The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: Guardian Angel Summary & Analysis

Sandrine’s badge reads “Speech Therapist,” but Bauby thinks it should read “Guardian Angel.” Sandrine is the woman who created the communication code without which Bauby would be “cut off from the world.” Though Bauby’s friends, family, and visitors have adopted the system, however, most of the hospital staff (except Sandrine herself and Bauby’s psychologist) fail to use it. This forces Bauby into a kind of solitude as he faces off with staff members who carefully decipher his messages and those who ignore his delicate, esoteric attempts to communicate entirely. Sandrine’s visits are one of the few from the hospital staff that allows Bauby to feel the “invisible and eternally imprisoning diving bell” lift off of him.

As he has been in recovery, Bauby has come to marvel at the “art” that is speech therapy. He is confounded by the effort it now takes for him “puff out one or two” sounds on a “good day.” Once, he was able to hoarsely whisper the sounds of the whole alphabet, but the exercise exhausted him entirely.

Sandrine often helps Bauby take phone calls, and holds the phone to his ear while his loved ones, like his daughter Céleste and his aging father, tell him stories from their lives. Bauby wishes he could respond “with something other than silence.” Once, when his partner Florence asked him over the phone if he was still “there,” Bauby was forced to “admit that at times” he simply doesn’t know anymore.