Beauty in the Finite, Hope in the Darkness
A Comparative Study of Disaster Novels
May 2020
Master's thesis
Master's thesis
Vilja Arnsteinsdatter
2020Vilja Arnsteinsdatter NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology Faculty of Humanities Department of Language and Literature
Beauty in the Finite, Hope in the Darkness
A Comparative Study of Disaster Novels
Vilja Arnsteinsdatter
Master's programme in English Submission date: May 2020
Supervisor: Dr Rhonna Jean Robbins-Sponaas
Norwegian University of Science and Technology Department of Language and Literature
Table of contents
Acknowledgements……… III Abstract.………. V
Chapter I: Introduction……… 1
Chapter II: Station Eleven………. 7
Chapter III: All the Light We Cannot See………. 31
Chapter IV: Conclusion………. 51
Works cited………. 59
Acknowledgements
My sincerest gratitude goes out to my supervisor, Dr Rhonna Jean Robbins- Sponaas, for her careful yet sturdy guidance, unwavering optimism and positivity, for handling my moments of panic with grace and kindness, and for helping me achieve my goal of completing a master’s thesis.
Thank you to my university and campus, NTNU Trondheim, Dragvoll, for allowing and enabling me to study the subject that I love for all these years.
To Dr Domhnall Mitchell, for a boost of confidence at the very right moment.
To Dr Hania Musiol and Dr Yuri Cowan, for broadening my perspective and opening my mind to the many and varied forms of literature there are out there.
To my sister, Siri, for always being my biggest fan.
To Hywel, for his enthusiasm and honesty, and for all of our marvellous conversations.
And to the authors of the novels I discuss in this thesis
—
thank you for your beautiful and inspirational writing.Abstract
Catastrophes and disasters have been discussed widely in literary scholarship.
While novels dealing with the dark and disastrous may generally be thought of as grim reading, this thesis aims to prove that there one can find hope in even the direst of circumstances. A comparative study between two novels that take largely different approaches, yet contain several similarities, this thesis explores the numerous ways in which hope, optimism, and a positive outcome is portrayed in the two narratives and through the different protagonists. One novel speculates on the outcome of a global pandemic and the collapse of our society, while the other looks back to World War II and the struggles and fears people had to live through. Through a close-reading of the two novels, this thesis looks into the genres of speculative fiction and historical fiction, exploring the symbolism contained in the narratives, and ultimately argues that there is hope, there is beauty, and that the two chosen primary sources may teach us something about what it means to be human.
Chapter I: Introduction
“I have walked all my life through this tarnished world, and I have seen such darkness, such shadows and horrors” (Mandel 301).
This thesis is a comparative study of disaster novels and their symbolism. The aim is to show that there is hope, even in the darkest of times, and that this may manifest itself in novels with an otherwise bleak outlook. Through analysis and comparison of two disaster novels from different genres, Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, the argument is that optimism and hope is everywhere around us, if only we know where to look or how to interpret its presence.
Despite belonging to distinct genres, the novels have much in common, and a
comparison between the two is useful as it may teach us how to find positives in various settings and within varying limitations. Fictions of war and postapocalyptic texts are not often associated with positivity, but rather with pain, loss, suffering, and hopelessness.
The goal is therefore to prove that novels with a seemingly gloomy content can still be filled with symbolism that exudes joy, aspiration, enthusiasm and appreciation. Both of the two novels may stand as symbols for life itself: when life is at its darkest is when who we truly are gets to shine, and when all we thought we needed is lost or taken from us, what is truly meaningful and necessary is revealed. Through literature we can understand ourselves better. “It seems clear that literary study
—
like the study of other arts—
can contribute to knowledge about the human mind” (Hogan 1370).Although perhaps dissimilar at first, the two genres of speculative fiction and historical fiction have much in common. Where speculative fiction, or science fiction (the two genres are arguably similar and somewhat overlapping) looks to the future,
imagining outcomes and future realities, historical fiction looks to the past, to a time already lived for some, but impossible to revisit and therefore subjected to speculation as well. The two chosen primary sources approach the topic of disaster in different ways.
Where Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven speculates on a postapocalyptic future and its outcomes, Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See looks to the past, trying to make sense of times of war. Both novels explore the hardships humans must endure during a disaster
—
whether a personal one in the form of a personal loss, or a shared one in the form of an all-encompassing catastrophe—
and both deliver significant messages of hope and optimism, showing us that there is a light to be found in the gravest of moments. Containing repeated symbolism, motifs, and themes, both the narratives themselves and the numerous protagonists can be interpreted in support of this argument. The protagonists are a major part of the symbolism contained within the novels, and an interpretation of these protagonists and the events that occur is not only useful for an understanding of the texts, but also for an understanding of human nature.Literary representation is the representation of human behaviour, set in a specific surrounding world. Creating these representations is
itself a fundamental motive of human nature, and human nature is the
fundamental subject of the representations. The “meaning” of a representation does not reside in the represented events. Meaning resides in the interpretation of events (Carroll 1340).
All the Light We Cannot See is a historical novel about life during war, and the choices we make for family and friendships. It is also about adaption and sacrifice in the face of fear, and about the places we long to go back to. A blind girl finds her way through the darkness of the Second World War, carefully guided by her father and great- uncle, yet strong and independent in the midst of a dangerous situation. A young boy, full of talent, is groomed into becoming someone he is not, travelling across countries in the direction of death. But there is hope in the radio the boy so intently listens to, and there is hope in the novels the girl’s great-uncle reads for her. Great-Uncle Etienne is one of All the Light We Cannot See’s major symbols of hope, as he makes a remarkable journey and progress, moving out of the dark and into the bright, open spaces of the outside world. Some characters die young, some live to old age, some are forever lost in a state where the others cannot follow. The connections between people and the
importance we play in each other’s lives is portrayed through the intertwining of stories and protagonists, weaving a pattern that shows the reader how everything leads to something else, how the choices one makes have consequences and ripple effects beyond their reach, and perhaps, beyond their understanding. Playing with imagery of light and dark, sight and lack thereof, children and adults, loss and letting go, All the Light We Cannot See muses on life and death, the choices we make, the consequences we suffer, and the victories we celebrate. Carefully woven together through shifting perspectives and alternating locations, the readers are taken on a journey through war, showing us the lengths we humans can go to when we must, and showing us that there is ultimately something good that can come out of such terrors.
