Critical Essay on Station Eleven by St John

Why I Chose Station Eleven

The book Station Eleven by St John (2014) is a book with a post-apocalyptic genre. The choice of reading was inspired by the thought of having the world go through the apocalypse that would wipe out the entire population of the earth only leaving few remnants that are living in the uncivilized world. The author would indulge the reader and provokes him or her with the question 'what if' in wits of trying to figure out what happened next. The novel provokes you of what an apocalypse would do and reminds you of the beauty of the world we live in and makes you appreciate anything you may take for granted. The thought of having to live in the world where people we cared about like our families and friends are no more and there are no phones, no internet, printing press and magazines or importantly electricity and living in uncivilized world where people are wanderers and cars and planes have been abandoned due to lack of gas is really awful.

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The apocalypse would make you think about how we survive, for instance, how we shelter, the roles we do in the society and our lifestyles. These questions differ from one apocalypse to another. Reading the 'Station Eleven' would offer an opportunity for one to examine humanity and if the apocalypse would change the way we live as mankind. I guess it is possible that after the apocalypse, people are still divided and everyone seeks to find their own groups where they fit although the majority of remnants are likely trying to move on with life. The thought of apocalypse makes the earth feel like a scary place and therefore shows the fragility of human beings. This would make a reader have a strange sense of calmness that is brought about by the apocalypse. Reading makes one hope that in the end things would be okay and if it is bad, a fraction of humanity would still be secured against total destruction and me, as the reader would probably be okay.

The apocalypse brings the fascination of death and as a reader, one would try to figure out how to make it less of reality and more of something that can never happen and possible ways in which an apocalypse could be avoided. It is easy to think about fictional death and hence inevitably life than real death that always happens around us. The fictional nature of apocalypse provides a safe haven of how brutal it would be if one really occurs.

Apocalypse makes the reader think wide as to how better infrastructure and new buildings could be constructed and how one can dream bigger and fin the ways to achieve them. It also helps in making an examination of who we are on a personal level, whether we are lonely or if we need somebody. These questions which one may find it hard to answer due to our daily activities which makes us busy enough to avoid them.

Reading a book with apocalyptic theme creates the thrill of desiring to know what happened, what caused the apocalypse and whether there are survivors and in case they exist, what they do to stop the cause and what they do to reclaim the world back to its healing. A good apocalyptic theme ought to be adventures and hopeful that whatever the disaster can be there is a way out and there is the possibility of the world coming back to normal and people finding harmony in the future ahead of them.

Why I Chose Magazine Interview

Interviews provide on to one interaction with the character who reveals the actions in the story as they directly affected him or her. The interactions with the character tend to bring out some information that we may miss when we are reading and help us to understand more b making us reflect on the flow or the plot of the story with a deeper extent. Each character is unique and that is how they affect the plot of the story and therefore makes it of importance to pursue magazine interview. Interviewing a character helps to figure out how people face different circumstances differently.

Interviews would help us to engage our emotions. The interaction poses us to have a different opinion of certain actions in the plots from the one we had when reading the book and help us have a wider option of perspectives. Some things may not make sense as we read, for instance, was it really necessary for such character to be involved in killing a person but through the interview, we get to experience the emotions the character is forced to undergo through as part of the plot.

Readers often have some judgments of characters, for example, the main character is always likeable. However, having interactions may result in different opinions and make you understand what the writer is trying to say about them. Characters have their backgrounds which determine what they pursue which can be brought out clearly during an interview.

A reader can see that surviving in the post-apocalyptic world is the most important thing. However, through one character, it is quite evident that surviving is not sufficient and one has to do more than just survive but rather find a way of living. It also difficult to know why a character would risk her life in order to bring the art in form of novels to the museum despite the dangers one can face in delivering the art.

Interviewing a character help in discovering character traits such as what is their motivation and what makes them suitable for a particular role. The information reveals itself indirectly by asking direct questions. The decisions and actions the characters make determine the outcome of the story.

