Reading Section 4: Into Thin Air

As quoted in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, by Jean Bauby, "Whereupon a strange euphoria came over me. Not only was I exiled, paralyzed, mute, half deaf, deprived of all pleasures, and reduced to the existence of a jellyfish, but I was also horrible to behold. The comes a time when the heaping up of calamities brings on uncontrollable nervous laughter- when, after a final blow from fate, we decide to treat it all as a joke." (Page 25) This quote is very important in the book. This quote describes how Bauby is living and in what conditions he's living in, and somehow he manages to laugh at himself. Even with this dreadful syndrome he's making the best of it, and sometimes can have a laugh. It's importance is shown throughout the book because his constant positive feelings towards life is very apparent as sometimes he describes dreams and pleasant memories.