Station Eleven is a speculative fiction novel about the new reality we create following a world-wide disaster or an apocalyptic event, as well as both the greatness and everything that was wrong with the era it succeeded. In the postapocalyptic time frame of the novel, travelling by foot and by horse, a group of people working as actors and musicians try to find new footing and a new life in a world forever altered, and a former business psychologist builds a memorial of sorts to cope with the loss of life as he knew it. Some have lived long enough to remember what the old world was like, others are too young to have any real recollections, others again were born into this strange new reality where the everyday magic of all that we take for granted is gone. The survivors and their descendants are forced to embark on a journey of forming a new life and of finding home in a world where everyone is a potential threat. In the
preapocalyptic time frame of the novel, a well-renowned actor and star finds himself shining less bright, with his multiple marriages failing and his son and his best friend growing ever more distant. A former paparazzo has an epiphany, finding his purpose in life, and a successful businesswoman learns to rely solely on herself, understanding that that is more than enough. Switching between protagonists, locations, and time frames, the reader gets to spend time in several different worlds, gaining insight into both that which is beautiful and that which is faulty about all of them. Ultimately, this comparison between the eras, although not outright apparent, is significant to the novel’s message that something good can be found in everyone and everything. We are all flawed, and so are the worlds that we build, but there is still such beauty.
Celebrating all that which the protagonists sorely miss from the former world, Station Eleven reminds the reader of the artistry in our everyday lives, and how the smallest things may be filled with magic. The novel shows the reader how fortunate we have been to live in a world of such abundance, and that when this is taken away, there is still beauty to be found all around us, as long as we remember to look. Despite being forced to face the unknown, to face immense challenges, and to create something new where no one else has ventured before, the protagonists of Station Eleven show the
reader that happiness is possible, and that one can achieve greatness and overcome obstacles even when sailing in unfamiliar waters.
In a disastrous world, where the everyday wonders of electricity, grocery stores, fuel supplies and telephones are obliterated or intermittent at best, how we live changes drastically. In St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, the world sees a reset after an
apocalyptic event that forces the protagonists to travel for survival. In Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, a family evacuates their home and is forced to search for safety while the bombs of the Second World War fall around them; a young boy travels in the hope of education and a future of high ranks; and a lost and frightened former soldier finds the courage he thought he would never regain. The purpose of a disaster novel can be argued to be to function as proof that there is hope and optimism in the face of disaster, and that one can move forward from a point of despair and towards a brighter future or destination. Destinations can therefore be symbols of peace and of hope, and they can function both as a future to be sought after and as a tribute to the past. In Station Eleven, the Severn City Airport functions as both a place to remember and reminisce over the past and all that was lost, while also representing a new dawn, a new way of life, and a positive outcome from the apocalypse. In All the Light We Cannot See, Etienne’s house and the journey there becomes a journey of hope and a place of safety where dreams can once again prosper, and the return to the apartment in Paris at the end of the novel shows the reader that we can find home again, even if home is in an altered state.
The chosen approach for researching this thesis is the method of narratology, focusing on narrative and narrative structure and the ways it affects us as readers as we interpret. Important narrative elements from both novels, what the two narratives have in common and in what ways they differ is explored, with symbolism and its significance being the key point. Narratology may be seen as the concept of narrative sequences and ingredients of narrative. Narratology is, in essence, the science of narrative (Klages 56), studying stories and storytelling. The novel’s rise to become the dominant narrative form in the West in the eighteenth-century favoured narratives that were realistic and
mimetic, imitating real life. Through this development, the characters in a novel were presented by a third-person omniscient narrator, using a free indirect discourse where the thoughts and actions of the characters may be relayed without direct mediation.
Despite speculating on events that have not occurred in Station Eleven, and revisiting a fictional version of a past the author himself has not experienced in All the Light We Cannot See, the novels are indeed realistic and mimetic, portraying life as we know it and in a recognisable form, although fictionalised and speculated on. Through narratives and a mimetic representation of life itself, narrative empathy and character and
emotional identification is created.
Literature is a part of human life. Indeed, literature is central to human life.
Telling and hearing stories may take up as much or more of our time and as much or more of our emotional energy than our primary engagements in real life.
Indeed, that centrality is part of what gives literature ecological validity in the study of emotion (Hogan 3).
Emotions such as empathy and identification help connect the reader with the text and build a relationship with the narrative. Through this, the reader can interpret and analyse the emotions and symbolism described on the page, as they can relate to these
themselves.
Narratology helps us study the narrative structure and alter our perception of the world around us, and the ways in which a narrative might deliver a message, while also functioning as a comparative tool, understanding in what ways two texts might differ or share similarities. Narratology is a multi-layered and multi-disciplined field of study, focusing on narrative forms of representation and narrative interpretation. While a narrative may be many different things, in this specific context one might say that a narrative is “the semiotic [symbolic] representation of a series of events meaningfully connected in a temporal and causal way” (Boyle 82). Narratology might be seen as the study of the literary elements and techniques that make up a narrative, ranging from symbolism, plot and subplot, characterisation, points-of-view, focalisation, keywords, wordplay, the use of spatial and geographical indicators, the final outcome and its various complications (84). Combined together, all these elements convey a novel’s message(s). Through investigating these numerous elements of a narrative, one might find meanings and interpretations in the text that are significant for the reader. A
cognitive approach may be applied to a text’s interpretation: "Cognitive literary criticism can (. . .) focus on readers and audiences (. . .), or the focus can be on characters and their interactions” (Rivkin 1256). By applying such an approach, one may find symbolism in the characters and their interactions with each other, giving cause to focus on each protagonist’s narrative development. Therefore, the characters and what they may symbolise themselves, the symbolism found in the two chosen novels, as well the plot and subplots are looked at in this thesis. The spatial and geographical indicators in the text, as well as their meaning, and the focalisation and shifts in perspectives is explored.
Through looking at selected passages, the author’s wordplay and creative techniques are highlighted, leading to a conclusion on the final outcome of both novels and how they can be interpreted.
The research in this thesis aims to find out in which ways hope and optimism may be presented in novels that are narrating catastrophic events and outcomes, by looking at narrative style, technique, and structure, as well as a close-reading of passages and characters that contribute to the optimistic feeling both novels convey, despite their otherwise dark and challenging material. By confronting our views of what a disaster narrative can look like, by finding positives in narratives of war and apocalypses, by understanding the lessons that may be found in a protagonist’s progression and
development, and by expanding the idea of what a genre may include, we are opening our perspectives to a wiser and more thorough understanding of narratives and genres and what they have to offer the readers. By showing that tales of war and societal collapses may indeed be tales of positivity, hope, change (for the better), acceptance, courage, and progress, we might be able to apply the very same attitude to our own lives, as difficult, dangerous, or challenging as they may be.
