"I've decided to stop pitying myself"
Item
Title
"I've decided to stop pitying myself"
Is Part Of
Human Biology
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English
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Entomology
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Marine and Antarctic Research Centre for Innovation and Sustainability
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Oceanography
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Ichthyology
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Philosophy
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Description
“Her purse is half open, and I see a hotel room key, a metro ticket, and a hundred-franc note folded in four, like objects brought back by a space probe sent to earth to study how earthlings live, travel, and trade with one another. The sight leaves me pensive and confused. Does the cosmos contain keys for opening up my diving bell? A subway line with no terminus? A currency strong enough to buy my freedom back? We must keep looking. I'll be off now".
An extract from Jean-Dominique Bauby's 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly', the memoir which he dictated after suffering a stroke in 1995. The stroke rendered him mute and almost completely paralyzed, except for the movement of his left eyelid. Bauby dictated his memoir through blinking as his speech therapist listed the letters of the alphabet. When his doctor told him his prognosis, he mentioned that in the past , he would have simply died from this type of stroke, but that improved resuscitation techniques had now prolonged and refined the agony of this condition: "You survive, but you survive with what is so aptly known as 'locked-in syndrome'”.
An extract from Jean-Dominique Bauby's 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly', the memoir which he dictated after suffering a stroke in 1995. The stroke rendered him mute and almost completely paralyzed, except for the movement of his left eyelid. Bauby dictated his memoir through blinking as his speech therapist listed the letters of the alphabet. When his doctor told him his prognosis, he mentioned that in the past , he would have simply died from this type of stroke, but that improved resuscitation techniques had now prolonged and refined the agony of this condition: "You survive, but you survive with what is so aptly known as 'locked-in syndrome'”.
Curriculum
Creator
Jean-Dominique Bauby
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Julian Schnabel
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Date Created
1998
2007
Source
Bauby, J. 1998. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Translated by Jeremy Leggatt. New York, NY: Vintage Books.; Schnabel, J. 2007. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Miramax.
Resonances
diving bell
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butterfly
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insular
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imagination
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freedom
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extending
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underwater
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locked-in syndrome
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context
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wheelchair
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Jean-Dominique Bauby
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photograph
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handsome
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fiction
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alphabet
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medicine chest
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Type
Text
Film
Youtube clip
