable to do anything but wait for time to go by.
Themes