Literature has the power to invoke a wide range of emotions in readers.
“Neuroscience is useful for describing the brain, and art is useful for describing the actual experience” (Lehrer 192): an effective way of saying that while what is considered hard science is useful for describing the physical processes happening inside our minds, art, and literature, is useful for actually describing how it feels. “We do more than think during the course of each day. We also feel. And literature is very much about such feelings” (Rivkin 1255). This is something that both novels arguably achieve successfully.
They create a literary representation that invokes emotion, recognisability, and
identification. “The primary locus of meaning for all literary works is in the mind of the author” (Carroll 1340), but by deciphering the author’s meaning and creating and interpretation of the work, we gain insight into our very own nature through literary
representation of humans. Shifting in perspectives and point of views, both novels allow for a varied interpretation and for a selection of protagonists that are diverse and complex. A point of view may be described as “the locus of consciousness or experience within which any meaning takes place” (1340), and through the many different points of views the reader is invited into in these two novels, meanings and insights may be gained from each protagonist. Literary representation may consist of three main
components, being the author, the characters, and the audience, and the meaning of a literary work may consist in the interacting between the three (1342). “Authors are people talking to people about people” (1340), and by reading about other people, even in a fictionalised setting, with future or past events that are speculated on, the
significance of literature and its ability to broaden our imagination and perspectives, to provide insight and understanding, and the beauty of our mind’s capability to create meaning out of disasters are shown in both Station Eleven and All the Light We Cannot See.
This thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter II gives a thorough account of Station Eleven through genre, narrative and writing style, symbolism and character analysis, and Chapter III largely follows the same process for All the Light We Cannot See. Chapter IV goes deeper into the comparison between the two and draws conclusions from both. Through close reading of the major characters, highlighted examples and paragraphs from the texts, and a range of secondary sources, the aim is to explain why and how symbolism in disaster novels can deliver positive messages, and in what ways they may teach us something about humanity and life itself. Perhaps are imaginary worlds easier to inhabit that the real one, and perhaps are the lessons literature can give us even more profound because of that.
Chapter II: Station Eleven
“I stood looking over my damaged home and tried to forget the sweetness of life on earth” (Mandel 214).
Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven is a beautiful novel entailing the stories of several people as they learn to navigate a new, postapocalyptic world. Carefully weaving between times and perspectives, the author takes us on multiple journeys through towns, countries, encounters, and situations. Station Eleven simultaneously evokes the end of the world and marks the beginning of a dramatically altered future, portrayed in a genuinely unsettling novel that also elicits moments of great tenderness.
Postapocalyptic narratives and speculative fiction are popular contemporary genres in literature, film, and other media. Station Eleven is a novel that in some respects stands out from the crowd. Rather than emphasising conflict, destruction, and death, there is hope, a place for dreams, a strong sense of curiosity, and a use for cultural and creative expression written onto the page, thus demonstrating the importance and the value of art, community, and memory in challenging times. This creates an optimistic outlook with a hopeful vision and a future worth pursuing. Postapocalyptic novels are by definition often bleak narratives, generally concerned with the complete collapse of society as we know it (Barnett). We often think of apocalypses as major catastrophes with overwhelming consequences, creating a dystopian post-apocalyptic scenario.
However, the word apocalypse itself etymologically means to unveil or reveal (De Cristofaro 3). This leads to an interpretation of the apocalypse in Station Eleven as a revelation rather than a disaster, solidifying the novel’s positive message even further.
The message in Mandel’s novel is that civilisation (and significantly, art) will endure, as long as there is life (Barnett). Elements of hope can be present in all dystopian literature, yet Station Eleven is an example of a novel where these elements are expressed to a high degree. Station Eleven is a “love letter to the current world, written in the form of a requiem” (Mandel qtd. in Griffith).
Published in 2014, Station Eleven has enjoyed critical and popular success, and is part of a widely discussed and growing corpus of novels within the post-apocalyptic genre written by authors who do not normally write science fiction (De Cristofaro 2). Station Eleven might be claimed to belong in more than one literary realm: science fiction, speculative fiction, and postapocalyptic fiction. These are terms that may be used
somewhat interchangeably. They are all speculative fictions, yet science fiction deals with advances and imaginative possibilities within science and technology, postapocalyptic fiction focuses on the dystopian outcomes of an apocalyptic event, and speculative fiction encompasses all fictions that speculate on a setting that includes elements that do not exist in the real world, whether futuristic, imagined, or supernatural. Station Eleven sits particularly well in the speculative fiction and the postapocalyptic fiction genres. There is a clear before and after in the novel, with characters belonging to specific timelines and storylines, and these are elements that apply to the genre of postapocalyptic fiction: the occurrence of an apocalyptic event, the depiction of the post-apocalypse or post-collapse society and survivors, and a narrative structure that connects the storylines of before and after the apocalypse. Station Eleven speculates on a situation in which humans have
survived an unprecedented crisis, and the ways to avoid becoming feral. Its answer seems to lie in a communal, continuous effort to recreate culture ((Méndez-García 111).
It is a hopeful postapocalyptic text that underlines the importance of art and culture for our species, as well as the individual and communal choices necessary to recover from a crisis, by practicing and preserving culture. As a work within the broad realm of
speculative fiction, Station Eleven tries to imagine a future without the culture, objects, and commodities we are accustomed to (113). Balancing between offering an image of dystopia and utopia, Station Eleven looks at how bad it can get, but also at an ultimately pleasant outcome, celebrating all those “taken-for-granted miracles that had persisted all around” (Mandel 233) through the prism of a catastrophe. Station Eleven sits well within the modern dystopian literature, as “contemporary narrative is haunted by dreams of a future that is a place of ruin” (Tate qtd. in De Cristofaro 2). Contemporary post-
apocalyptic narratives are
defined by the particular kinds of revelation and disclosure [they] open of possibilities for, namely through a critique of the capitalist structures that have wrecked our world and the creation of a new one from shifting through its apocalyptic rubble to find the revelations hidden beneath (West 14).
This is exactly what Station Eleven aims to do. Through the conservation, celebration, and interpretation of the former world, they are able to “find the revelations hidden beneath” and create a new world through the memory of the old one.
Speculative fiction is a literary genre that can be challenging to define. In his article “The Uses of Genre and the Classification of Speculative Fiction”, R.B. Gill states that speculative fiction is a widely read but ill-defined grouping of works (71), that includes a great diversity of texts. For literary purposes, a genre definition that suggests affinities with other kinds of works and also facilitates interpretation is indispensable (Gill 72). Defining the genre is not easy, and one may wonder whether speculative fiction is the umbrella term and science fiction is the subgenre, or if it is the other way around.
