Epigraph:

1. What is the significance of the sight passage by Czeslaw Milosz? Who is

Czeslaw Milosz? Provide some context to fully understand why Mandel
chose this section of Milosz’s poem.

The bright side of the planet moves towards darkness.

And the cities are falling asleep, each in its hour,
And for me, now as then, it is too much.
There is too much world.

-Czeslaw Milosz
The Separate Notebooks

Type your answers into the text boxes...

Section 1: The Theatre

Chapter 1 (Pages 3-12)

1. Identify and describe the setting in the play performed on the Elgin Theatre
stage in Toronto. Apply the archetypal lens, specifically identifying
conventions of the satire story type.
2. “Jeevan had reached Arthur by now and he caught the actor as he lost
consciousness, eased him gently to the floor. The snow was falling fast
around them, shimmering in blue-white light. Arthur wasn’t breathing.” (4)
Explain the foreshadowing.

3. The novel begins with a “story within a story” narrative style. You will need
to do research here on William Shakespeare’s King Lear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0cN22Fnl40

Who are the main characters? What is the basic plotline? What is the
significance of this? Why do you think Emily St. John Mandel used an
allusion to Shakespeare’s King Lear to begin the novel?

4. One of the actors that performed in the King Lear play becomes frustrated
about the fake snow still falling while the ambulance is taking Arthur away
and says, “‘can no one stop the goddamn snow?’” (6). What does this
foreshadow? (consider symbolism of the snow)

Station Eleven is set in a post-apocalyptic world following a worldwide pandemic.

The effects of the Georgia Flu on society are catastrophic for the characters in
 the novel. Students may benefit from discussing the various pandemics
throughout history and their consequences on society. •

This 11-minute video describes the various pandemics and epidemics throughout
history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TkHLUnwIho

This article compares the consequences of the Black Death, Smallpox, the
Spanish Flu, and COVID-19 and how they impact those on the margins the
most.https://www.science.org/content/article/black-death-fatal-flu-past-
pandemics-show-why-people-margins-suffer-most

5. Another archetype category besides setting that is introduced in this

chapter is an archetype within the character category, specifically the hero
archetype. Who is set up to be one of the heroes of the story and how do
you know? (what does he/she do that demonstrates heroic qualities?)

6. What important theme is revealed in the following quote? “[Jeevan]

remembered once having read advice to this effect in a brochure about
what to do if you’re lost in the woods” (8).

Chapter 2 (Pages 13 -15)

1. Tanya gives Kirsten a paperweight. What is a paperweight? How does
Kirsten describe it? Also, what does she say is trapped inside it? What
does it represent (symbolize)?

Chapter 3 (Pages 16-26)

1. Describe Allan Gardens. What elements of the setting represent the
romance story type? (16).

2. Find an example of foreshadowing that indicates that Jeevan’s friend Hua

will probably not make it. Copy it down word for word and cite it.

3. Hua calls the Georgia Flu an epidemic. What is the difference between an
epidemic and a pandemic?

4. What does Jeevan do right after Hua warns him about the Georgia Flu
becoming an epidemic? What does this reveal to you about Jeevan?

5. When Covid-19 was announced to be a pandemic and we went into lock

down, did you take any precautionary steps to prepare yourself and your
family?

6. An allusion is made to SARS by the grocery store cashier: “It’ll be like

SARS … they made such a big deal about it, then it blew over so fast” (25).
Do some research on SARS. When did it happen? What happened? How
many people were infected? How many died?
Chapter 4 (page 27)
➔ Chapter 4 is a short chapter- the producer notifies Arthur’s lawyer about his
client’s death.
➔ No questions

Chapter 5 (page 28 - 30)

➔ Chapter 5 is another short chapter - introduces Miranda (one of Arthur’s ex-

wives)
➔ She is working for a shipping company when she receives a phone call from
Arthur’s friend Clark Thompson, revealing Arthur’s death.
➔ No questions

Chapter 6 (31 - 32)

1. How does the narrative style in Section 1, Chapters 4-6 transition from
previous chapters? What is the reason Mandel writes in this way?

2. This chapter demonstrates the collapse of modern civilization. It is narrated

post-collapse as it lists everything the world lost after the pandemic wiped
out humans. List some things included on the “incomplete list” that the
world no longer has.
Consider what it would be like to live in a fallen society. What features of modern culture
would disappear? What impact would the fall of technology have on your culture? What
new skills would you need to survive, and how would your interpersonal relationships
change? What societal rules and restrictions would be unnecessary in a fallen society?
Section 2: A midsummer Night’s dream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCI6o-kbqrs
“Why Should You Read a Midsummer Night’s Dream?” • This 5-minute video describes the plot
of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. • What is the basic plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream? What
lesson can be learned from the play? What connections can be drawn between the plot of
Shakespeare’s play and the novel? How is A Midsummer Night’s Dream related to the novel’s
themes, specifically The Relationship Between Art and Life and Determinism and Personal
Responsibility?

