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John Mandel Station 11 Analysis

Decent Essays

It is common knowledge that one of our natural instincts as humans is to find purpose in our lives. Without a purpose in our lives, we often lack a reason to continue living and in extreme circumstances, take our own lives because of this lack of purpose. In the novel “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel, the author goes back and forth between a world similar to our own and that same world post-apocalypse. In the novel, the apocalypse occurs when the Georgia flu outbreak occurs. In the modern world before the Georgia flu, many people lack purpose, and are said to be sleepwalking through life. Characters like Jeevan, Clark, Kirsten, and Tyler find their purpose in the book, but mostly after the outbreak occurs. After the flu wipes …show more content…

When Clark speaks with Dahlia, she mentions that even if Clark changed her boss, he would still be unhappy with his life. She also mentions that most people are “high-functioning sleepwalkers” (162-163). This conversation occurs before the flu when much of society is depicted to be absorbed by technology. The concept of high-functioning sleepwalkers is that people trick themselves into thinking that their work is their purpose even when they do not like it. This makes them believe that they have a reason to live, even when they are not actually self-aware. The main characters that were alive before the epidemic begin to realize that most people have no purpose and that nobody is truly present in society. These characters then end up finding their purpose after they survive the epidemic. For example, after the apocalypse, Jeevan becomes a doctor. When Jeevan was asked why he wanted to become a paramedic before the epidemic, he said that he wanted to do something that matters (10). Another example is Clark’s decision to preserve the old world. After the epidemic, Clark preserves the old world’s artifacts, thus creating the museum of civilization. The museum of civilization is important to the habitants of the world post-apocalypse because it reminds them of who they used to be as a society and the mistakes they in the previous world. The museum then gives purpose to others because it motivated people to re-establish themselves as a people as well as what they had lost with the

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