In the novel Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, there are many different topics that can be looked at with examining certain aspects to claim an argument. One idea that Mandel emphasizes is that life before the collapse was still difficult for certain characters. Ways that this can be seen through is with three themes: relationships, lack of purpose, and loneliness. Most of the characters throughout the novel experienced one of the three themes, whether they realized it or not.
To start, there are many characters who struggle with relationships in the novel. The first character to be looked at is Arthur. Arthur battles with marriages as he is not faithful. Evidence in the novel proves that Arthur and Elizabeth, his co-star,
have something going on between them. Stated in the novel, “She crosses the grass and takes it from him, leans in when he flicks the lighter, and observes the dinner party while she inhales. Arthur is laughing. His hand strays to Elizabeth’s wrist and rests there for an instant before he refills her wine. Why is Elizabeth sitting next to him? How could they be so indiscreet?” (Mandel, 99). Miranda, Arthurs wife, notices at their anniversary dinner that Arthur is having an affair with Elizabeth. Clark — who is Arthur’s best friend — makes a comment to Miranda that everyone else already knows. After three months, Arthur and Miranda end up getting divorced, and she moves back to Toronto. Also, Arthur fails at being a friend. It states in the novel, “Clark had thought he was meeting with a friend for dinner, but Arthur wasn’t having dinner with a friend, Clark realized, so much as having dinner with an audience. He felt sick with disgust” (Mandel, 112). Arthur is so caught up on acting and his career, that he thinks everything is about him. Clark gets the feeling that Arthur is just putting on a performance and he cannot tell if he is actually being genuine or if this is just a version of himself; acting instead of being there as an earnest human.
... relationship with the other people in the town of Struan. His relationships helps him understand about himself, and affects the decisions he makes for the future. People such as Pete, his father, and Jake all play a role in understanding different things about himself. With Pete, Ian understands the beauty that the town of Struan has to offer and what he loves about it and effecting his decision to live in Struan, his father helps him understand his profession as he grows older as he does become what his father hopes him to be, while with Jake he understands the attatchement he was with Struan, from the town to the importance of the job of being the town’s doctor. Therefore if Ian did not have relationships with these people, Ian would be a completely different person to what he is now in the book because all of them, contributes something very important to Ian..
Author, Edith Wharton, reveals how our perception of people could be completely wrong depending on what we choose to believe. She reveals in the relationship between all three men how by taking our time to know people for who they are and not what we assume or have been told about them, that we could find that they are just regular people who care as much as we do for what they love.
Kristen’s tattoo read, “Survival is insufficient.” In the beginning of the novel, Station Eleven, there is a quote, “No one ever thinks they’re awful, even people who really actually are. It’s some sort of survival mechanism” (20 Mandel). Emily St. John Mandel portrays throughout the book how survival is insufficient, a repeating statement and theme. Arthur, Kristen, Tyler, Elizabeth, Jeevan, Clark, Miranda, in the book play a main role in this theme and connect into how survival and death is one of the greatest factors in the book. The novel contends that people, to be human, must accomplish something other than survive; they should live.
John Steinbeck, an American novelist, is well-known for his familiar themes of depression and loneliness. He uses these themes throughout a majority of his novels. These themes come from his childhood and growing up during the stock market crash. A reader can see his depiction of his childhood era. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck shows the prominent themes of loneliness, the need for relationships, and the loss of dreams in the 1930s through the novels’ character.
It solidified the truth unacknowledged to them earlier--their friendships among each other were valued above their less than satisfactory marriages in their minds, something that if uncovered by their husbands would have surely placed them under detrimental suspicion. Throughout the story, after surviving the odds and preserving a dangerously unsteady life, the female characters proved that their devotion to each other could conquer the power struggle against the forced commitments they lived in. Society deemed their marriages to be untouchable and unable to be disputed in any way, but with the sturdy connections among them, wives found a way to tamper with the stereotypes and secure a better future for their fellow struggling
One of the most important components of the theme of sexual identity involves the ways in which Art’s sexual identity facilitates the action, conflict, and emotional content throughout the narrative. In this way, Art’s sexual identity greatly influenced his interactions with the other characters within the novel. After his graduation from college, Art nearly immediately meets Arthur Lecomte who would shape the course of Art’s decisions, emotions, and identity throughout the novel. He had become quite interested in Arthur and this was shown when Art was ruminating on his newfound interest.
Her unusual friendship with Avigdor, her study partner, and marriage to Hadass, Avigdor’s former fiancé, sets the story on a track of intrigue.
Francis Macomber is a middle age man that is good at court games such as: tennis or squash, competitions where there are set standards and rules for play. Also, there are confined areas of play for his games. He is quite wealthy and some say handsome which add to Francis masculinity. His wife on the other hand does not think that much of him and thinks of him as a coward. Margot on the other hand his “beautiful wife”, whom really does not like Francis but stays with him anyway. She cheats on him and despises, basically because he married her only for her looks. Margot on the other hand is part responsible for the same thing because she only married him for his money. They are both stuck in a situation because they both married for the wrong reasons. Their gender roles are sort of fighting against each other because she doesn’t care about the relationship and cheats; and he tries to prove that he is a man and yet fails because he tries too hard. Masculinity is something that Margot and others at the Safari think it is an aspect of manhood that Francis lacks.
In the novel Of Mice and Men, written during the Great Depression, loneliness is a very important theme. Albert Schweitzer said, “We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.” Throughout the story loneliness has impacted the lives of many migrant workers during
The relationship between Celie and Albert went through many changes throughout this novel. Albert, or Mr._________, was a man who seem to be a person who was very angry, powerful and hateful. His father was a man who believed that love was not the point while trying to find a good wife, obedience was. The woman didn't have to be attractive, rich or one who was in love, all she had to do was cook, clean and tend to the children. Albert was taught that this was the way to an successful life. Albert feel in love with Shug, they did not marry. Mr.____ was controlled by his father even as an adult. His father wouldn't allow his son to marry Shug. His father didn't want him to actually love, because he never loved himself. Albert married a woman his father approved of, and he treated her how his father taught him to. Margret cooked, cleaned and tended to the children. After his father took shug away from him, he hated his father, but was so controlled by him that he could never stand up to his father. She later died and left behind a house to be cleaned, cooking to be done and children who needed to be tended to. He fell in love again with Nettie, but she was not allowed to marry him. Albert was forced to find a quick replacement for Margret. So instead he married Celie. He beat her not only because of the angry towards his father, but also because she was neither Shug nor Nettie. In the marriage of Celie and Albert there was no love or devotion. They were just stuck with the other. Celie married Albert because her step father told her too and Albert married because he wanted a full time maid. They just went one day to the next with Albert giving the orders and Celie carrying out these orders. It was like boss and employ, except Celie was anything but rewarded for carrying out the orders.
obsessive love by the way they acted. Towards the end of the book love only came from one of
The destruction caused by illicit relationships is evident by the tragedies and faced by the lovers within Arthur’s kingdom.
while facing challenges as their journey proceeds up until the end of the novel. Some may acknowledge their relationship from a friendship perspective while others may see it from
Both Algernon and Jack assume the identity of "Ernest" yet ironically, they both plan on starting their married life with a lie. Lady Bracknell represents the typical aristocrat who focuses the idea of marriage on social and economic status. She believes that if the men trying to marry these girls are not of proper background, there is to be no engagement. Through this major exaggeration, Wilde satirically reveals the irrational and insignificant matters that the upper class society uses to view
As it can be seen from the characteristics of the two servants, they have some differences. These differences not only affect their characteristics but also their relationships with others too. In the book we can see two servants with different relationships with the same person who is Prosp...