Station Eleven by Emily ST. John Mandel

Well we are at the end of Station Eleven and I was thinking, since our professor is really stressing for us to try not sum up the chapters, that maybe I can talk about how some of the characters and events that happens in the main story reminds me of the events and people in the imaginary comic book, that was written by Miranda, who is a character inside the story. The few people that I am going to talk about are Clark, Robert, Arthur, Miranda, Tyler,who is also the prophet, and Georgia Flu. I guess that it is safe to say this is only my opinion and by no means am I saying this is the way it is. This is just how the main story reminds me of the comic.

Clark:

For the first pick I chose Clark. To me, Clark reminds me of Dr. Eleven because like Dr. Eleven, he had someone that he really cared about that died. He is some what of a leader at the Severn City Airport. I do know that the story has not mention him as a leader, but I assume that he is some one of importance because in the book it did mention how he has a favorite armchair “from which he could see almost the entire tarmac” (276). Clark’s favorite armchair is in the museum which I believe acts like an office to him. In Miranda’s comic, Dr. Eleven’s office has a big window that is a “wall of glass” (87) that shows “dark rocks and high bridges”.  Just like how Dr. Eleven’s ship is like a small mechanical Earth with Earth like things in it to remind every body on the ship of their past. Clark has a museum that has electronics, pictures, and even a motorcycle to remind everybody at the terminal of their past. Clark, just like Dr. Eleven, both spoke to their imaginary version of the people that they lost. I guess you can say ghost. Clark did this on page (240) when he said “what a terrible time that was,”….”to an imaginary Robert”….”Awful”,..”.Imaginary Robert agreed.” Then on page (330) Dr. Eleven “is visited by the ghost of his mentor, Captain Lonagan.”

Robert:

In my opinion, Robert is like Captain Lonagan, in which both were hardly mention throughout the story and both of them were kind of killed off  and seen as coming back to talk to their friend as apparitions.

Arthur:

I see him as Luli. They are both mentioned throughout the story and they have been part of some of the character’s life in one way or another. Just like Luli, Arthur is remember by the people who knew him or read about him in magazines. Luli is remember by being Dr. Eleven’s dog in the comic and Its funny because Kirsten has articles about Arthur and have the Dr. Eleven comic books that mentions Luli. Another thing that they have in common is Clark. Clark saw Miranda’s dog who name is Luli at the dinner party that she and Arthur had. (91) Plus, both Arthur and Luli had belonged to Miranda at some time. They both die before Miranda.

Miranda:

Is Like a God, some what, because she created a comic book called Station Eleven that foretold of a destruction of a imaginary Earth and how people of that Earth was effected by an unknown Alien civilization that had captured it. Then something parallel to that story happen to the lives of the people in the main story. Both the comic and the main story speak about what happen in the future after the Earth’s destruction. In the comic book it says “This is all a thousand years in the future.” (83) and then in the main story “Twenty Years After” (35).

Tyler:

Tyler who is also known as the Prophet is a prophet who carries around with him (as we later find out) a page from “Dr. Eleven, Vol. I,  No. I: Station Eleven, the first page of Station Eleven” by Miranda. He even quoted some of the words from the comic book. He believes in some of its message. This is also why I considered Miranda as  godlike because later on after she died she had two people to carry her comics around and one person even lived by following some of its ideas.

Georgia Flu:

Is like the Aliens that have taken over Dr. Eleven’s real home. Just like the aliens in Dr. Eleven, the Georgia flu is like “A hostile civilization from a nearby galaxy” (83). The Georgia flu is just a mutated version of the Swine flu which is the “nearby galaxy”. It is funny that on page (235) we see “Tyler…Cross-legged on the floor nearby, killing space aliens on a Nintendo Console” That takes me back to Hua, Jeevan’s friend working in the hospital trying to fight this unknown string of the flu. and then on page (236) “Tyler groaned softly; he’d suffer a setback in the alien wars.” Which is what happen to the characters of the main story, they were dying because of the Georgia Flu. This to me is another small detail that made Tyler the prophet. Little did he know that his game was showing what was happening to the world around him.

I know that there are some more similarities that I missed out on between Station Eleven the main story and the imaginary Miranda story, but again this is all my opinion if anyone else want to add on feel free.