Station Eleven Theme Analysis Essay Example

In the novel Station Eleven, an actor by the name of Arthur dies on stage of a heart attack, starting the whole pandemic collapse. A group of young performers known as the traveling symphony attempt to restore civilization to the rest of the survivors. The group faces numerous struggles but performing helps them take their mind off the pandemic and their struggles. By focusing on the novel’s narrative, it is clear to see the theme of civilization is key to survival, without it humanity is nothing. The reader can see this through the fractured narrative the book has. The author uses appropriate flashbacks to show Arthur’s life before he died and in the novel, Arthur is one of the main reasons the characters are fighting for survival.

In the beginning of Station Eleven, the author shows the theme of the novel by showing things that happened at the beginning of the collapse and things that happened many years after the collapse. The novel starts out in the present time when Jeevan is at a play and Arthur has a heart attack and passes away: “The snow was falling fast around them, shimmering in blue-white light. Arthur wasn’t breathing”(4). The theme is shown through the characters coming together and doing this for Arthur because he passed away which coincides with the collapse. A couple of chapters after the story is being told from twenty years after the collapse, Kirsten is now traveling with the symphony to keep her from thinking too much about the times she is in. The author shows how the symphony is getting around twenty years after the collapse, “TWENTY YEARS AFTER the end of air travel, the caravans of the Traveling Symphony moved slowly under a white-hot sky”(35). The lack of air travel shows that the civilization that used to be has vanished so the traveling symphony has to become its own civilization. The way the author uses the fractured narrative almost foreshadows what will happen in the novel because if they want to survive they are going to have to work together as a group and own little civilization to overcome the struggles.

Throughout the middle of the novel, many viewpoints from different times and characters are presented which shows who the characters are before and after the collapse. The fractured narrative leads into a flashback from fourteen years before the collapse when Arthur ad Miranda are having dinner for their third anniversary: “Ten minutes before the photograph, Arthur Leander and the girl are waiting by the coat check in a restaurant in Toronto. This is well before the Georgia Flu. Civilization won’t collapse for another fourteen years”(71). This evidence shows how civilization was before the collapse and shows that the death of Arthur was pretty impactful because of his fame. Arthur was somewhat flirting with another girl and Miranda wasn’t very happy so she went outside and met Jeevan, “‘So do you have a cigarette for me, Jeevan?” “Sure. Here. I didn’t know you smoked’”(102). These characters had an interaction with each other before the collapse and fourteen years later Jeevan tried to save Artur’s life. In the present time, Diallo interviews Kirsten and asks her about the daggers tattoo and the survival is insufficient tattoo, “RAYMONDE: The text on my arm? ‘Survival is insufficient’? DIALLO: No, no, the other one. The two black knives on your right wrist”(132). The readers later figure out that the dagger tattoos stand for the two men she had killed but she had to do it to protect herself and her group. The novel presents these to show that it is important for these main characters to be a civilization because if they were they might not survive alone.

In the end of the Station Eleven, the fractured narrative relates to the theme in a way that helps you understand what is going on in the novel. Fifteen years after the collapse the readers are able to see that civilization has pretty much vanished because people are living in airports: “BY THE END OF Year Fifteen there were three hundred people in the airport, and the Museum of Civilization filled the Skymiles Lounge”(258). This shows that the traveling symphony has to create its own civilization because the 300 people are the only big group left in society. In the novel, the readers are able to see that Kirsten has changed his actions in order for her to survive. She has two dagger tattoos on her arm to represent the two men that she killed protecting the symphony: “The first marked a man who came at her in her first year with the Symphony, when she was fifteen…The second knife was for a man who fell two years later, outside Mackinaw City”(295). The theme supports this quote because without a structure these men are trying to attack and steal from the symphony but with a civilization around them, this would not be happening. The collapse of civilization has led to many things out of the ordinary, the traveling symphony has been able to create a strong group and overcome it in order to survive. Kirsten and the traveling symphony have to work together to stay alive, they must protect each other and act as a team in order to survive.