John Mandel Station 11 Analysis

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Station Eleven, a science-fiction novel that is written by Emily St. John Mandel, is a unique piece of work in the grand literature field. While other post-apocalypse novels focus on dangerous environment and struggling of survivors, Mandel takes her aim at portraying a group of joyful artists who travel from towns to towns in the ruined world. For each stop, the Symphony would build up a stage and entertain the local public with classical concerts and Shakespeare’s theatrical dramas. Indeed, the content of Station Eleven has successfully drawn readers’ attention, and Mandel is a skillful writer who is adept at portraying her characters’ emotion and specific features to make them particular. However, Mandel may still depict the world after …show more content…

Most survivors die unfortunately when fighting alone, and those lucky ones may find groups of reliable scavengers to stay together, just like Kirsten and her Traveling Symphony in Mandel’s book. However, Mandel makes her group traveling instead of settling down at a safe area. She writes “Twenty years after the end of air travel, the caravans of the Traveling Symphony moved slowly under a white-hot sky” (Mandel 35). Keep moving is a culpable decision because traveling is much more dangerous than finding a place to settle down. Long distance travel needs a number of resources, which include fuels. This group of musicians may drive several reliable caravans, but they also need large amount of gasoline to keep the trip going. Mandel never writes a plot about how this group running out of gas for their vehicles; how group members try to reach to the nearest gas station and meet a gang of vicious bandits; how they risk their lives and fight hard to survive. I would say Mandel underestimates the danger of unknown threats in such a collapsed world. She may persistently believe the goodness in people’s deep hearts. Indeed, humans have nature of kindness, but when the environment are threating everyone’s life, their nature of survival would overwhelm their kindness. The truth may turn out to be the

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