Station Eleven (2014) by Emily St.

John Mandel
What happens when civilization as you know it comes to an abrupt end?

In Station Eleven, a pandemic called the Georgia Flu wipes out 99.99% of the human race in
a matter of weeks. Twenty years later, a band of knife-wielding musicians and tattooed
actors help ragtag communities remember what is important. This story moves back and
forth in time, taking us from Toronto to British Columbia, from Los Angeles to Michigan, and
from Shakespeare to Star Trek.

Emily St. John Mandel said: “No cities, No countries, no internet, no more Facebook, no
more email. I very purposely set much of the action 15 and then 20 years after that flu
pandemic. And the reason for that is that I feel that most dystopian fiction tends to dwell on
that immediate aftermath of horror and mayhem. What I was really interested and writing
about was what's the new culture and the new world that begins to emerge? In this altered
world, there is a travelling Shakespearean theatre company and symphony orchestra
touring the small and fairly isolated communities in the Midwest.”

Pandemic: (a sudden outbreak) that becomes very widespread and affects a whole
region, a continent, or the world due to a susceptible population. By definition, a true
pandemic causes a high degree of mortality.
1) Short biography of this Canadian writer
2) Genre (p.13-14 Insight Guide)
3) Sociohistorical Context (Macmillan pp. 96-103)
 4) YOU TUBE “Station Eleven” interview with author.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlxWgtl7VHA
Emily St. John Mandel: Station Eleven
tvochannel
Published on Jun 3, 2015
Ontario and the Great Lakes is the setting for Emily St. John Mandel's post-apocalyptic
novel. The Canadian author had modest success as a novelist with three books under her
belt. Her fourth book, the novel 'Station Eleven,' hit The New York Times bestseller list,
garnered nominations for the National Book Award among other prestigious literary prizes,
and most recently won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Literature. Emily St.
John Mandel discusses her new-found success and the story which has captured a wide
range of readers.
Time: about 16 minutes
5) Structure of the novel: There are 9 parts that make up the novel but chapters
within these parts are not always set in the same time frame. (Macmillan page
106-108) also (Insight Guide pages 18-35).
Organization: the book is divided into 9 segments with multiple chapters in each segment.
There are 5-time frames (Macmillan p. 106)
For each segment, take note of why the author may have included this segment. What does
the segment title reveal about what is contained in those chapters?
1. The Theater (pp.1-32)
Section One is set during Year Zero and recounts the death of Arthur Leander, as
well as the outbreak of the Georgia Flu pandemic.
2. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (pp.33-67)
Section Two is set during Year Twenty and follows the journey of the Travelling
Symphony.
3. I Prefer you with a Crown (pp.69-115)
Section Three is set largely before the collapse and focuses primarily on the
relationship between Arthur and Miranda.
4. The Starship (pp.117-64)
Section Four follows the Symphony as the group continues on the journey to the
Museum of Civilization in search of its missing members. It also explores the Dear V.
letters and their ramifications for Clark and Elizabeth.
5. Toronto (pp.165-96)
Section Five focuses primarily on Jeevan and Frank in the immediate aftermath of
the Georgia Flu outbreak.
6. The Airplanes (pp.197-228)
Section Six covers multiple timelines and follows the storylines of several characters.
7. The Terminal (pp.229-80)
Section Seven is set in several different time periods but focuses primarily on the
aftermath of the pandemic for Clark and the other passengers stranded at the
Severn City Airport.
8. The Prophet (pp.281-313)
 Section Eight is set in Year Twenty and focuses on the confrontation between Kirsten
and the prophet.
9. Station Eleven (pp.315-33)
Section Nine takes place primarily on the day of Arthur’s death, but ends with a
revelation in Year Twenty.

6) Activity: Plot the Text (Macmillan pages108-110)

1. Many of the characters are seen through a range of time periods. How does our
knowledge of characters such as Kirsten, Arthur, Jeevan, and Clark change and
develop over a range of time periods?

2. Using a mind map choose one character from question 1 and find quotes and
symbols that align to your understanding of the character across the different time
periods.

