The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: Tourists Summary & Analysis

Berck, originally a children’s hospital, now focuses mostly on aged patients—though the hospital also houses coma patients, obese patients, and “a battalion of cripples” who are recovering from accidents. Bauby calls these patients “tourists,” due to their short stays and good prognoses. Bauby and his fellow neurological patients, on the other hand, are “ravens of doom” who bring decided “uneasiness” to other patients whenever they’re wheeled to other wings of the hospital. In daily sessions in the rehabilitation room, as Bauby lies “tethered to an inclined board that is slowly raised to a vertical position,” he endures worried stares—and even sometimes cruel jokes—from the “tourists” and their visitors.