station eleven criticism
Station Eleven repeatedly emphasises that there is no deterministic pattern to time, contrary to what apocalyptic logic affirms. Thus, one might suggest that Mandels book describes an apocalypse that already happened in 20082009: it is a novel not about a post-apocalyptic future but a post-apocalyptic present, for the ships embody the breakdown of capitalisms fundamental premise of eternal growth (Hoberek, 2015: n.pag.). The postmodern subversion of a realistic epistemology leads to the idea that there is no ultimate knowable historical truth, that our knowledge of the past is social and perspectival, and that written history exists within culturally determined power structures (Munslow, 2006: 27). As Jeevan describes it, this night, was going to be the divide between a before and an after, a line drawn through his life (Mandel, 2014: 20; emphasis in original). Station Eleven features explicit intertextual references to biblical apocalyptic narratives, from the Flood, in Genesis, to Revelation. Globe and Mail, 12 September. Traditional apocalyptic narratives are fictions of historical order (Zamora, 1989: 4) that flourish in times of crisis and, through his apocalyptic narrative, the prophet seeks to restore order in the chaotic post-pandemic world. You are right about how the timeframe jumps from immediate crisis to a relatively established recovery. Yet, she explains, it was important to me to not write that book [The Road]. You know, it's interesting. The series creator explains why, Station Eleven, like the Shakespeare that sustains it, is something of a miracle, Unlike Andor, Mandalorian is going all in on Star Wars lore. Stepping over corpses (Mandel, 2014: 193) a description that echoes the snowy wasteland of The Road, barren, silent, godless, strewn with cars in which people were burnt alive (McCarthy, [2006] 2007: 4, 273). The novel begins with the apocalyptic end, Arthurs death on Night One (Mandel 2014: 180) of the pandemic. Just like Tyler, Bertis sees himself as the prophet of the new world to come, which is, however, not for everyone. The prophets image of the pandemic as an avenging angel (Mandel, 2014: 60, 286) echoes Revelation 1516, where the seven bowls of gods wrath are unleashed on the Earth by seven angels. Because in stretches the first comes achingly close to being a masterpiece. While Station Eleven does not fall into the traps of the utopian teleology of traditional apocalyptic logic, which risks, in its determinism, legitimising oppressive power dynamics, the novel is too complicit with the current system and its exploitations. (Sorry, it all always comes back to Lord of the Rings.) Because this is an epic quest and those kinds of stories make certain demands. | ISSN: 2056-6700 | doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.206, Download XML Yet Tylers apocalyptic narrative indicates not only the complicity of apocalyptic logic with violence and power structures but also how the appeal of this kind of narrative depends on its promise of a sense-making temporal order. If traditional apocalyptic discourse is about time, contemporary post-apocalyptic discourse is also about time more specifically, it is about critical temporalities, constructions of time that critique a hegemonic temporality. Modern metanarratives are apocalyptic, in that they are totalising explanations of history based on utopian teleology. 2nd ed. Alter, A 2014 The World is Ending, and Readers Couldnt Be Happier: Station Eleven Joins Falls Crop of Dystopian Novels. By the same token, Station Elevens prophet terrorises the population of the region, assembles a cult, and gains power thanks to a combination of charisma, violence, and cherry-picked verses from the Book of Revelation (Mandel, 2014: 280), where cherry-picked underlines the constructedness of Tylers prophecy. Log In; While the novels prophet holds on to a religious understanding of apocalypse in which the end is followed by utopian rebirth, the Georgia Flu, the pandemic that kills 99% of the worlds population, is termed apocalypse by the television newscasters in the sense of dystopian catastrophe rather than utopian revelation, and the apocalyptic narratives referred to in the text are disaster movies, with the dangerous stragglers fighting out for the last few scraps (Mandel, 2014: 243, 256). There is no emotion and it is not greatly Art and literature can, the series argues, offer some safety rails, some moments of connection. What the readers find in Mandels novel is not the destruction of the corrupt old world and subsequent ushering in of a utopian new world but, rather, a lament about the lost wonders of technology and the splendours of the former world (Mandel, 2014: 288, 231) which undermines apocalyptic sense-making. Goes Out newsletter, with the week's best events, to help you explore and experience our city. Brennan: Look, Im not calling Station Eleven a failure, or a disaster, or even a half-assed genre entry. Even in 2014, I was sceptical that there would be such an appetite. The concluding discovery of a town with a functioning electrical grid (Mandel, 2014: 311) suggests not the advent of a radical new world and the revelation of a sense-making pattern to history, but, rather, that civilisation might slowly revert to its pre-apocalyptic state and given the positive and optimistic tone of the conclusion, reinforced by the way in which electricity and lights are repeatedly described as beautiful, this, too, indicates the novels problematic celebration of the current system. [L]ife on earth is just a bus stop on the way to greater glory or greater suffering (Coupland, [2010] 2011: 152) and Bertis