3. Arthur is one character that remains in the pre-collapse world and yet connects all of
the other major characters across all the different time frames. How significant is
Arthur’s character? What does he represent about the pre-collapse era?

4. Why do you think Mandel chose to begin and end the novel with Arthur’s death as
he is playing King Lear?

5. Kirsten’s interview for the New Petoskey News is threaded throughout several other
narratives. What further details do we learn about Kirsten throughout this
interview? Why do you think Mandel chose to break up the single interview
throughout the text in this way?
The book opens with an epigraph:
The bright side of the planet moves toward darkness
And the cities are falling asleep, each in its hour,
And for me, now as then, it is too much.
There is too much world.
--Czeslaw Milosz
The Separate Notebook
‘Czeslaw Milosz ranks among the most respected figures in twentieth-century Polish
literature, as well as one of the most respected contemporary poets in the world: he was
awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. Born in Lithuania, where his parents moved
temporarily to escape the political upheaval in their native Poland, as an adult, he left
Poland due to the oppressive Communist regime that came to power following World War II
and lived in the United States from 1960 until his death in 2004. Milosz’s poems, novels,
essays, and other works are written in his native Polish and translated by the author and
others into English. Having lived under the two great totalitarian systems of modern history,
national socialism, and communism, Milosz wrote of the past in a tragic, ironic style that
nonetheless affirmed the value of human life. While the faith of his Roman Catholic
upbringing was severely tested, it remained intact. Terrence Des Pres, writing in the Nation,
stated that, ‘political catastrophe has defined the nature of our.. [age], and the result—the
collision of personal and public realms—has produced a new kind of writer. Czeslaw Milosz
is the perfect example. In exile from a world which no longer exists, a witness to the Nazi
devastation of Poland and the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, Milosz deals in his poetry
with the central issues of our time: the impact of history upon moral being, the search for
ways to survive spiritual ruin in a ruined world.’

Given the history of this poet and the poem itself, what does this suggest the book will be
about?

In the post-pandemic world, we follow Kirsten and the rest of the

Travelling Symphony, a band of actors and musicians whose
motto, taken from Star Trek, is “survival is insufficient”. (p.119)
This episode contains the line “Survival is insufficient” (uttered first by Seven of Nine, then
by the Doctor), which is repeatedly referenced in the 2014 post-apocalyptic novel Station
Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. "Survival Instinct" is the 122nd episode (the second
episode of the sixth season) of the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. In this
episode, Voyager encounters three aliens played guest stars Vaughn Armstrong, Berlita
Damas, Tim Kelleher. This show expands the story of the character Seven of Nine.

“The Hunted” (Star Trek) The Next Generation, 1990. (episode 122) Minister Nayrock: You
were programmed to survive. You can survive at the Lunar V Settlement.

Roga Danar: To survive is not enough. To simply exist … is not enough

Season 6 episode 2 (episode 122 overall) entitled Survivor Instinct or read a summary of it,
available here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_Instinct_%28Star_Trek:_Voyager%29

At the crux of the episode is a dilemma faced by Seven of Nine upon encountering lost
Borg–
is it better to live a long life as part of a collective group or is it
better to live a shorter life solely on individual terms?
And it is Miranda’s Station Eleven comics,
which imagined one apocalypse, that turn
out to be strikingly relevant to the survivors
of a very different cataclysm.

In Miranda’s imagination, “A hostile

civilization from a nearby galaxy has taken
control of Earth and enslaved Earth’s
population, but a few hundred rebels
managed to steal a space station and escape.
Dr. Eleven and his colleagues slipped Station
Eleven through a wormhole and are hiding in
the uncharted reaches of deep space…There
has been a schism. There are people who,
after fifteen years of perpetual twilight, long
only to go home, to return to Earth and beg
for amnesty, to take their chances under
alien rule.” The disaster of St. John Mandel’s
making is less dramatic than Miranda’s
fantasy. But in a world that now consists only
of small communities, schisms are painful
and unavoidable. And while Kirsten is inspired by Dr. Eleven’s wanderings around his small
world, someone else turns out to have a copy of the comics, and to have come to a
strikingly different conclusion about what they mean that he should do.

