Since we didn’t have time for every group to present in class today, we’ll be continuing here with “virtual presentations.” To make your presentation, each group should comment here with their work and what they want to communicate to the class.
Only one person per group needs to comment (and only one comment per group!), but please make sure that at the top of your comment, you list each group member, so that everyone gets credit for their work.
A reminder: a quick overview of your chapters, two claims, with three pieces of evidence per claim (provide a quote, analysis, and connection to your overall point). Your goal is have focus, make an argument, and to synthesize your discussion.
Please get the comments up here by W 10/25 by 5pm.
Blanca, Penina, Imani, and Gem
Chapters 47-49
(Ch.47 was not directly connected to Ch.48-49)
Chapter 47:
Year 19, Clark is 70 years old. He spends his time reminiscing life before the collapse. “He’d been spending more time in the past lately. He liked to close his eyes and let his memories overtake him.”(278). With Garrett, they recall phones, abbreviations, realizing how stupid these things were. “thx or brb or ttyl”. “A life remembered is a series of photographs, disconnected short films.”(278-279)
Air Gradia 452 (which was that one airplane that had all of the infected people in it) has still remained closed off. Charlie, Jeremy, and Annabelle are at the airport safe and sound.
CLARK FINDS OUT WHO THE PROPHET IS.(TYLER). Yet he does not know what happened to his mother.
Chapter 48:
Kirsten and August find Sayid, whom the prophet took as hostage to exchange for Eleanor, his 5th bride.
Kirsten kills a third person. “Kirsten wrenched her knife from the archer’s chest. He gasped, the blood welling, and she heard a gurgle in his throat as his eyes dimmed. Three she thought, and felt immensely tired.”
Dieter died during his kidnapping because he was allergic to the chemical put into the rags to knock them out.
Chapter 49:
The clarinet clarifies that the letter that he members of the symphony found was not a suicide letter. It was a piece of a play she was going t write. (289)
During Ch. 48-49 The former members and current members of the symphony are finding their way back to each other. They have found each other after days or years. As for Clark in chapter 47, I wish I could say the same. He has lived a long life, He has seen people be born into that airport and he has seen people die in the same place.
We decide to discuss about loneliness.
Group: Kina, Christopher H.
Chapters 42 to 43
Chapter 42:
Clark is feeling lonely during his time of the airport. “He was thinking of Robert, his boyfriend of three months. Clark wanted very much to see him again.” This is a normal reaction where you can feel alone when the world is ending. One would think that one’s love ones are gone forever. Later on, Clark meets a young teenager asking for antidepressants. She says, “I run out, I’m asking everyone.” Anyone would feel distress about the events that happening. One of the reasons that she may be depressed is that her family and friends are possibly dead. In a way she is lonely in this situation.
Chapter 43:
Near the end of chapter 43, we meet a stranger walking towards the airport. He was in teared up, “I’d thought I was the only one.” His emotions were heavy as he believed to be the last person alive during the apocalypse. He was all alone for months and seeing dead bodies everywhere. Seeing nothing but the dead can have a negative impact on a person’s mind. This can cause him to feel lonely.
Group Members: Adrian Zhang, Charie Ramirez, Samuel Wong, Stevens Jeans
Chapter 42-43
In chapter 42 and 43, we are looking at the story from Clark’s point of view in Severan Airport around the beginning of the Georgia Flu. In these chapters, we see the characters are losing their sanity as more day progresses after the Georgia Flu as they sit in Airport hoping and waiting for help.
Claim: Sanity can be pretty volatile when overcome by loss. From there three characters, each character has either show signs of going crazy or they can maintain their sanity in this situation
Clark’s losses caused him to see imaginary Robert, already showing signs of sanity decaying.
Elizabeth constant denying the end of the world, or end of civilization caused her to lose her sanity.
Dolores still held together her sanity, and became a supporting person in telling Clark if he is losing it.