Texts operating within the realm of speculative fiction conjecture about matters that, in the normal course of things, could not be. Their emphasis may be on possible, though fictional, outcomes and situations, or on events that would be impossible under the physical laws and constraints of our ordinary world (72). One might then stipulate a definition of speculative fiction as “works presenting modes of being that contrasts with their audiences’ understanding of ordinary reality” (73). Station Eleven falls under this category, as it explores the outcome of a fictional disease, altering the characters’ world forever, and creating a reality that contrasts with our own, envisioning a systematically different world.
The worlds envisioned in speculative fiction may be more or less radical or alternate; some may closely mirror our current world, others may be exploring a world almost unrecognisable to us, including the fulfilment or realisation of wishes and
outcomes physically impossible in ordinary life. What happens in Station Eleven is neither physically impossible nor too radical to accept, yet it explores the outcome of a plausible event that, at the time of publication in 2014, had not occurred at such a scale. However, at the time of this thesis in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic is threatening the lives and livelihoods of people all over the planet. Thus, one may argue that the situation envisioned in Station Eleven has become more realistic with the change in our world brought by the Coronavirus pandemic. Speculative fiction explores “cognitive
estrangement”, making it a literary genre that relies on the presence of and interacting with that which is strange, unfamiliar, or different, in an alternative environment through
an imaginative frame. Texts of speculative fiction may present other realities, but the worlds they create act as commentaries on our own world. It may be in a negative
matter, to highlight its shortcomings and flaws, or in a positive matter, providing a model for utopia (81). Station Eleven does not create a utopian society, but rather comments on our current one, our lack of appreciation for the abundance of possibilities we have, and the incredible ease of availability of everything. One can then say that the reality portrayed by speculative fiction becomes and outward manifestation of (the author’s) implicit values (78).
Speculative fiction has the ability to speak of both what is past and passing, but especially of what is to come (Atwood 515). Speculative fiction narratives can do some things that novels of other genres cannot, and science fiction author Margaret Atwood lists these as such:
1. Explore the consequences of new and proposed technologies in graphic ways, by showing them fully up and running.
2. Explore the nature and limits of what it means to be human in graphic ways, by pushing the envelope as far as it will go.
3. Explore the relation of humanity to the universe in graphic ways, an exploration that often takes us in the direction of religion and can meld easily with mythology - again, an exploration that can take place within the conventions of realism only through conversations and soliloquies.
4. Explore proposed changes in social organization in graphic ways, by showing what they might be like for those living under them. Thus the Utopia and the dystopia.
5. Explore the realms of the imagination in graphic ways, by taking us boldly and daringly where no one has gone before (515).
According to Atwood, human imagination drives the world. Once, the human world was very small compared to the natural world around it, but now we have our “hand upon the throttle and our eye upon the rail, and we think we’re in control of everything” (517).
Literature, in Atwood’s eyes, is an uttering or outering of the human imagination, taking the abstract forms of thought and feeling and putting it into words, bringing it to light, for us all to look at them and gain a better understanding of who we are, what we want, and what our limits may be. Understanding the imagination is no longer a pastime or even a duty but a necessity, because increasingly, if we can imagine something, we'll be able to do it (517).
A useful point of comparison and a recurring element in academic analyses and reviews for Station Eleven is another postapocalyptic novel, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (De Cristofaro 12). McCarthy’s novel narrates a post-apocalyptic setting in the United States, following an unspecified catastrophe where “everything [is] dead to the root”
(McCarthy 21). At the core of The Road sits a dwelling on the horror and mayhem caused by the apocalypse, and Mandel’s novel does the opposite. The time frames of Station Eleven allows the author to not dwell on the immediate devastation of the Georgia flu, but rather to focus on other elements of the post-apocalyptic world:
I assume that there would be a period of utter chaos immediately after an
apocalyptic event, but I felt that that ground had been very well covered by other writers, and I don’t find it credible that that period would last forever, everywhere on Earth. I was more interested in writing about what comes next: what new cultures and new ways of living might begin to emerge, after the initial period of mayhem has subsided? (Mandel qtd. in Griffith).
Station Eleven’s narrative therefore moves away from the road, both the actual road, as the characters travel off the beaten path, and from McCarthy’s dystopian novel,
emphasizing opportunities and hope. Station Eleven leaves the reader with a sense of possibility, and with an open and unwritten future that allows space for human agency (De Cristofaro 22).
Station Eleven gently criticizes capitalism and our over-abundant and indulgent lifestyles, while also eluding a profound fascination and nostalgia for that particular way of life (Feldner 173). It is therefore not a thorough critique of the age of capitalism, but perhaps rather a careful warning and a reminder of the problems with our lifestyle of superfluity. Contemporary post-apocalyptic novels may concern themselves with the nature of our modern society, and one can argue that these fictions do so to critique this nature rather than to salvage it (De Cristofaro 2). In Station Eleven, this critique is subtle and not addressed head-on; the novel spends much time lamenting all that was lost rather than critiquing it. The survivors are left a world that is drowning in items,
belongings, and garbage, yet they find usage and purpose for most of it, salvaging some for the sake of legacy and memory, utilising some for survival and everyday needs.
Station Eleven grieves the loss of amenities and pleasures rather than criticising the excesses and the destructive effects of the capitalist system that enabled these pleasures, leaving out an open critique of global warming, climate disasters,
environmental destruction, and global inequality. While depicting the end of capitalism and the end of modern life, Station Eleven does not offer viable solutions or alternatives.
The novel rather focuses an imagination of what such a collapse and such a devastating event might feel like for those who have lost so much, and for those who once benefitted greatly for the capitalist world’s comforts and pleasures (Feldner 173). Station Eleven proposes that longing for a lost past is not only a result of a collapse, but a natural human condition. In Station Eleven, the characters, and arguably humanity itself, are redeemed through culture and art, demonstrating that our cultural activities are at the heart of what makes us human, and that art and beauty is present in even the most restricted and challenging circumstances (175). The characters choose to imagine new alternatives and generate new ways of life, rather than retreat into irreversibly into nostalgia and melancholia, honouring the past and forging a new present. The novel hints at how the former may lead to a lack of fulfilment, while the latter leads to new
possibilities and prosperity. Station Eleven does perhaps not offer the reader an ideal take on a utopian society. What it does instead, and what it arguably does so well, is present us with an idea or a sense that it is out there, somewhere in the distance — another world just out of sight (Leggatt 20).