- Dr Eleven comics parallel both the era in which they were produced and the new
world.
- Miranda draws on the most prominent moment from her life for inspiration which is
the dinner party with Arthur, Elizabeth and Clark. Clark recognizes this at the novel’s
conclusion. Clark sees people he knew in the comic book far removed from his
reality in the new world.
- Miranda’s comics foreshadow several aspects of the post-collapse world.
1) The inhabitants of the Undersea who spend all their lives waiting for their lives to
begin (p.86) can be likened to the survivors of the pandemic.
2) Just as those in the Undersea long to see sunlight again (p.83) so too do the
survivors wish to see the ways of the old world again.
3) The contrast between Dr. Eleven, who recognises that he must try to forget the
sweetness of life on earth (p.42) and the ‘people living out their lives in
underwater fallout shelters, clinging to the hope that the world they
remembered could be restored’ (p.213) is also reflected in the approaches to life
after the pandemic: there are those such as Clark, who understand that the old
world is gone and that a new world has been born and must be nurtured to
reach its full potential, while there are others such as Elizabeth and Tyler, who
are unable to accept the severity of events and who cling to a misguided belief
that things will one day return to how they once were.
4) Kirsten derives hope from her Dr. Eleven comics. As a totem of the old world, the
comics link Kirsten to her past through Arthur, who gave her the comics prior to
his death, and allow her to cling to the ephemeral memories of her childhood.
 5) In contrast, the content of the comics presents both hope and hopelessness: Dr.
Eleven realises that he must forget the sweetness of life on earth (p.42) whereas
the inhabitants of the Undersea remain committed to their struggle, dreaming of
‘sunlight…of walking on earth’. (p.302) In the new world Kirsten is torn between
these two opposing forces of pragmatism (represented by Dr. Eleven) and
optimism (represented by the Undersea inhabitants).

Station Eleven Metaphors and Similes

The Shock Around Arthur's Death (simile)
Similes are used to describe Arthur in his dying state; Jeevan notes that the actor watching
Arthur's heart attack is in shock, his mouth "opening and closing like a fish" as he expires.
This animal imagery ultimately highlights how shock reduces the actors back to an animal
state as they watch the death of their fellow actor. The simile also helps to train the reader
to see responses to death as almost animalistic, preparing the reader for the brutal fate that
will befall humans in the novel's future.
The Medics (simile)
The medics who come in an attempt to resuscitate Arthur are described as "standing over
the fallen actor like crows." The image creates the sense that Arthur is being crowded in his
dying state. The image of crows is also associated with death; the darker simile suggests that
Arthur will not be saved.
The Machine (metaphor)
Miranda notes with annoyance how her abusive boyfriend overuses the metaphor of "The
Machine," often using phrases like “lost in the machine.” Often this is combined with a
reference to the metaphorical "Man," as in “That’s how the Man wants us, just trapped right
there in the corporate machine.” This metaphor juxtaposes how Pablo feels about
Miranda's corporate job with how she feels about it; he sees her time at the office as selling
out, while she draws peace from it.
Souls as cans on a string (simile)
Kirsten says she imagines the Prophet "dragging souls across the landscape like cans on a
string." This simile creates the sense that the followers are being pulled by some
imperceptible, mysterious power, such as the Prophet's vision of the new order in the
world, rather than being physically or explicitly forced to do his bidding. The lack of force
does not mean a lack of gentleness; that they are "dragged across the landscape" implies
that they are not treated very well.
The Virus "Like an Avenging Angel" (simile)
In a sermon, the Prophet compares the virus to "an avenging angel" that came to cleanse
the world of wickedness. This simile packs the punch of personification; by making the virus,
a thing without a motive, have agency to make decisions, he creates the sense that there is
rhyme and reason to who lived and who survived. This allows for the Prophet to organize
the senseless death into an order with logic, where there are those who are saved and
damned. The simile of an avenging angel allows for him to exert power over those he meets
and capitalizes on the power of words.
King Lear by William Shakespeare
Station Eleven opens with a performance of King Lear. King Lear is King of Britain, he
surrenders his crown to enjoy old age in tranquillity, but instead is thrust into a turbulent
world to ask: Who is it that can tell me who I am? (Act 1 Sc.4) He banishes his only true
daughter, is abused by his other two and is stripped of his retinue (retainers or attendants).
Station Eleven opens with a performance of King Lear in a Toronto theatre. Mid-sentence,
the actor playing Lear falters, delivers the wrong line – “Down from the waist they are
Centaurs” – and stumbles. In the audience is Jeevan Chaudhary, a trainee paramedic, who
realises something is wrong and climbs on to the stage. He’s too late: the actor, Arthur
Leander, dies. That night in the bar the crew are
raising a toast to him. Later we learn: “Of all of them
there at the bar that night, the bartender was the
one who survived the longest. He died three weeks
later on the road out of the city.” (p.15)
Arthur Leander dies while performing King Lear, and
the Travelling Symphony performs Shakespeare’s
works. On page 57, Mandel writes, “Shakespeare was the third born to his parents, but the
first to survive infancy. Four of his siblings died young. His son, Hamnet, died at eleven and
left behind a twin. Plague closed the theaters again and again, death flickering over the
landscape.”
King Lear:
Behold yond simpering dame,

