In Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, we see until the end how death and survival played a vital role in the book. We see how random both things are. As a change of career and phone call could help you survive. Or how a comic you write for yourself becomes the important part of surviving for other people.

By day three all the essential items are gone from the airport. There is no more food, medicine, technology and the people dialing 911 cannot reach anyone. “By Day Three, all of the vending machines in the airport are empty”242” This line shows how people must depend on themselves to survive there is no more police to come and help people with medical emergencies. Since by Day Eight no one has come to the airport, a TSA agent named Tyrone goes out to hunt and returns with a deer. This shows how an activity somebody did for fun before the disease outbreak can become the tool for survival. In the same time we see everybody celebrating the killing of the deer and food to eat we see the girl who needed Effexor leave the group. After the small group do a search party to find her but sadly they are unable this shows how even surviving the original disease outbreak she could not survive her own disease.

In year fifteen Kristen gives an interview and when asked what “When you think of how the world’s changed in your lifetime, what do you think about?” “I think of killing.”(265) Here we learn that people no matter how young they were learn the importance of themselves before others. We see that Kristen has killed people before to survive. François has realized after interviewing the whole symphony that their stories are the same. “Everyone else died, I walked, I found the Symphony. Or, I was very young when it happened, I was born after it happened, I have no memories or few memories of any other way of living, and I have been walking all my life.”(266) all the people who survived have had the same experience of walking and searching with death all around them.

In chapter 51 we see Kristen in Charlie’s tent with him. There they start discussing many thing including death. When speaking about death they both get memory of a supernatural occurrence, and how those moments can be  strain of the losses and the difficulty of taking a life. Kristen also thinks about the friends she has lost and the people she has killed this is a moment of death and survival in the same moment. Kristen misses her friends that had died but she has killed people to survive and those people that died have people who miss them.

Throughout the novel we see the affect death has on the characters not just physical but psychological. The survivors wonder about why they survived and other people have died. We see how survival can move people from religion and some people closer to religion like Elizabeth and Tyler.

In parts 4-6 in “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel we started seeing how all the characters memories are connected.  As the characters start remembering stuff from the old work they do not know if what they remember is real or not. This leads us to think how much we can trust the characters and how we have to look at everything they remember with a grain of a salt.

In chapter 27 we see how Jeevan books an interview with Arthur, at first Jeevan worried Arthur will recognize him as the man who took the embarrassing photo of Miranda but Arthur does not seem to recognize him. As Jeevan is in his brother’s frank house he remembers about random memories and wonders about his life. “Jeevan kept thinking of his girlfriend, his house in Cabbegetown, wondering if he was going to see either of them again” (Page 174) Here Jeevan thinks about the past and as a means to escape and distract from the apocalypse that’s occurring. Jeevan while being unhappy about his past life as a entertainment writer/paparazzi remembers one of his few proud moments. “What are you smiling about?” Frank asked. “Arthur Lender” (Page 175) Jeevan remembers the promise he made Arthur as a rare moment of integrity in his past career.

Chapter 31 we see Kristen giving an interview to François Diallo’s she speaks of the production of King Lear and the day Arthur had a heart attack. Kristen remembers the audience member who tried to save Arthur but cannot remember the name of that man. Even though many people knew Arthur nobody remembers the name of the man who tried to save him as the name is lost in history but the story of the man is remembered. We see Kristen have a major lapse of memory during the interview as she remembers Peter dropping off her home but cannot remember anything about her parents as she never saw them again. I believe that she is using the memories of Arthur as a father figure to fill the gap of her parents.

In Chapter 37 we learn that Kristen believes that her fragmented memory is a actually a blessing. ”Diallo: I hadn’t thought about it Raymonde: What I mean to say is, the more you remember, the more you’ve lost” (Page 195) This chapter makes you think of the say ““Ignorance is bliss.” Yes sometimes not knowing is more comfortable but all you are able to life easier but like everything to much of something is bad. Kristen being ignorant of her past is just trying to cope of the horror of what is left.

In chapter 39 we truly see how all the characters are interconnected. Miranda realizes she forgot to give Arthur the paperweight and she ships to Arthur at the Elgin Theatre. This is the same paperweight that after eleven years that Kristen still carries in the post- apocalyptic world. We now see how significant that paperweight is at that moment.