The Diving Bell and the Butterfly:

An Analysis in the view of Existential-Phenomenology

Abstract

Based on the film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) and Jean-Dominique Bauby's novel Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (1997), the autobiographical narrative describes the author's struggle with a rare condition called Locked-in Syndrome. The present article aimed at analyzing Jean-Do's experiences after the communication of the diagnosis of the syndrome from the standpoint of existential-phenomenology. The bibliographical research with a qualitative approach highlighted clips from the movie and excerpts from the book to present the meanings attributed by the protagonist and author, Jean-Do, concerning his experiences in a body paradoxically apprehended, sometimes a diving suit, sometimes a butterfly. From the selection of scenes and the reading of the novel, two categories of analysis were raised: a) The enclosed body: the diving bell; b) The becoming of a butterfly. It is concluded that Jean-Do's life was not only crossed by suffering after the facticity of the stroke and the communication of the diagnosis of the Locked-in Syndrome, his body was also free like a butterfly, and this freedom, even limited to this body enclosed in itself, moved him to write autobiography with "the only vent of his prison", which prevented him from plunging into total darkness, his left eyelid.