You know the drill: read through all reading response blogs for Station Eleven, Part 1, choose a favorite post, and explain the rationale for choosing it. Then share the post/excerpt/rationale by “commenting” here on this post. Don’t forget to link to the post you are citing (you can now hyperlink comments rather than just copying/pasting the URL: give it a shot!).
Comments should be made no later than Sunday, 10/8, and the one with the most votes will earn the coveted “People’s Choice” honor! As always, I’m looking forward to seeing what you choose, and why 🙂
If I had to pick a blog, it’d be this one. It was one of the very few that had somewhat amused me. I didn’t think about the relation between the past and present in the story until reading this person’s post.
Nickolas, please name the person (author) you are choosing, specifically in your post, for clarity. Thank you.
Tis Ita Fores.
I’m giving my people’s choice vote for Station Eleven blogs to Kina!
Her belief that Arthur’s death was symbolic stuck with me while reading her blog post, and I also believe Emily St. John Mandel really meant to allude a fatal forthcoming that would wipe out civilization by having Arthur Leander perish right on the first page!
“Also, I believe that Arthur’s death was a symbolic death. Arthur’s death symbolized the end of progression and the beginning of regression. In the beginning of the story I assume that they had all of the technology that we have and use in real life. Then the narrator tell us about all of the drastic changes that the Georgia Flu has created on pages 31 and 32 when the narrator said ‘No more cities….. No more flight….. No more pharmaceuticals…No more countries, all borders unmanned…No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one’s hand…No more Internet.’ [Mandel] The narrator has given us a list of all of the things that are gone. Leaving me to think that those people who lived through this tragedy will have to start from the beginning and rebuild their civilization”, (Kina, Par 4).
Arthur’s death definitely hits any reader unexpectedly, yet it pulls us into the novel immediately as we pace through each line of his final moments. This scene is thought to be chaotic but is almost nothing compared to what was to follow with the spreading epidemic. The death of Arthur Leander symbolizes the end of life for mankind.
Here’s a link to Kina’s insightful blog post:
Have a great long weekend everyone!
My favorite post is from Blanca, The Beginning of The End. The way she develops her post and introduces the characters is very appealing to me. She organized her post in a way where a reader who knows little or nothing about Station eleven part 1 would now have a somewhat informed idea about it. She also tried comparing between Station eleven part 1 and a couple of famous TV shows about epidemics. An example of that is when she said ” As I started reading chapter six I was confused, because the only question that kept popping up was, ” What is going on?, What happened? Did everyone die?” At that exact moment I remembered the beginning of “The Walking Dead ” (Blanca 6). Overall I think her post was well developed and I would recommend it as a post someone could read before getting into Station eleven part 1.
If I had to pick a choice it would be Hamilton’s “Its obvious that Jeevan and Laura don’t see eye to eye. They do not have good communication with each other, which shows how unhealthy and incompatible their relationship is. Jeevan and Laura’s relationship is not a good one at all. Jeevan and Laura don’t get along clearly. For example, “It was still possible at that moment that Arthur was acting, but in the first row of the orchestra section a man was rising from his seat. He’d been training to be a paramedic. “The man’s girlfriend tugged at his sleeve, hissed, ‘Jeevan! What are you doing?’” (The Theater 1,3). Laura should not be upset with Jeevan over his decision to help.” I agree that Laura is being self centered and not really trying in her relationship with Jeevan and I believe that the relationship have reached its end when Laura called Jeevan and told him that she went home without him because she had a headache. I believe that even if the Georgia Flu epidemic didn’t happen that shortly after the call Jeevan would had ended the relationship.
Kina, this posted twice here (I deleted the second reply), and also you made a “post” with it (which I also deleted). Finally, it would be helpful to just include the link to the blog in one place, rather than hyperlinking the entire text. Can you go in and edit? Thanks.
If I had to pick a blog it would be Crosto’s blog. I believe that there are many people that are out in the world that are going through the same thing. As time goes on from what I see, it seems like there are many people that are out there that are afraid of failure. There is a video that I saw a few days ago where Simon Sinek talk about the Millennial generation. Going through the video he talk about how people say that the millennials are spoiled and all that, but what he said about instant gratification caught my interest. Simon used an example where he is talking to a new worker where they said I don’t feel like I’m making an impact at work. Nowadays almost everything we do provides instant gratification, from getting food, getting games, meeting new people, etc. So now when people are thrown into the world and how things actually are they become more cautious and afraid of failing because of the potential losses instead of the potential gains.