Choosing Station Eleven Again and Recommending It to Someone Else

I would choose the book Station Eleven again because it explores possible changes that may occur to our world if an apocalypse would occur. The book does not focus on apocalypse but rather the life after the occurrence of the collapse. It saturates the reader with the idea of future in which is unpredictable but can be imagined. Description of the post-apocalyptic world has a lot of elements which are expected such as religious cults, loneliness and starvation and countryside roaming. The Station Eleven is somehow quiet given the fact that the world has fallen and it focuses more on bringing out the ideas of art, memory and nostalgia rather than fights between people. The characters look back and think about relics from the previous world, things like phones, computers, cars and even planes. However, the main character, Kristen, portrays a reflection of new forms of happiness. She shows that Materials things do not matter but people you live with and honesty of life. The theme of happiness brings out the thoughtful opinion of the post-apocalyptic world. Station eleven implies that even though the apocalypse can occur it may not destroy the world completely and the people in it thus it is a book with intentional and ultimate hope.

I would recommend the Station Eleven to another person. The book is different from other apocalyptic books as it makes one appreciate the world he or she knows it. In station eleven there are no comforts of the relics such as cars, planes, internet, phones and even running water that we have in our world. It also helps us to be happy with the way our lives are better. Besides, it portrays how the loss of everything can turn out better; Jeevan who had unfulfilling work found a valuable job at the apocalypse. It can also remind one that making art is worth doing and no one can know which art can survive an apocalypse. Miranda made art which she had no interest in and two of her books thrived through doomsday. Besides, it is pleasing to read an apocalyptic book which few people survive to preserve human species. It is comforting to know that few people are ready to do anything to bring art to others despite the tough conditions.

Magazine Interview

Introduction

This interview is about Kirsten Raymond who was an eighth old actress at the time Georgian flu broke out. She witnessed the collapse of Arthur Leander who was casting for King Lear film. The disease killed her parents; however, she managed to get out with her brother who later died too. The occurrence of these events traumatized her which led to her amnesia. She always stuck with a novel called Dr Eleven and kept collecting tabloids attempting to bring her lost memories about Arthur and the world before the pandemic. The apocalypse never affected her profession or the way she viewed the world. After her brother's demise, she joined a group called Travelling Symphony which comprised of actors and singers who travelled nomadically among settlements of great lakes area and they performed plays and songs. The motto of the group 'survival is insufficient' helped her a great deal as it led her to believe that people had to do more than just surviving and thus art was her way of truly living as opposed to surviving. Besides, she also wrestled with her lost memory and she had hope that they would have a civilization in the collapsed world, a danger which made her kill in order to survive and thrive.

The Interview

Interviewer: What if the Travelling Symphony would not have existed, would you have found your way in this post-apocalyptic world all the way to the new civilization?

Kirsten: living in this world has been accompanied by a lot of challenges and the main one was the death of my brother. I have also faced challenges of brain loss and in the process trying to remember what the past looked like. Coming across travelling symphony and joining the Travelling Symphony was the best that happened to me after a long time. It gave me not only happiness but also showed me a way to live rather than just survive. If it had not existed, I would have been a lot desperate in trying to survive and maybe it would have led me to death for having no reason to live for or maybe I would have wandered my way into hands of marauders and get killed or I could have met someone else and survive long enough for to reach the new civilization.

Interviewer: Concerning the situations, you face to kill a person, how does it make you feel, does it make you feel that it ruins your morality in society?

Kirsten: I have had to kill not because I wanted to but because I had to survive. I never liked any of these but if are in a place where you choose to kill or be killed? I wish there was another way but it is a game of survival. I hope that the citizens would rise and put an end to this barbaric era.

Interviewer: What are your thoughts on the new civilization, would find its way back to the civilization that once existed before?

Kirsten: civilization is what I have always longed for. It would help in bringing back balance to the society and reduce the lawlessness which has led to deaths of many remnants whose lives are important. The civilization would not necessarily be like the last one although it would have a lot of similarities and I am looking forward to living in a civilized world

Interviewer: Considering the fact that you are an optimistic person who has managed to live positively during this post-apocalyptic era, do you think that getting your memories back affect the way you view the world?

Kirsten: Being optimistic came as a result of being part of the Travelling Symphony. I have wished of getting my memories back is what I have desired for a while but it is important for me to forge ahead. Getting my memories back could be a good thing; it may affect me but it would not alter my opinion about this world since I am happy now and I am still practicing my acting profession.

Interviewer: People around in this era have been looking back and thinking of things like phones, computers, planes and cars and thinking that their happiness has been taken away by the fall of civilization. In your position, how could help them to focus on to future and start living happy lives?

Kirsten: The relics of the previous world gave fun to the people who lived at the time, those things are...