The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: The Photo Summary & Analysis

The last time Jean-Dominique Bauby saw his father was the week of his stroke. He was caring for his father, who had fallen ill, and made the man tea and shaved his face. The act of shaving his father’s beard has become “engraved” in Bauby’s memory, and he can perfectly recall his father’s aging face, “emaciated features,” and thick “snow white” hair. Bauby has not seen his father since he left the man’s apartment after shaving him—they are both trapped, infirmed, and “locked-in” in their own ways.

Bauby’s father calls him “every now and then,” and has sent him letters in the mail. One letter contained a photograph of Bauby as a young boy at a miniature golf course—as Bauby looked at the photograph, he realized it was taken in 1963 in Berck-sur-Mer, the same town where Bauby is now a patient.