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/belli-f2017-eng2001/forever-useless/
I have chosen the blog “Eye of the storm” by HamiltonC92 because the relationship between Jeevan and Laura didn’t really catch my until I read this post. In which I agree that the relationship between them is very unhealthy and I don’t understand why they are still together. She doesn’t seem to interest in any of the gestures and effort that Jeevan does for her. I can see that he has dreams and someone that isn’t supportive will only prevent you from moving forward in which case Jeevan, should not let anyone say, “You can’t do something”.
I choose “Eye Of The Storm” by HamiltonC92. I agree, the way Jeevan was introduced in the story was as a hero. The perfect timing. Perfect placement. Jeevan has also encountered Arthur before this moment which only further gives Jeevan a reason to come to the conclusion that he does want to become a paramedic. Jeevan and Laura’s relationship does not interest me as much but after reading his post I do think that Laura’s attitude towards him will shape him into the person he should be. Laura not caring will give Jeevan the thick skin he needs in order to pursue his career as a paramedic. https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/belli-f2017-eng2001/eye-of-the-storm/
After looking through the blog posts for Station Eleven part one, I chosen Calvin Ly’s blog post “A snapshot of the world before it ends” for People’s Choice Post for Station Eleven. While reading this post, I found that this post clearly outline the events and characters in part one of Station Eleven. The story of Station Eleven doesn’t have a sequential order in how traditional stories go from beginning to end, but this story goes like jumping from one main character for this part of book and to another main character for next part. This post would be useful for anyone trying to understand this book. Calvin Ly’s post mentioned the relationship between Jeevan and his girlfriend Laura, where Laura texted Jeevan to buy milk was kinda weird, but illustrates their complicated love life.
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/belli-f2017-eng2001/a-snapshot-of-the-world-before-it-ends/
I liked Kina’s blog for the reading responses of Station Eleven Part 1. She had a symbolic reading of Arthur Leander’s death in the first chapter that I hadn’t thought of. Kina writes: “… I believe that Arthur’s death was a symbolic death. Arthur’s death symbolized the end of progression and the beginning of regression. In the beginning of the story I assume that they had all of the technology that we have and use in real life. Then the narrator tell us about all of the drastic changes that the Georgia Flu has created on pages 31 and 32 when the narrator said ‘No more cities….. No more flight….. No more pharmaceuticals…No more countries, all borders unmanned…No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one’s hand…No more Internet.‘ (Kina, Paragraph 4). I felt this was an interesting reading of the material. I had a more literal reading of it, and I thought that his death, and Jeevan’s attempt to revive him was meant to show Jeevan’s eagerness to help those in need.
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/belli-f2017-eng2001/author-leander-dies-here-comes-the-storm/
I nominate, “Eye of the storm” by Hamilton C92.
The way he used his intext citation and explained the story briefly so that anyone who doesn’t really have any knowledge about the story or the book would just fall into it without really missing anything. I liked how he included Jeevan, He was the character that caught my attention from the beginning. now that I think about it, I should have paid more attention into Kirsten(the little girl). I think most of us wrote about the issue when it came to the relationship Jeevan and Laura.
Hamilton incorporated Keegan and his brother frank. In my blog that was caught my eye.
To be very truthful, a majority of the class had some interesting posts. Did a very good job at claiming a message & using appropriate evidence to support. However, the one blog that stood out the most to me from Station Eleven Part 1 was from Flores. This is because while I was reading, the points in which she was making actually changed my overall perspective on it and made me realize that I have to re read it more to create a more direct and logical understanding of the text. Based on her questions and inferences I was surprisingly very interested because the points she made were very very interesting and showed she’s very open minded and logical. For example, When it asked about “Why was the waiter on the road? Why outside of the city? Why three weeks later?” This to me symbolizes that she is very involved within he story and has a large amount of interest for it.
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/belli-f2017-eng2001/before-the-after/
I like Penina’s blog.
In her third paragraph she is describing how the flu is causing a major outbreak. She starts of with a quote that explains there is no more human activity. She attempts to foreshadow on what may happen next after part one. Later she makes various questions about if we could be in that situation and what our reaction could be. I am terrified to even think about it.
