People are defined by their past. The past holds a person’s reputation, relationships, and decisions. All these factors lead to a person’s present. This idea is heavily explored in the novel Station Eleven. The author, Emily St. John Mandel, spends a significant portion of the book in various flashbacks to explain a character’s present. The past is sporadically interspersed into the telling of the present storyline. These random jumps force the reader to pay close attention to whether it is the past or present. Emily Mandel uses the past, in the form of flashbacks, as a device to further develop her characters. The author of Station Eleven uses flashbacks to show contrast in characters, explain relationships, and reveal a character’s motive. …show more content…
Almost every main character has two distinct storylines in Station Eleven. The first is life before the outbreak and the second is life after the outbreak. These storylines assist the author in illustrating the dramatic change undergone by the characters. For example, Kirsten Raymonde is introduced as a helpless child actress. “He (Jeevan) heard a whimper, and there was a child… a small actress… she kept wiping her eyes.” (pg. 6) Twenty years later Kirsten is described as an independent, fierce, and deadly survivor. Kirsten’s change is a direct effect from the outbreak. It forces her to grow up and to do whatever it takes to survive. This change is shown through the comparison of the flashback to present day Kirsten. The flashback gives the basis to make such a drastic change from past to …show more content…
The author develops her characters by giving them each motive. The reason as to why they have a certain motive is explained in the flashbacks. The biggest mystery throughout the novel is who is The Prophet and what is his motive. The prophet’s motive is revealed to be his mother who has influenced him into thinking the Georgia Flu was God’s doing. The following is dialogue between Clark and Elizabeth. “Clark: I think he’s maybe picked up some strange ideas about what happened Elizabeth: What kind of strange ideas? Clark: He thinks the pandemic happened for a reason… Elizabeth: Everything happens for a reason, its not for us to know.” (Pg. 260-261) This excerpt reveals the seed planted by Tyler’s mother, Elizabeth, which will later turn Tyler into the prophet. Tyler’s motive as to become the Prophet is revealed by this flashback. A person’s motive is based on their past
In this mysterious story “The Eleventh Hour” the story was about a fantastic party the animals go to but while they are playing someone and steals the grand feast. My initial pre-reading prediction for “the Eleventh Hour” was that there were lots of animals who went to a fancy dress party and a big mystery unfolds during the story. My pre- reading prediction was kind of right. When Horace turns 11he celebrates in a grand style by inviting his friends over for a spectacular party. As they were playing someone from the party secretly sneaks into the banquet hall and gobbles down all the food.
In "Our Secret" by Susan Griffin, the essay uses fragments throughout the essay to symbolize all the topics and people that are involved. The fragments in the essay tie together insides and outsides, human nature, everything affected by past, secrets, cause and effect, and development with the content. These subjects and the fragments are also similar with her life stories and her interviewees that all go together. The author also uses her own memories mixed in with what she heard from the interviewees. Her recollection of her memory is not fully told, but with missing parts and added feelings. Her interviewee's words are told to her and brought to the paper with added information. She tells throughout the book about these recollections.
Eden Robinson’s short story “Terminal Avenue” presents readers with the dystopian near-future of Canada where Indigenous people are subjugated and placed under heavy surveillance. The story’s narrator, Wil, is a young Aboriginal man who struggles with his own inner-turmoil after the suicide of his father and his brother’s subsequent decision to join the ranks of the Peace Officers responsible for “adjusting” the First Nations people. Though “Terminal Avenue” takes place in Vancouver there are clear parallels drawn between the Peace Officers of Robinson’s imagination and the Canadian military sent to enforce the peace during the stand-off at Oka, Quebec in 1990. In writing “Terminal Avenue” Robinson addresses the armed conflict and proposes
Station Eleven by Emily ST. John Mandel is a science fiction book about an epidemic hitting the world causing the human race to be wiped almost to extinction. In the start of the novel it is shown that Arthur Leander dies and Jeevan a former paparazzo who became a EMT tries to save Arthur but doesn’t succeed. Jeevan then helps this little girl named Kristen and tells her that Arthur is dead. Later that day Jeevan got a call from his old roommates Hua who alerted Jeevan of the Georgia flu. Moving about twenty years down the road. The epidemic hit and caused civilization to almost go extinct. In this time zone Kristen is an actor apart of the travelling symphony. After that it starts to go back and forth in time to show the present or the past
Through this short story we are taken through one of Vic Lang’s memories narrated by his wife struggling to figure out why a memory of Strawberry Alison is effecting their marriage and why she won’t give up on their relationship. Winton’s perspective of the theme memory is that even as you get older your past will follow you good, bad or ugly, you can’t always forget. E.g. “He didn’t just rattle these memories off.” (page 55) and ( I always assumed Vic’s infatuation with Strawberry Alison was all in the past, a mortifying memory.” (page 57). Memories are relevant to today’s society because it is our past, things or previous events that have happened to you in which we remembered them as good, bad, sad, angry etc. memories that you can’t forget. Winton has communicated this to his audience by sharing with us how a memory from your past if it is good or bad can still have an effect on you even as you get older. From the description of Vic’s memory being the major theme is that it just goes to show that that your past can haunt or follow you but it’s spur choice whether you chose to let it affect you in the
In conclusion, the topics of societal breakdown, relationships, and society are the central pillars that make up the central narrative of Station Eleven. In post-apocalyptic literature, whether consciously or unconsciously, these make up the bulk of what the reader sees, hears, and experiences within the narrative itself. Specifically within the post-apocalyptic narrative of Station Eleven, one sees plainly these themes, but not in the form one would expect. Firstly, the fact that theme of societal breakdown has been written into the overall story arch is no coincidence. From the occurrence of the Georgia Flu and its sweep across the world to more fictitious forms of annihilation such as the zombie apocalypse, this alludes to one of the
Directed and written by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, the movie “Butterfly Effect” is about a young man (Kutcher) who blacks out harmfull memories of significant events of his life. As he grows up he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life. This movie teaches a simple lesson about life: one little thing in the past can change the whole outcome of life later. The book Bonesetter’s Daughter, by Amy Tan, also has something to do with past, as it is narrated by two people, mother and daughter, who talk about themselves, constantly referring back to the memories of their childhood. They regret the mistakes they have made as a little girl. If only they didn’t make the mistake in the past, they would have a totally different fate then.
