How much do people base their lives off of survival rather than living in the moment? In the novel Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, many characters lives revolve around this. In the novel, many characters often mention that survival is insufficient, so much that they do not find a point in life. The author uses memories of Kirsten to signify hope and resilience. Kirsten’s memories are not just a symbol of hope and comfort; as Kirsten moves from being an afraid person to a woman who is strong and seeks hope, the author uses Kirsten’s symbolic memories to demonstrate how experiences from one’s past can define one’s identity. The characters in Station Eleven either chose not to remember or cannot remember things from the post apocalyptic world. For instance, Kirsten does not remember a lot from before the Georgian flu and takes this to her advantage as she does not need to bear through the trauma. The author also reveals Kirsten’s memories to be odd, “An …show more content…
She uses many objects to remind her of the times before the flu, “Kristen seeks out books and gossip magazines in abandoned homes in order to spark memories of people and the world” (Mandel 64). These books and magazines were used as a survival aid for Kirsten to have hope and faith in her identity. This shows the emphasis books have on Kirsten as she escapes from the trauma of the Georgian flu through these novels. These objects Kirsten’s use as a memory, help identify and depict the change from the past and post-apocalyptic world. The Travelling Symphony became a major role indulging the characters in believing we need to do more than just surviving, stating “Survival is insufficient” (Mandel 57). The Travelling Symphony was the back support to the characters keeping them moving and building their identity of courage and hope in this new world. All the characters dwell on their past in search of good memories to keep them
What is personal identity? This question has been asked and debated by philosophers for centuries. The problem of personal identity is determining what conditions and qualities are necessary and sufficient for a person to exist as the same being at one time as another. Some think personal identity is physical, taking a materialistic perspective believing that bodily continuity or physicality is what makes a person a person with the view that even mental things are caused by some kind of physical occurrence. Others take a more idealist approach with the belief that mental continuity is the sole factor in establishing personal identity holding that physical things are just reflections of the mind.
My identity is something that that no one can take away from me. As I am still growing and learning, I can say that I have found many things that appeal to me. My interests will help define my personality and express myself in ways that I can’t express through words. I enjoy finding new things to do and doing my best in aiming towards my goals. I have many goals, but I know that I can only accomplish them through patience and perseverance.
Identity is what defines us as a person. Everyone one on earth has their own unique identity. To showcase my identity, I created a collage of images and descriptive words, called an identi-kit. This identi-kit shows what I feel like is my identity to myself and the others. My identi-kit identifies me as a mixed martial artist. The identi-kit has images of a deadly shark with mixed martial arts gloves on that say mixed martial arts on the front and fight shorts with the words competitor and warrior on them. It also has descriptive words like “killer instinct” and “fight” which describe my spirit. There are three assumptions that come to question when asking about one’s identity. The first is if you were born with this
Kirsten Raymonde, the main character and an actress in the Traveling Symphony, tattoos the three words “survival is insufficient” on her arm as a reminder to herself that to truly live she has to thrive. The mantra of the Symphony speaks personally to Kirsten, and although “she has been arguing with Dieter about it almost ever since,” she never shows regret for having permanently marked herself with these words. During her travels, Kirsten carries a backpack with several objects which would seem useless to an outsider’s point of view. Space is valuable after the Flu, especially for Kirsten because of her nomadic lifestyle, so the fact that she carries around means that they must hold immense meaning for her. Her collection includes a provocative book about Arthur Leander called “Dear V”, “the ziplock bag that held her tabloid collection and the Dr.
Most people, unless they choose to be an outsider, want to be considered “cool.” Whether it’s to fit in with a peer group, or clique, or to impress someone in particular, like a member of the opposite sex, or a potential mate. Or possibly to gain something from an individual for financial or social gain (see “Scamming”).