In chapter 42, we see Clark now discover about the Georgia Flu, and he start trying contact everyone he knew. When he realizes that people he knew may have died from the Georgia Flu, he started to see imaginary Robert, and he was having conversation with imagery Robert. He whispered to imaginary Robert “What a terrible time that was,” and he imagined that imaginary Robert agreed “Awful,” (Mandell, 240) this show that Clark was losing his sanity as time went on in the airport.
Elizabeth can be considered crazy at some point in chapter 42 to 43 because of her continuity of denial in the fact civilization has ended. When Elizabeth and Clark had discussion about ““It just doesn’t make sense,” Elizabeth insisted. “Are supposed to believe that civilization has just come to an end?” (Mandell, 248) I’m pretty sure, she in denial because it was day seven when news network announced that they stop running the network at that point it was mentioned majority of world except Antarctica was affected by the Georgia Flu. Then she bought up a book about vampire and North America being only place on Earth that civilization was lost and was quarantined. Finally, the last evidence she really is in denial it “Everything happens for a reason, this will pass. Everything passes,” (Mandell, 249) She think there is reason for everything to happen that caused the Georgia Flu, when there is no reason because it just happened and this result and even if it passes the damage is done already.
The description “Dolores was a business traveler, single, no family, which meant that she was one of the saner people in the airport,” (Mandell, 249) she had no family, and was single, such she had nothing to lose because everyone was overcome with emotions of losing their friends and families to the Georgia Flu. She became very important person to Clark because they agreed if she see Clark losing it, she would snap him back to normal. In later chapter 43, Clark now has Dolores who he trusts that has a grip on their sanity to tell him if he losing it. Then later “Clark trained himself not to think about. Everyone he’d ever known outside the airport for instance” (Mandell, 249) we see him training himself to not look at the past but what is in front of him at this time.
This bring up idea if a person has no family or friends, does that person has higher chance of maintaining their sanity in the face of a catastrophic like the Georgia Flu.
Chapters 50-51Group: Taisha, Christian .S., Terry, Ita
Chapter 50: Living in a world with no laws brings out the people with bad intentions in hurting others, it will also lead the people that have survived to do things that they would not normally do if life was as it once was. – First person who Kirsten needed to kill (Page 295) – The second person, she needed to kill to survive (Page 295) These were acts of self-defense that Kirsten needed to take without hesitation. Chapter 52:The characters in the novel are surviving with hope and faith, of one day to go back to how their life once was, they are not allowing themselves to become hopeless. -Page 308, A midsummer dream -Page 308, “there was a new heaven, and a new earth” -Page 304, The prophet – Page 302, Clark/Kirsten were amazed to see a town with electricity, something everybody longed for” -Page 298, “I dreamt last night that I saw an airplane”Summary for both chapters: The prophet was almost going to shoot Kirsten until the young boy in the group shoots The Prophet, saving Kirsten but then proceeds to commit suicide. Kirsten and her group went to the airport and met Clark who showed Kirsten the city that was running on electricity.
Chapters 47-49
Group: Calvin Ly, Stephen Dronov, Nickolas Velox
Quick Chapter Summaries:
CH 47- Clark realizes Tyler is the Prophet, after a conversation with Garrett at the airport.
CH 48- Kirsten and August find and rescue Sayid and rescue him from the Prophet’s followers.
CH 49- Sayid and the clarinet are hostages within the Prophet’s hunting group.
Claim 1: Elizabeth is no longer in Tyler’s life, which could have led Tyler to form a cult and become the Prophet.
In a conversation with Garret, Clark discovers that Tyler had become an authoritarian prophet, who ruled with “a combination of charisma and violence” (280). He also learns from Garrett that Elizabeth is no longer with Tyler. Clark then has an internal monologue: “What became of you, Elizabeth, out there on the road with your son? But what, after all, had become of anyone? If all of them had vanished, uncounted and unmarked, why not Elizabeth too? He closed his eyes. Thinking of a boy standing on the tarmac by the ghost plane, Air Gradia Flight 452, Arther Leander’s beloved only son, reading verses about plagues aloud to the dead” (280)
Claim 2: The cult and the prophet believe themselves to be better or superior to non-believers, who they call “the fallen”. After a backhanded comment from Sayid, the prophet calms an enraged member of his group, and says: “Can we not withstand the taunts of the fallen? Is that not part of our task?” (291). The prophet continues to say “The fallen walk among us. We must be the light. We are the light” (291). This means that the cult believes they are enlightened and superior compared to outsiders and non-believers.
