SETTINGS

When discussing settings in a novel, you are referring to both when and where a story or scene takes place.

Settings can be real or imagined, geographical (country/town), or specific (abandoned warehouse, forest, kitchen). Mandel uses a mixture of real and imagined settings in her novel. Mandel also takes real settings and places but relocates them or re-names them. It is interesting to consider the impact this has on the reader.

As with many survival texts, the transformation of known places supports the theme of loss and legacy, where we might see a former and now redundant airport, for example, become a community centre, even a Museum of Civilisation.

Toronto

Toronto is a Canadian city, the capital of Ontario Province, and the nation's largest city by population. Mandel has said that she wanted to set her story in a city familiar to her, and that it would be good and proper to begin correcting the bias toward setting apocalyptic stories in New York City. Toronto is a centre for cultural and commercial institutions, and boasts the tallest freestanding structure in the Western Hemisphere, the CN Tower (see below). It is set on the shore of Lake Ontario on the eastern seaboard, its nearest neighbouring major cities being Ottawa, Detroit, and NYC.

Symbolises modernity.

Elgin Theatre

The Elgin Theatre is an actual theatre in Toronto, Canada. It is part of a complex called the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre, an Edwardian (i.e. early 20th Century) theatre complex where one theatre (Winter Garden) is several stories above the other, not alongside as is the normal arrangement. This is the last surviving such stacked theatre in the world. Perhaps allegorically, the theatre consists of one story layered on top of another.

Symbolises illusion, connection, reflection.

Hollywood

Hollywood, sometimes informally called Tinseltown, is a neighborhood and district in Central Los Angeles, California. Its name has become synonymous with the American film industry and the people associated with it. Many notable film studios such as Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Walt Disney Studios, and Sony Pictures are located in or near. Hollywood.

Symbolises artificiality, illusion, excess

Lakes Michigan and Huron (The Great Lakes that border USA and Canada)

The Great Lakes region of Canada is vast. In fiction it often is given a primal, primeval, wild-nature character.

Symbolises renewal, transformation, self-reflection, continuity.

Symbolises limbo, liminality, transition, stagnation

Severn City Airport and The Museum of Civilisation

"Severn City’s not based on any real place; I just wanted to set some of the action in a larger airport than actually exists in the region, so I made up a fictional city to go with my fictional airport. Visually, I imagined it as a miniaturised version of the Detroit airport [shown below]: imagine if DTW’s Terminal A were broken up into three much shorter terminals, each with about 15 departure gates, with the same high walls of glass and the same dusty fake trees in planters." - Mandel.

Symbolises resistance to forgetting the past, legacy.

St Deborah by the Water

A fictional town on the shore of Lake Michigan where the Symphony encounters "The Prophet".

In the Old Testament Bible, the Song of Deborah is an ancient hymn, uniquely celebrating a military victory assisted by two women. Deborah was a prophet of Yahweh, and the only female judge in the Bible.

Symbolises loss, violence, fear

Malaysia

12 percent of the world’s shipping fleet is at anchor on the coast of Malaysia, highlighting the significant presence of ships in the region. This situation is part of a broader trend, as over 80% of global trade is carried by sea, making the maritime sector a critical component of international commerce. Review of Maritime Transport 2024 | UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

Symbolises both isolation and globalisation

Delano Island

A fictional small island in British Columbia, Canada, where Miranda and Arthur grew up.

Delano Island in Station Eleven is based on the real-life Denman Island in British Columbia where Mandel grew up.

Symbolises both isolation, innocence, nostalgia.

Station Eleven

'Station Eleven is the size of Earth’s moon and was designed to resemble a planet, but it’s a planet that can chart a course through galaxies and requires no sun. The station’s artifcial sky was damaged in the war, however, so on Station Eleven’s surface it is always sunset or twilight or night. There was also damage to a number of vital systems involving Station Eleven’s ocean levels, and the only land remaining is a series of islands that once were mountaintops.'

'a few hundred rebels managed to steal a space station and escape. Dr. Eleven and his colleagues slipped Station Eleven through a wormhole and are hiding in the uncharted reaches of deep space. This is all a thousand years in the future.'

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