The Diving Bell And The Butterfly Essay

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a testament to more than the clichéd human spirit, but to the original reality that we are more than the sum of our collective parts. Bauby’s courage to reclaim his life amongst unthinkable challenges creates inspiring accountability to us all, both personally and professionally to never stop our achievement in the name of those who cannot. The author presents a realism in tragedy that challenges our comfortability and forces the reader to experience and imagine, rather than observe and empathize. Loss begins to carve out a human form and communicate to readers a real-time urgency of compassion and thoughtfulness. This imagination converts dreams and nightmares into what we see and feel everyday and …show more content…
In a diving bell, the passenger is not in control of the submerged chamber and is not designed to allow the person to move or survive beyond the bell’s lifeline to the surface. This is a direct relationship to the umbilical cord Bauby has to his medical room, bed and staff and his direct dependence compounded by his lack of mobility. Much like a diving bell, Bauby was internally active, but limited to the confines of his apparatus or body in his case. Ultimately, the diving bell has its origins in getting work done in areas which were at one time inaccessible. Bauby gives insight into how much is unknowable without dreadful experience. What Bauby has done is present a factual account of the breadth of what humans cannot know until it is brought to us, which by that nature, should cause a humble and genuine progress of both medicine and empathy for the human condition. Bauby was a realistic hopeful man. If he had not been, then there would have been no literary work for Bauby to complete; hope would have driven him to despair with no means to return. But, understanding his condition, Bauby clung to the imagination that he could flutter and fly to any destination he chose and gave the world a memoir of how powerful that can truly …show more content…
Acting without sincere input from the greatest length the patient is capable of providing, directly communicates the second-class status stigma and hinders both positive relations and positive outlook of the patient. Bauby represents what human is and that too often, in every facet of our daily chatter of life, we define humanity as tangible products and limit human to what we can see. The body itself is the primary definitive source, as it is often all we are given to see. With this limitation, Bauby gives the world a reminder that not only is the body not representative of what human is, but that what is human is separate from the body and that very essence of human is what client centered care and the treatment of the ill, is meant to