Novel Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Respond to the following questions making sure to label the question you are answering (#1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) with at least 500 words and including direct quotes and page numbers.
Questions:
1. Now that youâve read the entire novel, go back and reread the passage by Czeslaw Milosz that serves as an epigraph. What does it mean? Why did Mandel choose it to introduce Station Eleven? Does the novel have a main character? Who would you consider it to be?
2. Arthur Leander dies while performing King Lear and the Traveling Symphony performs Shakespeareâs works. Mandel writes, âShakespeare 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 landscapeâ (Mandel 57). How do Shakespearean motifs coincide with those of Station Eleven, both the novel and the comic?
3. What is the metaphor of the Station Elevencomic books? How does the Undersea connect to the events of the novel? âSurvival is insufficient,â a line from Star Trek: Voyager, is the Traveling Symphonyâs motto. What does it mean to them?7. The prophet discusses death: âIâm not speaking of the tedious variations on physical death. Thereâs the death of the body, and thereâs the death of the soul. I saw my mother die twiceâ (Mandel 62). Knowing who his mother was, what do you think he meant by that? Arthurâs death happens to coincide with the arrival of the Georgia Flu. If Jeevan had been able to save him, it wouldnât have prevented the apocalypse. But how might the trajectory of the novel been different?
4. Certain items turn up again and again, for instance the comic books and the paperweightâthings Arthur gave away before he died because he didnât want any more possessions. And Clarkâs Museum of Civilization turns what we think of as mundane belongings into totems worthy of study. What point is Mandel making? On a related note, some charactersâlike Clarkâbelieve in preserving and teaching about the time before the flu. But in Kirstenâs interview with François Diallo, we learn that there are entire towns that prefer not to: âWe went to a place once where the children didnât know the world had ever been different . . . â (115). What are the benefits of remembering, and of not remembering? What do you think happened during the year Kirsten canât remember?
5. In a letter to his childhood friend, Arthur writes that heâs been thinking about a quote from Yeats, âLove is like the lionâs toothâ (158). What does this mean, and why is he thinking about it? How does the impending publication of those letters affect Arthur? Arthur remembers Miranda saying âI regret nothing,â and uses that to deepen his understanding of Lear, âa man who regrets everythingâ (206) as well as his own life. How do his regrets fit into the larger scope of the novel? Other than Miranda, are there other characters that refuse to regret?
6. Throughout the novel, those who were alive during the time before the flu remember specific things about those days: the ease of electricity, the taste of an orange. In their place, what do you think youâd remember most? What do you imagine the Traveling Symphony will find when they reach the brightly lit town to the south? The novel ends with Clark, remembering the dinner party and imagining that somewhere in the world, ships are sailing. Why did Mandel choose to end the novel with him?