For this paper I read the novel The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards, this novel is told in the span of 25 years, it is told by two characters David and Caroline, who have different lives but are connect through one past decision. The story starts in 1964, when a blizzard happens causing the main character, Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins. During the delivery the son named Paul is fine but the daughter named Phoebe has something wrong with her. The doctor realizes that the daughter has Down syndrome, he is shocked and age remembers his own childhood when his sister was always sick, her dyeing at an early and how that effected his mother. He didn’t want that to happen to his wife, so David told the nurse to bring Phoebe to an institution, so that his wife wouldn’t suffer. The nurse, Caroline didn’t think this was right, but brings Phoebe to the institution anyways. Once Caroline sees the institution in an awful state she leaves with the baby and
Station Eleven is a novel that is about this epidemic call the Georgia flu and what life was like before and after the pandemic, and its follows this small group of actor and musician, as they navigate their new changed world.
In The Reader there are many examples of individuals having to cope with the past. Hanna Schmitz was a member of the SS during the Holocaust. She served in concentration camps in Auschwitz and a camp near Cracow. Although Hanna never killed anyone herself, she was involved in taking people to be executed. She must go to court for her actions while being in the SS. When Hanna was a guard she would pick certain girls to read to her. "Yes she had favorites, always one of the young ones who was weak and delicate," says a survivor of the Holocaust during Hanna's trial (Schlink 116). Hanna knew the younger, weaker girls would not tell anyone what they were doing for her. Hanna was illiterate so she enjoyed being read to by the girls. Hanna's entire life is being influenced by all the actions that happened in her past.
Didion begins her essay by expounding a note that was written in her personal notebook. The author carries out her explanation by first quoting her note and then following that with a flashback that relates to it. Didion uses flashbacks to support the idea that writing down an event could assist in the remembrance
The retelling of stories has been used from generation to generation as a way to share life changing lessons. Flashbacks provide a bridge to past or future events forward to the present without ruining the chronological order of a story. Exercising flashbacks in novels helps aid reader in connecting important situations. The use of flashbacks in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley recounts events, enhances the understanding of the novel, and parallels characteristics.
Emily attempts to recapture her past by escaping from the present. She wants to leave the present and go back to a happier past. Miss Emily wants to find the love she once knew. “After her father’s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all” (243). Emily alienates herself from everyone when the two people she has loved most in her life go away. She becomes afraid to grow close to anyone in fear of losing them again.
A marvelous novel “The Gathering”, written by Anne Enright is a very compelling read, traveling from the present into the past and dealing with the consequences that lead you into a darker future. The novel takes place in very odd locations that travel back into time around the older days of when houses were much smaller than in today’s society and technology was not yet simulated. Veronica, the narrator of the book is captivated by the physicality of the world. There are at least 4 diverse narratives going on throughout the story, and in all of these flashbacks veronica always seems to be cornered in by the world that revolves around her. Veronica lives a comfortable middle classed life but she is always travelling back in to the past trying to figure out where she fits in with her brother and herself after his death. Have you ever reminisced about the past so much that sometimes you find yourself either lost or living in it? My approach to this novel is that you can’t change anything that has occurred in the past but you can for sure try to resolve those problems in the future.
Memory is a very obvious motif in the novel. The stories of the characters are partly told through flashbacks, which allow the reader to have a better understanding of their past lives. Throughout the novel, characters remember the past, and yearn to go back to those days. When Ishvar and Om were first beginning their tailoring