"I wanted to write a love letter to the world we find ourselves in."
— Emily St. John Mandel
Embedded Files
The limited series takes some liberties with the original material, but would be an excellent companion to your reading. It is an extraordinary feat of storytelling in its own right; I love it. Just don't watch INSTEAD of reading; do both!
Thematic Topics:
Thematic Topics:
Love, Loss, and Redemption
Art as a Necessity for Survival
History, Legacy, and Progress
Faith and Belief
Memory and Storytelling
Community and Family
Read the opening scene closely. Describe the tone of this moment- one of the first of the pandemic that will reshape the world- and what details evoke that tone?
Use text and imagery.
Liminality Journal- "It was too transitory, all those doorways and dark spaces betweent the wings..." (5)
Create a journal page that captures different aspects of LIMINALITY in the opening 3rd of the novel. How is this a story about transitions and connections, movement and stillness, here and "not here"?
No More
No More
Re-read Ch 6- The Incomplete List- and consider what is lost. What is NOT lost? What will people have to rely on? The final entry 'No more avatars.' is particularly interesting. Research the meaning of the word in its technology iteration and its original Sanskrit meaning. What do you think Mandel's double puprose is here?
"Survival is Insufficient"
Prose Passage Analysis-
The PERFECT passage appears as Ch. 11 pgs 57-58. Re-read and create a journal page examining the effect of the details of the production and the comment on art and beauty in the ruined world.
People & Places- Make a page laying out the different settings, characters, and connections between them so far. Fun rabbit-hole- Google "Miranda Shakespeare Character" and compare to our Miranda.
Blog Post Response: Read the attached blog post and write a response to her reaction to page 120. Then look up the Star Trek episode in question (video clips or responses to it) and make notes about how it works as a metaphor for the Traveling Symphony in the new world. You may add images to your notes as well.
Tattoo Design: In this section, Kirsten's tattoos are described. Consider the themes and imagery of the novel thus far. Design an original tattoo for any character that reflects something important from the text. Write a commentary about who the tattoo is for and what its imagery signifies.
"Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44477/ode-on-a-grecian-urn
Keats' Romantic poem is a treatise on the power of beauty and art. Read and research it and consider how we can see its ideas reflected in Station Eleven.
"Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks At The Dancers"
by William Butler Yeats
I found that ivory image there
Dancing with her chosen youth,
But when he wound her coal-black hair
As though to strangle her, no scream
Or bodily movement did I dare,
Eyes under eyelids did so gleam;
Love is like the lion's tooth.
When She, and though some said she played
I said that she had danced heart's truth,
Drew a knife to strike him dead,
I could but leave him to his fate;
For no matter what is said
They had all that had their hate;
Love is like the lion's tooth.
Did he die or did she die?
Seemed to die or died they both?
God be with the times when I
Cared not a thraneen for what chanced
So that I had the limbs to try
Such a dance as there was danced -
Love is like the lion's tooth.
In Arthur's letters to V. he mentions a line from Yeats. Read the poem from which the line is taken and consider it in the context it was written AND in the new world. Make a page for the quote and the letters, and what they reveal to us about Arthur Leander.
"This is my soul and
the world unwinding,
this is my heart in
the still winter air.
Keepwalkingkeepwalkingkeepwalking."
On page 194, Jeevan's thoughts devolve into this poetic language. Go through the middle section of the novel and create a Found Poem from a set of lines on a single page. Be deliberate in how you arrange the words into lines; make choices based on the tone you want to convey.
Read the article on the Folger Shakespeare Library: "The World Unwinding: Station Eleven, Shakespeare, and an artist's eye view of the apocalypse"
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