The novel’s ending hints of a return to what once was, without a clear statement that things will be different. However, such a statement might not be necessary. Those who have lived in both the pre- and post-collapse world will never be able to return to life the way it was before, and those who were born after the collapse will never know
exactly what it was like. The novel’s ending is thus a positive one, showing us there is a possible return to a higher developed society, but without claiming that things will ever go back to the same as they once were.
Station Eleven may itself be criticised for romanticising the post-apocalypse. It portrays a post-disaster life where the characters may sit around a fire at night,
stargazing, listening to music, watching live theatre performances, and reminiscing about the past in a loving way. One could therefore argue that Station Eleven paints an image of an uplifting future world, but not one that is necessarily realistic (Méndez-García 124).
The text does not spend much time dwelling on politics, governments, and global issues, but rather focuses on humanity and life itself. It speaks of the fragility of our societies and ways of life, but without digging deep into the international and political forces that may threaten our stabilities.
While celebrating the importance of human connections and interactions, the novel takes a stand that suggests technology will be our saviour and what ultimately will bring humanity back to civilization. This is especially depicted in the final scene between
protagonists Kirsten and Clark, where Clark reveals the discovery of nearby electric lights to Kirsten, one of the novel’s major symbols of hope and optimism. One could argue that for a novel that places so much emphasis on human life itself, technology and electricity still prevails as the main supporters of life in the end, showing us that some parts of the pre-collapse world were indeed significant and important enough to be desired features of the post-collapse society as well. In this new, borderless world, we are offered no analysis of the political situation that existed prior to the collapse, and although global capitalism surely had been eradicated by the pandemic and mass deaths, no aspect of former political, social, or economic domination is analysed or challenged (125). The novel might also be criticised for its nostalgic celebration of modern and recent technology, while at the same time only celebrating and preserving literary classics.
There are no recent literary works to speak of in the novel, and the only sources of material seemingly worth preserving are Shakespeare and other canonical works. No new texts that would have spoken to the character’s contemporary experience are mentioned (125). This may suggest that while technology came to an abrupt end, it seems to have the ability to be resurrected (cf. Clark, Kirsten and the electricity) and to be utilised once more for the greater good, while literature and art peaked early in the history of
humanity, and those artistic heights were never reached again.
Station Eleven depicts the onset and the aftermath of a global pandemic. The main stage-setter for Station Eleven comes from the pandemic called the Georgia flu, a vicious viral disease that sweeps the globe at an astonishing speed, spreading through air travel and causing the death of over 99 percent of the planet’s population, subsequently leading to the collapse of civilization and the end of the Anthropocene. The Georgia flu was a disease that “exploded like a neutron bomb over the surface of the earth” (Mandel 37), and “the television newscasters weren’t exactly saying that it was the end of the world, per se, but the word apocalypse was beginning to appear” (243). We follow various characters and timelines as we learn of the virus’s spread throughout North America, the immediate results, and then where the surviving humans are at twenty years later.
Allowing the reader to fully immerse themselves in her world, Mandel takes us on a speculative journey of the pandemic’s outcome. The details of the pandemic and the time of the outbreak are portrayed sparingly, and the author rather focuses on the long-term effects and the lasting impact the spread had on everyone’s lives, where they are living among constant reminders of the luxuries and conveniences no longer available. The novel is riddled with the author’s philosophical and profound reckonings with life and questions of what matters. In an interview conducted at the University of Central Florida, Mandel stated that “you can make an argument that the world’s become more bleak, but I feel like we always think we’re living at the end of the world. You know, when have we ever felt like it wasn’t going to be catastrophic?” (Mandel qtd. in Byko), speaking of the ever-present validity to the questions of fragility that the novel ponders.
In addition to the immediate aftermath, and the occasional flashbacks, the post- apocalyptic world the reader is invited into takes place between fifteen and twenty years
after the disaster hit. The world is depopulated and fragile, but a new pace and a new way of living has settled in, with scattered communities and travelling troupes; there is hope and optimism brewing. The setting is efficiently created through the use of
postapocalyptic imagery such as empty houses, overgrown yards, abandoned cars, decaying holiday resorts, and gridlocked streets (Feldner 168):
The road curved towards the distant shine of the lake and disappeared behind the trees. The highway was miles of permanent gridlock, small trees growing now between cars and thousands of windshields reflecting the sky. There was a skeleton in the driver’s seat of the nearest car (Mandel 144).
Everywhere the characters look there are remnants of the old world; a world out of reach and impossible to comprehend for those born after its collapse. Most of that which can be found is now rendered useless or simply as waste, yet occasionally the characters
stumble upon items that can be used to their benefit. There is no more government, no infrastructure; electricity and motorized transport is lost; no phones, internet or
newspapers; no pharmaceuticals or supply chains. For the first days, months, and even years, there is a disbelief and a sense of denial that colours the actions of the people who survived, but slowly they come to terms with their new reality, and new societies are formed. Despite almost everything having changed, the characters do also find the new world a fascinating one, and beauty is anywhere to be found for those who look:
A few of the roofs had collapsed up here, most under the weight of fallen trees. In the morning light there was beauty in the decrepitude, sunlight catching in the flowers that had sprung up through the gravel of long-overgrown driveways, mossy front porches turned brilliant green, a white blossoming bush alive with butterflies. This dazzling world (296).
The novel is concerned with both “the biological fate of the human species and the trajectories of different human constituencies” (Vermeulen 12), exploring the
development of how we evolve as humans, and how we work together in new groups and orders. One of its main focuses lies on the travelling troupe called The Travelling
Symphony, a group of actors and musicians travelling together to perform Shakespeare to the scattered communities they pass through. The Travelling Symphony acts as a connector, bridging the gap between the past and the present, delivering what is deemed beautiful from the former world to the new. What is beautiful in Station Eleven is that which can be lost or that which has an end. A catastrophe such as a pandemic or a climate disaster, and everything that is lost with it has the power to make us all appreciate what used to be. Station Eleven and its focus on beauty can be read as a reminder of what we all might lose in the wake of disasters, and how we can find hope in art and aesthetics. It acts as a commentary on the way we are treating our planet, speaking of how a world without people could be a better one:
The beauty of this world where almost everyone was gone. If hell is other people, what is a world almost no people in it? Perhaps soon humanity would simply flicker out, but Kirsten found this thought more peaceful than sad (Mandel 148).
Station Eleven spends a considerable amount of time reminding us of all the little things we take for granted in our lives. It highlights both their beauty and the ease of
access to them that the characters once enjoyed, turning to long passages of nostalgia and memory:
No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. (. . .) No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. (. . .) No more screens shining in the half-light as people raise their phones above the crowd to take photographs of concert stages. (. . .) No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of
glimmering light; no more looking down from thirty thousand feet and imagining the lives lit up by those lights at that moment. (. . .) No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and
relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room (31).
