Sunday, October 28, 2007

The Sea Inside 2

There are many similarities and differences between The Sea Inside and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the main similarity bieng the fact that the two main characters are quadrepalegic, meaning they cant move any part of their arms and legs. In DBATB, Jean-Dominique Bauby uses the bink of his left eye to write the whole book from a specific alphabet code that he developed, Whereas in The Sea Inside, Ramon edits up his old poetry books to for a magnificent book of poetry with the help of a close friend Julia. Another difference is that Bauby is in the hospital during his writing of the book, and dies in the hospital, whereas Ramon is always at home, and he is transported from place to place by his family and close friends. Another similarity is that both are men who set their goals high and work until they achieve them. Bauby set his goal to finishing that whole book, and he died two days after it was published. Ramon set his goal to finishing the book and then commiting scuicide, which he also accomplished. A final difference is that Bauby just died of the failure of his body, whereas Ramon died by commiting Scuicide. Overall i believe that DBATB was much more powerful, just because the man (Bauby) is in a hospital, and sets the analogy to a Diving bell and a Butterfly, which really hit me hard. I thought that was the best metaphor/analogy i had ever heard, and that struck me to be a very powerful statement. To add to the power of the memoir, Bauby wrote a whole book by blinking an eye, whereas Ramon already had his poetry written so all he had to do was edit.