Whose face between her forks presages snow,

That minces virtue and does shake the head

To hear of pleasure’s name.

The fitchew, nor the soiled horse, goes to ’t

With a more riotous appetite. Down from the waist

They are centaurs, though women all above.

But to the girdle do the gods inherit;

Beneath is all the fiends. There’s hell, there’s darkness,

There’s the sulfurous pit— burning, scalding,

Stench, consumption! Fie, fie, fie, pah, pah! —

Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,

To sweeten my imagination.

There’s money for thee. (Act 4Sc.5)

How do Shakespearean motifs coincide with those of Station Eleven, both the novel and
the comic?
‘No more avatars’ (p.32): an image that represents you in online games, chat rooms,
etc. and that you can move around the screen.

Intertextuality: Intertextuality is a sophisticated literary device making use of a textual

reference within some body of text, which reflects again the text used as a reference.
Intertextuality draws upon the concept, rhetoric, or ideology from other writings to be
merged in the new text.
- King Lear by William Shakespeare
- Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
- The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Popular art and culture: Popular art, any dance, literature, music, theatre, or other
art form intended to be received and appreciated by ordinary people in a literate,
technologically advanced society dominated by urban culture. Popular art in the 20th
century is usually dependent on such technologies of reproduction or distribution as
television, printing, photography, digital compact disc and tape recording, motion pictures,
radio, and videocassettes. By the late 20th century, television (q.v.) had unquestionably
become the dominant vehicle for popular art and entertainment
- Star Trek: Voyager episode
- Symphony’s music
- Dr. Eleven’s comics
- Dear V.

Language: Throughout the novel, Mandel’s elegiac writing reflects the emotional impact
of the pandemic on the characters, and highlights the destructiveness of the virus on the
natural world. Mandel evokes a post-apocalyptic world through myriad literary techniques.
The metaphors she chooses for example – ‘the idea of dragging souls across the landscape
like cans on a string’ (p.297) often serve to reinforce the text’s bleak tone, while sentences
of short staccato-like phrases, such as ‘a stark and unexpected beauty, silent metropolis, no
movement’ (p.182), reveal the harsh reality of the new world. Her lyrical descriptions of the
natural landscape – ‘the first few trees visible before her, monochrome contrasts of black
shadow and white moonlight, and beyond that an entire continent, wilderness
uninterrupted’ (p.136), are in stark contrast to the visceral imagery used to depict the
effects of the pandemic on material objects such as cars, which are described as ‘rusted
exoskeletons on flat tires’(p.296)
READ: “Literary Features” MacMillan pages 140-142