Here, the author uses paralipsis, a rhetorical technique that refers to things by describing them as no longer present. Memory is a central theme of the novel, and the characters continuously remember, or try to remember, the world before the collapse. Whether they choose to do so, or do it subconsciously, the characters focus on the good parts,
somewhat romanticising the former world, finding everything about it to be beautiful and worthy of mourning. People often remember times and locations in their lives through their senses; in the bleak midwinter they long for the smell of summer rain and for the sight of moths fluttering under a porch light. Yet these memories are not always
connected with the difficulties of the time (Leggatt 4). Because the novel interacts with several timelines, the reader gets to experience the actual past, with all its flaws, and not just the memory of it. Through this narrative technique, the reader is reminded of the nature of nostalgia and its lack of honesty, where one constructs memories and ideas in one’s own imagination (4), and the reader can recognise that the reality longed for by those living after the collapse was not always as beautiful as they recollect it. The countless objects scattered on the earth that cease to have function and become obsolete serve as little other than remnants of the past, aesthetic reminders, and litter on a changed planet. All these objects symbolise a time of decadence and superfluity, with value being measured by the number of things one had in one’s possession. An apocalypse is perhaps the only tangible way in which one can imagine a future or a world without consumerism, and in the aftermath of the collapse, consumerism itself becomes the fantasy (5).
Though loss of some things and some aspects of the former life is lamented, the misery and stress of that life is still highlighted at certain points. In one of the many interview passages of the novel, occurring with the make-shift newspaper where the protagonist Kirsten is interviewed, Kirsten tells the journalist that the people who struggle the most with the time after the collapse are the people who remember the most from the former world. The more you remember, the more you have lost (8). While the novel alludes and refers to the immediate years after the collapse as a dark and dangerous time, the reader does not truly get to experience it. What the reader gets instead is the impression that the worst time has passed, and that the world is generally safer, albeit not completely free from danger. Cities still pose a threat, and the
characters still take precautions and act carefully when entering new territories. Several of the characters are constantly on the move, and the many locations of the novel serve as permanent anchors in a narrative that is multi-layered and has many moving pieces,
acting as places of familiarity and safety for many of the protagonists.
As defined by Mary Louise Pratt, a contact zone is a social space where “cultures, meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (34). Station Eleven has multiple contact zones, such as the airport and the museum, the town of St. Deborah by the Water, and the Elgin theatre and Toronto. In these contact zones, the characters meet at various stages of the novel, and the locations help connect the pieces of the narrative. The contact zones also change as the narrative unfolds. Where for instance Toronto and the theatre once represented home, normalcy, work, and safety, it comes to represent tragedy, death, fear, and disease. And while the Severn City Airport at first represented panic, disarray,
uncertainty and frustration, it moves on to become a sanctuary, a home, a place of peace and a new beginning. The contact zone of the museum also functions as a place where
“cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other”
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the culture of the former world and the culture of the new.Operating with several different frames and with various timelines, Station Eleven has a complex narrative structure. The plot of Station Eleven is cyclical, continuously circling back to the time of the collapse, with new realisations and understandings occurring each time. One narrative frame consists of the Travelling Symphony and the characters who travel with them, their time spent at the Severn City Airport, and their travels during Year Twenty. Another frame is the stormy winter night the Georgia Flu arrives in North America, and its immediate aftermath. Yet another frame is concerned with the character Arthur Leander and his life and relationships in the decades prior to the apocalypse. Arthur’s life is connected to all the other protagonists of Station Eleven.
The novel is initiated by the death of Arthur, which occurs while on stage performing as King Lear in Toronto. This particular event sparks much of the setting for the other
storylines and is referenced throughout the novel (Feldner 169). Arthur Leander functions as the link between all the narrative frames and timelines, and he is present or
mentioned in all the novel’s parts. The narrative consistently skips back and forth between these temporal and spatial settings and between the novel’s five protagonists and focal points, resulting in a deep narrative structure (169). Although shifting in
perspectives, the novel is told through and omniscient narrator, a technique that is useful when creating character identification and narrative empathy:
It has been a commonplace of narrative theory that an internal perspective, achieved either through first-person self-narration (. . .), or through authorial (omniscient) narration that movies inside characters’ minds, best promotes character identification and readers’ empathy (Keane 1295).
The novel is filled with a profound fascination for the former world
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a gentle nostalgia over the lost elements of a modern life. This is portrayed through thecharacters exuding a sense of amazement over that which we find mundane: air travel, the internet, the sound of electric guitars, the light that comes on inside a fridge (Feldner 172). There is a positive mindset surrounding the postapocalyptic life, in the sense that there is hope and optimism and an inexhaustible ability to find beauty everywhere. This makes Station Eleven stand out among other postapocalyptic books of fiction (173).
What further contributes to this sense of positivity is that the novel does not put blame or throw accusations as to where the flu originated. It does not portray the violence and the despair following the collapse, but rather shows us what happened through the focal points of characters that are sheltered and relatively safe, observing what happens from
a distance. Furthermore, it only alludes to those dangerous years in between, as the majority of the novel takes place twenty years after the collapse, in a world far less perilous. Those “first unspeakable years when everyone was travelling, before everyone caught on that there was no place they could walk to where life continued as it had before and settled wherever they could” (Mandel 37), are referenced, but not narrated directly (Feldner 174). Station Eleven is written in a tone that is composed, tender, and melancholic, heavily leaning on memory and imagery of the past, and carefully avoiding shock, dread, and fear (Vermeulen 11). Relying on a tension between remembering and imagining, it quietly explores the utopian possibilities that accompany a major disaster.
The words “beauty” and “beautiful” are reoccurring throughout the novel, often in
connection with the finitude of things and with a sense of appreciation for both what once was and what is right now. The persistent use of the word beauty evokes a deep sadness and longing for a time and an era that has passed. Although the flu is not linked to climate change in the novel, Station Eleven still engages with crucial elements of the Anthropocene, such as extinction, epidemics, energy and resource depletion, survival, humanity, abundance and consumerism:
The houses thinned out, longer spaces between the overgrown driveways, and now the right lane of the road was clogged with cars, rusted exoskeletons on flat tires. When she glanced in the windows, she saw only trash from the old world, crumpled chip bags, the remains of pizza boxes, electronic objects with buttons and screens (Mandel 296).