1. How has the setting transitioned in Section 2, Chapter 7? What changes

have taken place? How do people travel?

2. We see Kirsten again (the 8-year-old girl at the beginning of the story who
Jeevan comforted), who is now over 20 years old. She lost her innocence
on stage the night when she saw Arthur die in front of her. How else has
she also lost her innocence post-collapse of the world?

3. Characterization - Describe August.

4. What does Kirsten search for in the abandoned houses? Why does she
seek these out? What is important to her and why? What important theme
is revealed here?
Chapter 8
1. What is significant about the Dr. Eleven comics? What do they
foreshadow?

Chapter 9
1. Why does the Symphony decide to perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream in
St. Deborah by the Water? What does this reveal about this group of
travelling actors?

Chapter 10
1. What happened in St. Deborah by the Water? What does Kirsten discover
about her friend Charlie, Charlie’s husband Jeremy, and their child
Annabel? From a post - colonial lens, what do you think happened in the
town after the epidemic?
Chapter 11
1. All three caravans have the Travelling Symphony written on them, but the
main one also has the quote, “Because survival is insufficient”. What is the
significance of this motto? What theme does it develop?

Chapter 12
1. How does the Prophet use the pandemic, people’s desperation to survive,
their faith (theme of faith) and their hope for a better world against them to
attain and maintain individual power over them? Apply the post-colonial
lens here (use terminology such as colonizer, colonized, and exiles).

2. From a feminist lens, how are women portrayed? (using the Prophet’s
actions toward women as an example). What is happening to the
community of St. Deborah?

Section 3: I prefer you with a crown

Chapter 13
 1. This chapter takes place 14 years before-collapse. What is Arthur doing in
his life at this point? From a psychoanalytical lens, how does Arthur’s id,
superego, ego affect the way he feels about his life? Use the following
quote as a point of analysis: “Arthur is thirty-six now, which makes
Miranda twenty-four. He is becoming extremely, unpleasantly famous. He
wasn’t expecting fame, although he secretly longed for it in his twenties
just like everyone else, and now that he has it he’s not sure what to do with
it. It’s mostly embarrassing” (79).

Chapter 14
1. Using the psychoanalytic lens, describe Miranda. Use the terminology id,
ego, and superego to describe how she views herself. Miranda’s superego
is strong; she lacks self-esteem and doesn’t feel good about herself and
her appearance: “In Thea’s presence she feels ragged and unkept, curls
sticking up in all directions while Thea’s hair is glossy and precise, her
clothes never quite right whereas Thea’s clothes are perfect. Miranda’s
lipstick is always too gaudy or too dark, her heels to high or too low ….”
(80).

2. What complex influences Miranda’s decision to stay with Pablo for eight
years? Also, psychoanalyze Pablo’s behaviour. What is he projecting onto
Miranda?

3. Describe Station Eleven (the actual space station) in Miranda’s graphic

novel. How does it mirror Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven?
 4. The night Miranda decides to go to the apartment to take a few more of her
belongings, Arthur says to her, “You don’t think he’ll do anything stupid, do
you? Pablo? Miranda responds with, “No ... he won’t do anything except
maybe yell” (90). What literary device does Mandel use here to create
suspense?

Chapter 15

1. Freudian critics believe that authors may create stories that are
unconsciously inspired and represent aspects of themselves or their lives.
How is Dr. Eleven’s dog an unconscious creation by Miranda? What does
Mandel suggest about?

2. Where else are we introduced to Luli (the dog)?

3. The theme of survival is revealed again through Elizabeth when she and
Miranda have a conversation about her affair with Arthur. Elizabeth
responds with, “I don’t think I’m an awful person” and Miranda responds
with, “No one ever thinks they’re awful, even people who really actually are.
It’s some sort of survival mechanism (106). What does Miranda mean by
this? How is it a survival mechanism? From a psychoanalytical lens, which
part of their psyche is strong? Which part of their psyche is weak?
Chapter 16
1. How is Francois Diallo rebuilding civilization by starting a newspaper and
collecting oral interviews?

Chapter 17
➔ Arthur meets his friend Clark for dinner (a year before the Georgia flu)
➔ Clark realizes that Arthur only met up with him to have an audience - to get
attention.
➔ Arthur was served with divorce papers by his third wife.
➔ His second wife Elizabeth is moving to Israel and taking their son with her.
➔ No questions

Chapter 18
1. Using Freud’s psychoanalytical theory, why do you think Kirsten has a hard
time remembering events during and after the Georgia flu?

2. How does the interview with Kirsten at year 15 show how memories can be
both a source of pain and hope? “Some towns, as I was saying, some
towns are like this one, where they want to talk about what happened,
about the past. Other towns, discussion of the past is discouraged. We
went to a place once where the children didn’t know the world had ever
been different, although you’d think all the rusted-out automobiles and
telephone wires would give them a clue” (115).
Section 4: The Starship

Chapter 19
1. In regards to the motto on the lead caravan, “Survival is insufficient”,
Dieter tells Kirsten that it “would be way more profound if we hadn’t lifted it
from Star Trek” and Kirsten responds with, “I’m aware of your opinion on
the subject, but it remains my favourite line of text in the world” (119). What
differing opinion do they have about the value of art?

