The tale follows a narrator who, in a violent quarrel, quite literally loses his breath—his physical ability to breathe disappears. Though still conscious, he is assumed dead and endures a series of grotesque misadventures: doctors dissect him, he is buried alive, and he suffers the indignities of mistaken death. The story blends horror and absurd comedy, satirizing medical practices, philosophical ideas about life and death, and the fragility of human existence.