The poetic way of writing that seeps through the entire novel, with long pieces of lyricism and imagery, fits in well with the concept of the novel’s preoccupation with art and
beauty. The writing has a tender and precious tone, always avoiding trauma, sudden scares, and graphic displays of pain or dread. It emphasises beauty through finitude, and beauty appears to be premised on scarcity (Vermeulen 17). The protagonists see the true beauty of the fallen world only once it is lost. The novel also suggests that if survival is insufficient, a disaster that drives humanity close to extinction is still necessary for the production and appreciation of beauty (18). Station Eleven repeatedly suggests that those who remember the most, and in turn have lost the most, are those who suffer the most, but also those who now see the most beauty around them. Station Eleven slowly yet deliberately delivers its messages to the readers through a careful economy of words and with syntax and semantics riddled with appreciation, melancholia and longing. The novel both honours and remembers the past, while reminding us that not all that was lost is worth grieving, and that holding on too strongly will hinder progress. This
balancing act is part of what makes Station Eleven so special. We cannot forget what we had and who we were, yet we cannot linger too long among that which is lost, or we will be lost as well.
The novel gets its title from the protagonist Miranda’s comic books and creative outlet, Dr. Eleven. The graphic novels play a critical part in the Station Eleven, and the title is derived from the space station where Dr. Eleven lives. Dr. Eleven mirrors the action of Station Eleven, as the lives of the inhabitants of the Undersea resemble those of the people living in the world after the collapse. Drawing and creating the comic books offer Miranda an escape and a space of her own, and she is not preoccupied with
publishing it or sharing it with readers: throughout Station Eleven Miranda largely keeps the comic books to herself. The choice of a comic book as the creative release in Station Eleven is a clever one. As Hilary Chute states,
the spatial features of comics, such as its activation of the space between word and image and its erection of literal drawn frames alongside its breaking and violation of them, presents a grammar that can inscribe trauma not just
thematically (. . .) but also powerfully at the level of textualization in words and images (Chute qtd. in Leggatt 13).
Through this, one understands that the comic book medium is a highly effective form for the articulation of trauma in literature and art. This is particularly important when it comes to Station Eleven, as the novel’s sense of hope is closely tied to the medium of comic books through Miranda’s creation of Dr. Eleven, which is repeatedly referred to. In the spaces between drawn images the impossible can be both imagined and realised, and a new reality can be created; a new world just out of sight, in the very same way all the survivors in Station Eleven have to create a new reality from the seemingly impossible through the use of imagination.
The title Station Eleven is also related to the genre of the novel, as it contains elements of space, captains, and has a ring of fantasy and science fiction to it. ‘Station’
can refer to something safe, secure, stable, yet also to somewhere in between places, somewhere to travel to or from, a destination. There is something mysterious about the title, and as readers we do not learn what it means until on page 42:
The comics Arthur Leander gave her: two issues from a series no one else in the Symphony has ever heard of, Dr. Eleven, Vol. I, No. I: Station Eleven and Dr.
Eleven, Vol. I, No. 2: The Pursuit. By Year Twenty, Kirsten has them memorized (Mandel 42).
The comics also function as a guideline and a recurring symbol throughout the novel and they are related to both big turning points of the narrative as well as the major plot twist of Tyler Leander, the prophet. It is significant that the novel adopts the title of a comic book it cannot represent or show, only evoke and allude to (Vermeulen 19). This is a recurring theme of the novel: for all those who were born after the collapse or are too young to remember it, the past can only be viewed through the memory of others, alluded to and talked about, never truly seen.
Station Eleven is a novel containing much symbolism and material to be
interpreted. There is a general sense of positivity and of hope that shines through the whole novel, and the depiction of the breakdown of modern times and the collapse of civilization is not an entirely dark image, showing us that there is hope to be found, and things can get better. Much of what makes up the nature and spirit of Station Eleven is the presence of hope and the idea of a (better) future. While offering hints and allusions to what is important in life and what it believes is worth preserving and fighting for, the novel does not offer a blueprint for a utopian society, nor does it openly suggest a way of living that is preferable. What it does instead is offer a feeling, an idea, that the utopian society is out there in the distance, and if we keep on exploring both our world and our minds, then we might be the ones setting sail and “moving over the water, towards another world just out of sight” (Leggatt 20). This is also a novel about exploration and the pursuit of possibilities in the face of hardship. The characters are mapping out both new places and new ways of existing and living, exploring a world where the very fabric of modern society and civilization has disappeared. Everything has changed, even how time and day is organized, as seen in the new calendar with Year One, Year Two, Year Three, and so forth: “Time had been reset by catastrophe” (Mandel 231). This
exploration of a new life is fuelled by imagination and the hopeful search for what could
be out there (Leggatt 17).
After the collapse of society, the characters went through challenging times where people “had fought off ferals, buried their neighbours, lived and died and suffered
together in the blood-drenched years just after the collapse, survived against
unspeakable odds and then only by holding together into the calm” (Mandel 48), and the general sense of positivity and hope is largely what contributes to the fact that the characters persevere, and are able to engage in and share cultural activities. Several bridges are built through the use of Shakespeare and his plays: a bridge between the past and the present, between before and after the collapse, between strangers in this new world, between visitors and settlers, and between the actors and musicians of the Symphony. “In Shakespeare’s time the wonders of technology were still ahead, not behind them, and far less had been lost” (288): Shakespeare is both a reminder of what once was and a way of upholding art and creative freedom in the new world. The
Travelling Symphony serves as purveyors of culture, entertainment and theatre, while also simply offering a home and a sense of belonging, both to its members and to those who attend their performances. Their shared experience of the art in front of them acts as a unifier and provides an important sense of community. The theme of art and its importance is strongly connected to the Travelling Symphony:
Sometimes the Travelling Symphony thought that what they were doing was noble. There were moments around campfires when someone would say something invigorating about the importance of art, and everyone would find it easier to sleep that night (119).
The artists of the Symphony place great value in their work, which also explains why they go through the strenuous effort of travelling around the country rather than settling down. At times, they are able to seemingly cast spells over the audience, thus distracting them from lives that are otherwise fully engaged in survival (Feldner 176). Culture and art adds meaning to the lives of the Symphony members and to those attending their performances, and they signify that there is hope and happiness in a world lit up by art.
Without this lifeline, their existence would be reduced to mere survival, which is at the core of the novel’s message. The slogan “Because survival is insufficient” (Mandel 58), repeated several times throughout the novel and painted on the Symphony’s caravans, is at the heart of the message conveyed by the Symphony and its tireless pursuit of
bringing art and culture as a message of positivity to the people left in the world.
