Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven

In Emily St. John Mandel's novel Station Eleven, the motifs of death and flawed relationships are employed to convey the essentiality of art to humanity. Art has a way of reminding people of what life and civilization should be, and resonates with people more than the concept of survival alone. The motifs supporting this idea are present in Shakespeare's times and throughout the novel's pre-apocalypse, post-apocalypse, and comic Station Eleven's timelines.

Mandel's use of the Shakespearean motif of death has the effect of drawing a parallel between the plague during Shakespeare's time and the Georgia Flu in her novel. She explicitly mentions that Shakespeare was the first to survive infancy, despite being the third child to be born, implying

that the plague had claimed the lives of his older brothers. The play that the Symphony chooses to perform, A Midsummer Night's Dream, was written around 1595, shortly before the death of his only son. Shakespeare, who had written many of his plays during a turbulent time period when the plague ravaged England's towns and cities, may have drawn some inspiration from his circumstances. Mandel purposely draws attention to Shakespeare's tenacity to continue producing plays even as "plague closed the theaters again and again, death lingering over the landscape" (57) and people's persistence to go watch his works even at the risk of contracting the disease. The historical context of the Shakespearean plays mentioned in the book serve as an instance of people's inherent need for art.
Throughout the first two sections of the novel, the idea of death that is presented
repeatedly—slowly in greater scales with each reminder—creating a sense of irresolvable loss in people's lives. The first few deaths of the novel are linked to the play King Lear; the first is Arthur, who dies of a heart attack on stage while performing, and the other is the fictional character, Cordelia, who lies limp in Arthur's arm in a promotional poster for the play. That night, "of all of [the play's cast and crew] there at the bar ... the bartender was the one who survived the longest... three weeks" (15). Beginning the night of Arthur's death, millions of deaths follow when the Georgia Flu arrives on a flight from Moscow. The acceleration in the number of human deaths in such a short time period reduces society into a unrecognizable disaster, void of hope.
Not only does Mandel use death as the literal end of a life, she also extends the motif to encompass the end of certain activities, opportunities, organizations, and abstract ideas following the pandemic.

Mandel devotes an entire chapter to list a multitude of things people can no longer see and experience, as well as, "No more cities... no more flight... no more countries... no more police... no more Internet... no more social media" (31-32). Using the repetitive format of "no more...", Mandel enumerates all of the world's pleasures, safeguards, and technological innovations that no longer exist because of the Georgia Flu. Mandel's poetic manner of describing the death of all these concepts dramatically establishes the final death—the world as people once knew it. In the comic, Dr. Eleven says, "I stood looking over my damaged home and tried to forget the sweetness of life on Earth" (42), embodying the longing for the past that the survivors in the post-apocalypse timeline

feel.
The Shakespearean motif of flawed relationships in the various timelines in the book also highlight the necessity of art to people. Oberon and Titania, the characters from Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, struggle with infidelity issues like Arthur and Kirsten do. Arthur has a complicated love life; he has three former wives, and until his death, is involved in an affair with Tanya, the theater's child wrangler. He turns to art to find meaning in his life and to escape from his insecurities over his failed relationships, ultimately establishing himself as a famous actor. Kirsten, who has her own share of relationship issues, such as with fellow actor Sayid, finds solace in art through her stage performances and her copy of the Station Eleven comics because they remind her of the art and beauty in the world before the collapse.
After employing a twenty year time skip to adjust readers into the new timeline, Mandel launches into a detailed account of all the complicated relationship between the members of the Symphony.

The Symphony is a "collection of petty jealousies, neuroses, undiagnosed PTSD cases, and simmering resentments" (47), but the group manages to stay together because of "the camaraderie and the music and the Shakespeare, the moments of transcendent beauty and joy..." (47). The member's shared love and appreciation for the art they perform exceed all of their relationship issues, demonstrating the power of art in their lives. Even though the apocalypse pressures the survivors to prioritize staying alive, the Symphony still travel from place to place in relentless weather to keep art from being lost and forgotten. Despite the dangerous environment and reduced means of transportation, the Symphony still travels from place to place to perform some music and Shakespeare's plays. According to Dieter, the reason why people intuitively show extreme preference to Shakespeare's plays above other theatrical works is, "People want what was best about the world" (38). Art gives people pleasure and drives them to come out for the

performances.
Mandel's masterful weaving of the motifs into the different worlds that are crippled by a disastrous event—Shakespeare's time, the novel, and the comic—has the effect of proving how art humanizes people. Art speaks to the human soul and has the ability to strengthen the emotional connections between people in a way that survival cannot. As the Symphony's motto states, art is needed "[b]ecause survival is insufficient" (58).