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The Mythmaker
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 looks back on the “disastrous” day of his stroke—Friday, December 8th, 1995. He has put off describing the day of the disaster, though he’s been planning on including it in this book since he started composing it in his head. He dreads describing the “elusive” and “futile” hours of his final day in the normal world, and hates looking back on the ungrateful and “zombie”-like way he moved through the world. The “mechanical” way he carried out the simplest tasks that now seem insurmountable and “miraculous” embarrasses him.
It is obviously very painful for Bauby to use his memory to return to the day of his stroke. He relies on his memory, now, to be a source of comfort—to drag the most painful day of his life out and put it on display is a great effort. Not only that, but the cavalier, unthinking way he moved through the world before his stroke shames and angers him—he never understood how “miraculous” his life really was.
Themes
On the day of his stroke, Bauby had hired a driver to help him test-drive a new model of a luxe BMW. After kissing his partner Florence goodbye briefly, he headed outside and got in the car, and the “pleasant” driver began ferrying him through the city to work. Bauby announced his plans to later pick up his children from their mother’s place. Since separating from Sylvie, Bauby had felt a strain on his relationship with his children, and hoped to connect with them over a beautiful weekend together.
Bauby’s last day of his “old life” got off to a normal start—normal for him, but luxurious and extravagant by any other standards. Bauby again laments not being fully grateful for the things he had, and for wasting time worrying about trivial matters rather than leaping at the chance to truly connect with his family.
Themes
At work, Bauby did minor “damage control” on a magazine interview subject unhappy with the pictures of her slated to appear in the magazine, spending forty-five minutes on the phone with an unnamed celebrity. He then attended a luncheon on the top floor of the magazine—though he says he hardly remembers his last meal. After work, the driver once again picked Bauby up and began ferrying him through traffic to Sylvie’s. He recalls seeing Théophile waiting for him at the gate—but after this point, he writes, everything becomes blurry.
Bauby recalls the structure of his day—but admits somewhat sheepishly that in spite of the day’s significance, many of its details are lost to him. There is a terrible sense of dread as his memory of events edges later and later into the day, and the fateful moment occurs.
Themes
Bauby switched places with the driver, taking control of the BMW in spite of feeling ill and sweaty. At the first intersection past Sylvie’s house, Bauby began seeing double, and exited the vehicle, asking the driver to take over and get him to his sister-in-law Diane’s house. At Diane’s house, Diane—a nurse—instructed the driver to go straight to a clinic ten miles away. The driver sped towards the clinic “grand-prix style,” and when Bauby tried to open his mouth to tell the driver to slow down a bit, no sound came out. At the clinic, as Bauby was ushered into a wheelchair, he had one final thought before darkness descended: “Where could Théophile have got to?”
Bauby was determined to power through whatever he was feeling, not realizing that in a stroke, precious seconds stand between recovery and permanent damage to the brain and body. As Bauby recalls his last thoughts from his “old life,” they are of no one but his children—not even his own health or well-being.
Themes
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