The Traveling Symphony is a troupe of actors and musicians who travel in caravans around the Great Lakes to settlements made by other survivors. Mandel says she added the group because she found it “hopeful” and “interesting” (NPR). In each little town the troupe stops at, the Symphony puts on concerts and theatre performances of mostly recreated Shakespeare plays. Written on the leading caravan is the Symphony’s motto “Because survival is insufficient,” taken from a Star Trek: Voyager episode (Mandel 58, 119). According
An identity is the state of being oneself. Your character is comprised of your past, present, and future. Some individuals are ashamed of who they really are and try to change themselves, or mask their identities. One of the dominant themes that is conveyed throughout The Namesake is the theme of identity. In the novels, everybody is a little lost, or a lot lost, frankly. Practically every individual struggles with his or her identity, because every person feels the tug and pull of different cultures, different traditions, and different dreams. The Namesake is about this perpetual dilemma faced by immigrants as they fight to maintain their identities while trying to shake them off at the same time while The Great Gatsby is about people
Memory as a theme is used by many authors to elicit feelings of nostalgia and longing for the past, which can have a heavy influence on their actions in the present. In Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel uses memory as a framework for her novel, as flashbacks to before the collapse are memories in the present time. Jumping back and forth from 15 years before and after the collapse, Mandel creates an idea that the past is very well embedded in the present. The memories of Arthur, a central character that links Kirsten, Clark, and the Prophet together, affect their futures, and the relationships between them. In The Odyssey of Homer, Homer uses memory to convey the idea
Who I am? Personally, I believe that a person’s identity can take only one of two routes. One, a person’s identity can change within that person’s life. Who I am now, is not necessarily who I was when I was younger. Experience can and will likely modify our identities. Therefore, experience can solidify our personal identification or it can weaken our personal identification. And as such, individuals and their perspectives are always evolving, or at the very least, they should evolve over time. Although there are some identities that evolve throughout one’s lifetime; there are some identities that remain consistent. Two, some identities cannot and will not change. So identities are socially and/or politically forces upon you, some identities are genetically assigned to you, and some you choose to keep. No matter the reason or reasons, these identities have been and will be consist within your lifespan. But, how you deal with them is up to you as an individual.
Our perception of our identity is constantly changing, the groups we belong to, the people we talk to and the way we connect with others help to form our identity. There is one thing we all have in common despite our individual identities, is the need to belong. There’s no obligation to belong to only one group, you can belong to many. An individual can belong to many groups, which will then create multiple identities; hence our understanding of identity is never constant. Belonging to a loving family, group of caring friends that help us to develop our own sense of self. However, belonging can have a negative side. For example our families might have an expectation of us to do something that might alter our ambitions and interfere with
Identity is a state of mind in which someone recognizes/identifies their character traits that leads to finding out who they are and what they do and not that of someone else. In other words it's basically who you are and what you define yourself as being. The theme of identity is often expressed in books/novels or basically any other piece of literature so that the reader can intrigue themselves and relate to the characters and their emotions. It's useful in helping readers understand that a person's state of mind is full of arduous thoughts about who they are and what they want to be. People can try to modify their identity as much as they want but that can never change. The theme of identity is a very strenuous topic to understand
beliefs. Sober uses the example of lightning. He points out that according to the Greeks,
To be an American is to have traits of freedom the thing that the founding fathers counted on is to have the will to speak freely and to have the will of religion in the constitution it say that every citizen should have life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This impacts and brings everyone from different places to help create a society that is free. The founding fathers also counted for the people to speak for what is right. The reason is because this helps out on what the people want instead of the government wants this goes to show that the people matter and that is what makes a person happy and also makes a person feel like they have the pursuit to be happy.
There are millions of words across the globe that are used to describe people and uncover their identity, but what is identity? How can you begin to describe something that varies so greatly from one human being to another? Can you create a universal meaning for a word describing human concepts that people often fail to define for themselves? Of course there isn't one definition to define such a word. It is an intricate aspect of human nature, and it has a definition just as complex.
Over the course of my life I have had many life experiences which have made me who I am today. When I was in my middle childhood, most of my life revolved around playing and having fun. I did not have to put forth effort in hardly any area of my life or work hard in order to achieve specific goals. As time went on however, my own life experiences began to have an effect on me, and shape the person I am today. My life started to change the most during middle childhood when I was around the age of seven years old. At this point in my life, I had to adjust to several big changes.