Few symbols in the novel stand as strong as the Museum of Civilization. Here,
“civilization” refers to the bygone hyper-globalised world (De Cristofaro 14). Everything that is gathered at the Museum of Civilization belongs to the category of now useless products and artefacts that were once essential to our lives, such as phones, computers, DVDs and CDs, wires and cables, newspapers and magazines, petrol cans and ATMs.
These items serve no practical purpose anymore but are integral to the novel’s portrayal of memory and nostalgia as a positive thing. By preserving these items, a link is created between before and after, and all that was good about the former world is remembered and honoured; at times almost glorified, yet a genuine and important reminder of how far we have evolved and how easy our lives in the modern world can be. The world in Station Eleven has become “a place where artifacts from the old world are preserved”
(Mandel 146), nothing new is produced, and everything is repurposed. Stranded airplanes become storage space, old trucks become horse carriages, grocery stores become family homes.
Material culture is one of our Western obsessions as a society (Méndez-García
119). Museum studies, anthropology, and art history all view material objects as records of human endeavours, and the Museum of Civilization serves as a record of how far humanity came before it fell. The objects we surround ourselves with in our everyday life are not mere belongings and commodities, but records of cultural memory and
development. Objects and texts are tangible proof that civilization and humanity existed, and therefore of such great importance to the protagonists in Station Eleven. They are continuously searching for the former world, looking into empty buildings,
because there isn’t much time left, because all the roofs are collapsing now and soon none of the old buildings will be safe. Because we are always looking for the former world, before all the traces of the former world are gone (Mandel 130).
Although perhaps at first contradicting to the idea that there is hope, this constant search for the former world is not a symbol of hopelessness, but rather represents both the hope that some of the better parts of the former world remain somewhere, somehow, and that it is possible to rebuild a world that resembles it, yet hopefully exceeds it.
The value of objects in postapocalyptic texts may be based on either their practical purposes, or their link to a personal past. One may therefore speak of useful versus sentimental objects (Méndez-García 119). The objects gathered at the Museum are a mix of both, some having once been integral to our collective way of living, others filling a place of memory and sentimentality for the owner:
There seemed to be a limitless number of objects in the world that had no practical use but that people wanted to preserve: cell phones with their delicate buttons, iPads, Tyler’s Nintendo console, a selection of laptops. There were a number of impractical shoes, stilettos mostly, beautiful and strange. There were three car engines in a row, cleaned and polished, a motorcycle composed mostly of gleaming chrome. Traders brought things for Clark sometimes, objects of no real value that they knew he would like: magazines and newspapers, a stamp collection, coins. There were the passports or the driver’s licenses or sometimes the credit cards of people who had lived at the airport and then died. Clark kept impeccable records (Mandel 258).
In the absence of the activities we once preoccupied ourselves with, the survivors in Station Eleven turn to the objects that made them possible (Méndez-García 120), both because of what they represent, and to avoid a fragmentation of the memories of them.
The utopian impulse behind the Museum of Civilization is a paradox of conservation. It celebrates objects that once were markers of a civilization, but are now of no practical use
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beautiful, empty signifiers. In the same way that this makes the Museum an institution that may prevent the creation of new objects, the exclusive attention given to Shakespeare’s works above all others prevents the creation of new art (121). Thus, one can argue that in conserving it, the Museum solidifies the past, closing it off from the future; only while the curator is alive can the museum be kept alive, as only he can explain the past. The Museum of Civilization symbolises a desire to remember and a need to keep the pre-apocalyptic world close and as a part of the present, while alsoillustrating the nostalgic longing for the lost world (Feldner 177).
Memory and its importance are starkly portrayed at the Museum of Civilization at the Severn City Airport, where memory is a tool for both remembrance and for creating hope. This is where Clark has lived ever since the collapse, as his flight was redirected
there, and this is where many of his fellow passengers decided to make a new life for themselves. The Travelling Symphony also arrives at the airport towards the end of the novel. With a group of other survivors, Clark has made a home at the airport and created a community and a system that eventually thrives. Some shovel snow or tend to the gardens, others hunt and gather food and provisions, some stand guard and watch over the airport. Others again help sow, mend, clean, and organize. Living in improvised tents and shelters, life at the Severn City Airport becomes calm and functional. While at first, they all hope for (and expect) help and a solution to the precarious situation, once the former passengers realise there is no one coming to rescue them, no planes will leave the airport and no help will arrive, they slowly start accepting the situation and settle into their new way of life. In this process, Clark starts gathering remnants of what is slowly, although unbeknownst at the time, becoming the lost world, and he displays these in the museum he creates. It starts with a simple iPhone and a credit card, and soon it is filled by computers with dead batteries, outdated magazines, and coins of former value.
That evening they broke into the Mexican restaurant and cooked an enormous dinner of ground meat and tortilla chips and cheese with sauces splashed over it.
Everyone had mixed feelings about this (. . .) but then a business traveller named Max said, “Look, everyone just chill the fuck out, I’ll cover it on my Amex.” He removed his Amex card from his wallet with a flourish and left it next to the cash register, where it remained untouched for the next ninety-seven days (Mandel 243).
Clark finds himself lost in thought about his former life and his partner, considering what he would have done in the same situation, which sparks the decision to start assembling the Museum:
He stood looking out at the line of planes and for the first time in a while he found himself thinking of Robert, his boyfriend. Robert was a curator
—
had been a curator? Yes, probably Robert existed in the past tense with almost everyone else, try not to think about it—
and when Clark turned away from the window, his gaze fell on a glass display case that had once held sandwiches. If Robert were here—
Christ, if only
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if Robert were here, he’d probably fill the shelves with artifacts and start an impromptu museum. Clark placed his useless iPhone on the top shelf.What else? Max had left on the last flight to Los Angeles, but his Amex card was still gathering dust on the counter of the Concourse B Mexican restaurant. Beside it, Lily Patterson’s driver’s licence. Clark took these artifacts back to the Skymiles Lounge and laid them side by side under the glass. They looked insubstantial there, so he added his laptop, and this was the beginning of the Museum of Civilization (Mandel 255).
It is fitting that the Museum is situated in an abandoned air terminal, the ultimate super- modern non-place where people “are surrendered to solitary individuality, to the fleeting, the temporary, and the ephemeral” (Augé qtd. in Vermeulen 17). The Museum therefore sits in between the past and the present: located in an airport, once one of the largest symbols of human endeavours, now simply an empty building, preserving items of a past no longer attainable.
There are numerous other cultural artefacts and remnants that are prominent in the novel that are significant to the story’s development. An example of this are the Dr.