understands his murders as partaking in a divinely-sanctioned separation between the elect and the non-elect. Bernstein, M A 1994 Foregone Conclusions: Against Apocalyptic History. Thus, while the traditional apocalyptic narrative makes the conjunction of meaning and ending its theme, both in its expressed understanding of history and in its own narrative procedures (Zamora, 1989: 14), Station Eleven, as discussed, leaves readers with the sense of possibility, an open and unwritten future that challenges the closure and determinism of the sense of an ending and that, like the gaps in the fictional history of Cloud Atlas, allows space for human agency.13. It seemed at least plausible to me that there would eventually be some kind of hope. Altre Modernit, 9: 6680. Adult Kirsten is, per the Katniss Everdeen amendment to the Geneva Convention, a skilled knife thrower and general badass, but she is also the companys go-to Hamlet, surrounded by a group of people who survived without surrendering their belief in the power of making beautiful things. There are any number of access points for a comparison of these two shows. I was very deliberate in the timing of the narrative: its set mostly fifteen and twenty years after the collapse, not during or in the immediate aftermath (Mandel, 2015: n.pag.). This passage is a clear intertextual reference to McCarthys The Road, whose world is complete with travellers with shell-shocked expressions, children walking covered in blankets, people being killed for their backpacks contents, and a hungry dog. The novels final paragraph consists mostly of questions, while the hypothetical ships move towards another world just out of sight (Mandel, 2014: 333; emphasis mine), that is, towards a future that, contrary to the normative and prescriptive utopian visions of apocalyptic logic, remains undefined. Thus, after a paragraph foreshadowing Mirandas divorce from Arthur and ensuing life a future that in Station Eleven is, literally, already written at the start of the novel, when we are informed of Arthurs many ex-wives (Mandel, 2014: 134) Mandel pauses to remind the readers that first theres this moment (Mandel, 2014: 107), a moment in which, in life unlike narratives, we take decisions that shape an unwritten future. Further threads arise from the stories of other settlements one led by Clark and the female actor (Elizabeth, played by Caitlin FitzGerald, who ended up marrying Arthur after an affair they began while he was with Miranda) and begin to be woven together. Open Library of Humanities Kermode, F [1966] 2000 The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. Station Eleven is so good, you can buy it outright on Amazon, which sells it for between $28 (DVD) (opens in new tab) and $40 (4K Blu-ray) (opens in new tab). There are holes in the story, but that didnt bother me because Station Eleven felt almost immediately like an antidote to every other post-apocalyptic tale I have ever seen. While it is my argument that this challenge to traditional apocalyptic discourse and its model of history is key to contemporary post-apocalyptic fiction, in this section I focus on Mandels novel in conjunction with another Canadian text, Couplands Player One, which takes place in a Toronto cocktail lounge over five hours while the price of oil quickly escalates and a violent post-apocalyptic scenario ensues.5 Both novels subvert the distinction between the elect and the non-elect, bringing to the fore the self-righteous violence of apocalyptic discourse and how this distinction, as well as the apocalyptic historical teleology it founds, are narrative constructs which serve the interests of those who articulate them. While The Roads passages signify the critique of utopian teleology through a hopeless dystopian scenario in which we find an entropic dissolution, Station Elevens ending subverts utopian teleology through speculations. It's some sort of combination of pessimism or narcissism that it's almost as though we want to believe or living at the climax of the story. WebRotten Tomatoes reports a 98% approval rating with an average rating of 8.1/10, based on 54 critic reviews. Yes, Station Eleven is wildly optimistic and unapologetically sentimental, but I appreciated the problem-solving we did see the airport community, as you mentioned, and the golf resort, even the Symphonys decision to stay within the Wheel for safety reasons. Yes, an episode that aired in 1999. Still, my sense that the series is too Pollyanna-ish for its own good that its conclusions about the uses of art in the world are ultimately unearned stems from the fact that these sections are often dramatically inert to begin with. In Player One, Bertis justifies his murders through a similar self-righteous moral dualism and teleology. Why Netflix is dabbling in livestreaming, Stranger Things play that may hold key to the end taking 1959 Hawkins to West End, NBCs Chicago series have strong showings but CBS wins weekly TV ratings race, Before and after photos from space show storms effect on California reservoirs, Dramatic before and after photos from space show epic snow blanketing SoCal mountains, The chance of a lifetime: Five friends ski the tallest mountain in Los Angeles, Best coffee city in the world? The following is from Emily St. John Mandels novel Station Eleven which was a finalist for a 2014 National Book Award. Atwood, M 2004 Writing Oryx and Crake. In this podcast, PSR Versus podcast hosts Josh Wigler ( @roundhoward) and LaTonya Starks ( @lkstarks) compare episode 7 of The Last of Us and Station Eleven. The author has no competing interests to declare. 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