The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

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).