The End of Life as We Know It
What if a great catastrophe were to bring about the end of life as we know it? What would be the thing that you missed most about the “old world”? Would it be the electricity and all the conveniences that came with it? Would it be advanced medicine and the possibility that humans can live longer?
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel gives readers a lot to think about. She creates a world that has been ravaged by a deadly disease called the Georgia Flu. In a matter of a week, the world’s population has been reduced to a fragment of what it once was, and those who survive often resort to savagery in order to keep themselves and their loved ones from starving to death.
But we soon find that even violent plagues cannot snuff out beauty. The novel follows a caravan of musicians and actors who call themselves the Traveling Symphony. Their goal is to keep the remnants of beauty and art alive, even if doing so means that they must venture into various sketchy places, performing in front of people who might have become wild and unpredictable because of the struggle to survive.
Then, they discover that their latest crowd is actually a religious cult. They are led by a Prophet who soon proves that he is accustomed to being in control of his followers — and his visitors. He suggests that the Traveling Symphony leave behind Alexandra, only a child, because he — the Prophet — is in search of a new wife. When they refuse, they soon discover that, for a cult that calls itself “the Light,” this is a group that is extremely passionate about making enemies and destroying them.
Humans Need Survival Stories
Something about this novel made me think of the television series Lost. There is a specific sort of drama that surrounds stories of survival, where the world and its conveniences are suddenly gone and the few who are left behind must get creative, carving out new existences. In these stories, humanity — and all acceptable behavior — is pushed to its limits. But I have noticed that, in such stories, hope and love do not ever truly die.
In this situation, humans would need to relearn the skills necessary for survival. They would need to get used to a world of sudden silence — no radios, airplanes, electric guitars. And though such a tragedy may seem unlikely, perhaps it would still be a comfort to find beauty in silence and in completing tasks with our own, sincere effort. We humans have done so before; we can do it again. Perhaps, even after everything else is gone, we will still find ways to make beauty.
The Museum of iPhones
If the world ended, if for some terrible reason I had to walk away from city and home, I would still be content if I had my family traveling with me. My home is where my family is. I believe my greatest fear would be facing a hostile world without them. But in Station Eleven, everybody has lost loved ones to the Georgia Flu; entire families have died in their houses.
At the airport (which no longer functions as one), there is a museum of things that humans once used but which are now useless: cell phones, laptops, IDs, all now paperweights because there is no way to charge them and bring them back to life. How haunting to picture it: these things that contributed to our everyday lives, that brought us joy, now nothing but memories to be gawked at.
There is something particularly unsettling about the idea of a museum like this. Museums usually preserve things because they have survived long enough to become valuable or historically significant. Here, the objects are ordinary. They belonged to ordinary people who expected to keep using them tomorrow. A phone might have held photographs of a child, messages from a spouse, or the last conversation someone ever had with a loved one. Now it sits behind glass, stripped of its purpose.
The museum also makes the world of Station Eleven feel strangely close to our own. We live surrounded by objects that seem permanent because we have never known a world without them. We assume there will always be electricity, cell service, the internet, and somewhere to buy a replacement when something breaks. The airport survivors have discovered what happens when all of those assumptions disappear at once.
And perhaps that is what makes the museum so sad. It isn’t really a museum of technology. It is a museum of a vanished way of life. The phones and laptops are only the artifacts left behind.
Lives That Matter
Early in the novel, an exchange between a protagonist named Jeevan and a passing character makes a striking point about humanity and our best attributes:
“You want to scrape drunks off the sidewalk for a living?”
“I want to do something that matters, if that’s what you mean.”
I believe that, underneath all our fears and ambitions, every honest human being has this desire. I believe that, at our core, humans are inherently good. There will always be a little light in our hearts urging us to make a positive difference.
Many — if not most — people won’t act on this instinct. We are, unfortunately, very adept at drowning out this voice (can we call it our conscience?) with activities that create “noise,” distracting us into thinking, erroneously, that all is well. We can convince ourselves that there’s no need to interfere with life as it is.
Station Eleven soon gives humanity no choice in the matter: people must learn to help one another, or die alone.
Before the real drama begins, Jeevan gives voice to this sentiment. It is foreshadowing, but it is also something more. His words are simple, yet they point toward a truth that is easy to forget: we can let the noise and distraction fade away. It can become quiet enough that the small voice in our hearts, that lovely little light, is no longer drowned out. Instead, it can guide us forward toward opportunities to help others.
In that very same opening of Station Eleven, there’s another moving passage involving Jeevan. When the actor playing Lear in a stage adaptation of King Lear suddenly dies, chaos ensues. In the midst of this, a young actress called Kirsten — little more than a child — approaches Jeevan and asks if the actor will be okay.
The actor is already dead, but Jeevan must say something.
“Just now,” Jeevan tells her, “he was doing the thing he loved best in the world. If acting was the last thing he ever did, then the last thing he ever did was something that made him happy.”
Comfort at the End of the World
Jeevan cannot restore life to the actor, nor can he ease the fear and trauma from Kirsten’s memory. But he can speak words of kindness and comfort, knowing this is probably the first time that child has witnessed death or been in the same room as a person who is deceased.
Kind words, words of comfort, do matter. They will mean a great deal to the person who needs them. After all, it is said that we remember not so much what a person does, but how they make us feel. Comfort and undivided attention: they are two of the very greatest gifts.
We all have the ability to “do something that matters” — offering a helping hand, a listening ear, a smile of genuine kindness in the face of life’s difficulties. These will not go unnoticed. Sometimes, what matters most is not solving the problem before us, but simply refusing to let another person face it alone.
We may never know how deeply a small act of kindness stays with someone. But that is no reason not to offer it. In a frightening world, even a few gentle words can become a small place of safety.
What Remains
These things are what Station Eleven made me think about. When everything unnecessary has been stripped away, what will remain?
Cell phones become paperweights. Airplanes stop flying. All the lights in every city will go out. Things we spent so much time acquiring may become useless overnight. But the impulse to create will remain. So will our ability to comfort one another–to listen, help, and love.
The Traveling Symphony continues to perform because survival is not the only thing that makes life worth preserving. Jeevan stops to comfort a frightened child because kindness matters, even when there is nothing he can do to change what has happened. Small acts may seem insignificant beside the enormity of a catastrophe, but they are precisely what will keep us human.
We cannot know what we would miss most if the world as we knew it disappeared. Perhaps we would long for electricity, medicine, warm houses, or the familiar conveniences of ordinary life. But I hope that, if everything else were taken away, we would still recognize the value of one another.
This is the comfort of Station Eleven’s story: even at the end of the world, there will be opportunities to do something that matters. There will be beauty worth making and people worth comforting.
That is how we carry a little light with us, even into the dark.
Mariella Hunt 
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