The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Water imagery plays a rich and complex role in many works of art. In some works, water represents life, cleansing, and redemption; in others, images of water evoke a darker sense of endlessness, chaos, and abyss. In the movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, director Julian Schnabel presents a series of images involving water to reflect upon the condition of locked-in syndrome, following the autobiographical story of Jean-Dominique Bauby. Viewers of Schnabel’s creation ask: how does the…

Different from Bauby, Lucy in Autobiography Of A Face gets me a new attitude to treat fatal illness. As well as The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, I wondered the meaning of the topic. Why Lucy wrote an autobiography of her face but not wrote an autobiography of her life struggling with illness. With this question, I kept reading her words and paragraphs carefully. And I made a contrast between Lucy and Bauby instinctively. The attitude and emotion Lucy faced with her broken jaw is…

In the diving bell and the butterfly, there were multiple sources of hope for Jean-Dominique Bauby. Some of the sources were his family, past memories, and the alphabet & speech therapist. The diving bell and the butterfly was a touching book to read because the reader was looking into Bauby’s past and the present through his point of view. Every chapter was short and had a meaningful touch because Bauby had to blink in order for his therapist to transcribe his words. I kept thinking throughout…

journalist for several years. Bauby was a well known French actor, author, and editor of the magazine Elle. He became the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine in 1991. One of his most notable works is The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, which was published in French in 1997. The Diving Bell and The Butterfly is a story about Jean-Dominique Bauby himself who was in his early forties when he suffered a massive cerebrovascular accident. On December 8, 1995 was the day that he suffered a massive…

The diving bell is an open-bottomed chamber supplied with oxygen, to allow a person to go underwater. The diving bell is also old-fashioned diving suit. In the movie Bauby has visions of himself in a diving bell in the middle of an ocean. He is trapped in his body just as someone is trapped in a diving bell. On only difference is that when a person is in a diving bell it is to keep them alive under the water whereas Bauby wanted everything…

his therapist; however, it needed others willingness to listen and connect with him. The title “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is the metaphor he uses to resemble his life situation throughout the memoir. It comes from Bauby’s doctrine that although his body was submerged in a diving bell- unable to move- his mind (imagination, thought and memory) remain as free as a butterfly and its flights are as random. In fact, he also names one of his chapters “bedridden travel notes’ which…

the ability to make facial expressions or speak louder or convey a certain tone. The fact that he was able to write a book by only blinking his left eye just astonished me. The book gave a summary explaining how he wrote his book, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. An assistant would read out letters and Bauby would blink his eye to indicate the letter he wanted to use (Pastorino & Doyle-Portillo, 2016). To write a book using that process took a very long time, but that was the only way he…

Most inspirational words are given by people with great knowledge that have graduated from the highest colleges in America. Although this is not the case for Mick Ebeling’s. Most of his speeches include the saying everything that is possible now was at one point impossible, therefore everything that is impossible now will be possible in the future. Although his words are very strong and powerful Mick has a degree in political science, and is an American film, television and commercial executive…

Much Ado About Standardized Literature In the world of modern day education, school boards across the nation often refer to lists of “standard literature” when assigning reading materials to students. Among these novels are the classics: Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, just to name a few. But what are students truly gaining from reading these well-known works? What are the school boards across America hoping to teach…

“football” as referred to in Pakistan. He'd be diving and scraping his elbows in the rough, summer grass just to help me better myself. It was the day I had been anticipating, August 31st, or the day of tryouts. “Good morning!” exclaimed Mrs. Grant, my teacher at the time. “I'm good how are you?” I replied. The pressure wouldn't even allow me to speak correctly. During class, the daydreaming had taken over my brain as a stared at the clock waiting for the 3:35 bell to ring. Before I knew it, the…