Part 9
Kainat, Heder, Anoop
Claim: Arthur reflects on his regrets, trying to turn a “new leaf” but he ends up tragically dying in the process. Arthur felt guilty about many of the wrong-doings he had done and was trying to make up for them, or at least make himself feel better.
“He felt a flicker of sadness. This was a sign of having gone seriously astray, wasn’t it? Having more than one ex-wife? He wasn’t sure exactly where he went wrong.” (320)
“How much do you still owe in student loans? (Arthur)” — “I want to pay it off.” (322)
“Arthur had promised to be in Jerusalem for Tyler’s birthday, but he’d made that promise ten months ago and had frankly forgotten about it until Tyler had called him yesterday. Arthur’s apologies hadn’t landed.” (324)
Claim 2: Literature can stand the test of time and can be significant to a wide diversity of people. The comic Station Eleven tied many of the characters together, without them knowing themselves (besides Clark) towards the end. It included experiences Clark had, Miranda’s previous work environment, and resemblances of Arthur as well.
“My mom brought a book with you on the cover,” — “The only book in existence with Arthur on the cover was Dear V.” (321)
“…in the dim light of Dr. Eleven’s office, which is identical to the administrative area in Leon Prevant’s Toronto office suit…” (330)
“In memory, Miranda excuses herself and rises, and he watches her slip out into the night.”–“He hasn’t thought of her in so long. All these ghosts. She went into shipping, he remembers.” (332)
CH: 44-46
Each character has their own way of coping from the collapse of the old world into the new world.
CH: 44
Tyler and Elizabeth believe that everything happened for a reason by gods judgment. How everyone who survived is alive because they were the strongest and good in nature. (PG 258-261)
From the same chapter, the author writes “One day her plagues will overtake her. Death, mourning, and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her” (Mandel 259) and on the following page, Tyler says the following “Some people were saved. People like us… People who were good… People who weren’t weak” (Mandel 260). This is a reference to a growing belief by Tyler that God did this for a reason, that those who died were meant to die the way they did and how everyone who survived this “Plague” was always meant to since they were strong, and were good beings.
Although, Clark liked to reminisce about the past especially with his Museum of Civilization. Everyone was contributing to it and he loved it very much. He also worked to make sure everyone was well set and cared for. (PG 258)
“Clark had worked all day at the details of survival; gathering firewood, hauling water to the restrooms to keep the toilets operational, participating in salvage operations in the abandoned town of Severn City, planting crops in the narrow fields along the runways, skinning deer” (Mandel 258).
CH: 45
The past fly left life or death situations in any directions one headed. Kirsten had to focus on survivability in which she ended up killing 2 people along the way. Her brother, who she was closest from a young age, had died to something she claimed was “stupid”, an infection from a nail he had stepped on. (PG 265 & 267)
In the beginning of Chapter 45, Kirsten is in an interview with Francois Diallo, and he starts to ask about some of her tattoos. Francois asks “When you think of how the worlds changed in your lifetime, what do you think about?” and Kirsten responds with the following lines, “I think of killing… Have you ever had to do it?… I’ve been surprised too” (Mandel 265) Then she proceeds to show the 2 tattoos on her which symbolizes how many people she’s killed so far which is 2 in total. This is one part that outlines some of the difficulties even though it might now show it, Kirsten turned to survivability as we learn and had to do what she did to survive.
CH: 46
Jeevan accepted the way things turned out to be. He found himself in a settlement called McKinley, had formed a relationship with a town member named Daria who he later married. (PG 269)
Group Members were Jeffery and Timothy