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/belli-f2017-eng2001/how-would-you-react/
I enjoyed Hamiltonc92’s blog as a reading response to Station Eleven. I agreed on his view about Jeevan and Laura’s relationship. Laura leaving the play and going home without telling Jeevan shows that she probably didn’t want to be there in the first place. Laura also didn’t seem to take Jeevan seriously when he told her about the infection and what Hua told him on the phone.
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/belli-f2017-eng2001/eye-of-the-storm/
One of the blogs I liked was from Calvin Ly. One thing he did that I actually never put much thought into was reading into the characters lives and personality. Calvin wrote in his blog, “I thought it was very strange how Jeevan had interacted with the girl, trying to comfort her while she was watching another man die in front of her (Mandel, 7). I think this establishes Jeevan’s awkwardness interacting with children as well as his unfamiliarity with consoling distressed people. It also establishes Jeevan’s pessimistic personality, as he had no confidence in Arthur’s survival“ Along with this and many more writing to go into his character build of Jeevan and others, I realized that I myself didn’t really focus much on the characters them selves but mostly focused on the scenes going on around them and the plot of the story. Also at the end I liked how he brought up the relationship between Jeevan and his girlfriend Laura, it’s definitely something I’ve been overlooking. It’s definitely let me understand some of the characters in the story more now that I realized something I should’ve done in the beginning.
Link to post: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/belli-f2017-eng2001/a-snapshot-of-the-world-before-it-ends/
I would like to vote for Ita Flores.
I like Ita’s choice for heading “Before the After” which ties in well with the point that Ita brought up in her blog post about time transitions in the novel “this illness […] was going to be the divide between a before and an after, a line drawn through his life.” (Station Eleven p.20)
Its writes: “Throughout the first part there were many instances where the past and it’s relation to the present is brought up”. This brings me (Daniel) to thinking of the floating over and back (transitions) of time in the novel. I had read this line in Station Eleven, I had highlighted this line but I did not grasp the significance of the line, as Ita has done. As I fumble with my blog posts, this is the sort of insight that eludes me in the dim light of my perception, as I grope among the shadows….Methinks I should probably start my blog posts a day earlier (meaning tonight!).
I am not quite certain of the meaning of “perceptive play” and I could not find a good definition on Google. (remember to ask the Prof.).
Wow! I just found this cool site: http://literary-devices.com/
“Another example of time within Part 1 of Station Eleven, is how much the past is talked about and how important details are often told through memories of the characters” (Ita paragraph ~4). Good point…the use of time/perceptions of time/memories, to tell the story.
All these moments serve as premonitions for what is to come (Ita, second to last paragraph). I prefer the use of premonitions to foreshadowing here.
Kudos!
I’m choosing Adrian’s response. And yes, for those who don’t already suspect. it is for an extremely biased reason. He actually compared the first part of this play with the walking dead. Which, is one of my favorite shows and (in my personal opinion) The best story driven, tell tale game series to date. I could definitely see the resemblance between this story’s Georgia flu with the the epidemic that resides in the walking dead. obviously enough, i know the main difference between the two which is their severity but, they both definitely carry that sense of anxiety and worry when it comes to the psychological effects their early stages have on to their respective societies.
I know it’s a silly reason but, what can i say, the man won me over with that comparison.
I believe the best post of this reading goes to Kina.
I love how you breakdown the most important parts of the story and the level of detail brought to the fact that Arthur’s death scene set the tone of the story. Tragic and depressing littered with symbolism. “Arthur’s death symbolized the end of progression and the beginning of regression.”This quote from your post is the story itself in a nutshell
Arthur Leander dies: here comes the storm.
Don’t know why my response shows up twice…
I like the post from Ita Flores. She breaks down part one of story and analysis each of them individually which makes it more understandable. She actually indicated that “there are multiple times that an epidemic from the past is brought up” (Ita, Paragraph 4.) I strongly agree with this point because this is the reason how everything started with and lead to the later story.
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/belli-f2017-eng2001/before-the-after/
I really enjoyed reading Kina’s thoughts on Part 1, my favorite quote from her post is “Arthur’s death symbolized the end of progression and the beginning of regression.” I think it encapsulates the beginning of the apocalypse really well.
Thanks all for your thoughtful comments. Chris H.’s post was chosen as this week’s “People’s Choice Post” (with Kina’s post a close second)!