2. What connection does Kirsten make between the prophet and Station
Eleven because of the dog’s name?

3. Who is Eleanor? Analyze Eleanor’s circumstance from a feminist lens.

What would you say about the Prophet?

4. We find out more information about the Prophet; where does he come
from? How did he rise to power in St. Deborah?
Chapter 20
1. How does August use his faith in a positive way? How does it help him
manage his trauma?

2. What does Kirsten do to preserve memories of the past, before the collapse
of the world? (Keep in mind that Kirsten was 8 when the Georgia flu hit the
world)

Chapter 21
➔ Very short chapter
➔ An interview excerpt of Kirsten
➔ Diallo asks Kirsten about the two knife tattoos, and she answers Diallo with, “you
know better than to ask” (132).
➔ We don’t know what the tattoos mean for Kirsten yet; however, we do know that
she is very good at throwing knives and always has them on her.

1. What do you think Kirsten’s two knife tattoos mean? Usually, people’s
choice of tattoos has meaning for them.
Chapter 22
1. What do you think Kirsten means when she says that Alexandra “was a
younger fifteen-year-old than Kirsten had ever been” (22). (Consider
applying the theme of loss of innocence)

2. For Dieter, what do airplanes symbolize? “Dieter had been twenty years old
when the world ended. The main difference between Dieter and Kirsten was
that Dieter remembered everything … ‘I used to watch for it, ‘he said. ‘I
used to think about the countries on the other side of the ocean, wonder if
any of them had somehow been spared. If I ever saw an airplane, that
meant that somewhere planes still took off. For a whole decade after the
pandemic, I kept looking at the sky’” (134).

3. Using the psychoanalytic lens, explain Dieter's dream because Freud said,
“dreams are a royal road to the unconscious”. What did he mean by that?
“‘I dreamt last night I saw an airplane,’ Dieter whispered …’In the dream I
was so happy,’ he whispered. ‘I looked up and there it was, the plane had
finally come. There was still a civilization somewhere. I fell to my knees. I
started weeping and laughing, and then I woke up” (134).

Chapter 23
 1. Mandel uses diction very effectively to create suspense in this chapter as
well as at the end of chapter 22. What happens at the end of chapter 22?
How does she continue creating suspense in chapter 23? What does she
do? Copy down direct lines and cite them.

2. How is the Prophet’s faith dangerous? How does he use his faith corruptly
to survive? What does Kirsten say? How does Mandel use diction
effectively to show that the Prophet will do anything for his own individual
survival.

3. Remember that Freud said, “Dreams are the royal road to the
unconscious”. When Kirsten and August are separated from their group,
that night “Kirsten slept fitfully, aware of each time she woke of the
emptiness of the landscape, the lack of people and animals and caravans
around her. Hell is the absence of the people you long for” (144).

Chapter 24
1. Compare Year Twenty to the first ten or twelve years after the collapse.

2. What is Finn’s story? From a post-colonial lens, what has he become

because of St. Deborah being colonized by the prophet. How does he
describe the prophet’s “people”?
 3. What does Kirsten notice about the scar on Finn’s face? Why do you think
Finn has been branded?

4. The people who had the opportunity to enjoy Shakespeare’s performances

during the Elizabethan Era (mid to late 1500s and early 1600s) were also
experiencing a life and death situation with one of the deadliest diseases at
the time being the plague. The plague wiped out 25% of the London
population. Theatres were shut down during outbreaks; when theatres
opened, they were packed with people. Why do you think theatre
performances were so popular during that time? How does it mirror what
the Symphony and their performances do for the people in the after-
collapse world?

5. What book is Kirsten looking for? Why do you think it is so important to

her?

Chapter 25
 1. This chapter is filled with letters from Aruthur to his friend V. What do you
learn about Aruthur’s life and who he was from these letters? Use
characterization strategies here.

Chapter 26
1. Who are the iPhone zombies? What is Mandel implying about technology
and modern civilization? Based on Clark’s change of heart about the
iPhone zombies at the end of the chapter, what is Mandel implying about
what it means to “live”?

2. Psychoanalyze Dahlia’s boss Dan based on the information she shares

about him to Clark: “Okay, let’s say he’ll change a little, probably, if you
coach him, but he’ll still be a successful-but-unhappy person who works
until nine p.m. every night because he’s got a terrible marriage and doesn’t
want to go home ...I’m talking about someone who just seems like he
wishes he’d done something different with his life, I mean really actually
almost anything” (164).

Section 5: Toronto
Chapter 27
1. Applying the Marxist lens, what stereotypes about the bourgeoisie (Arthur
represents the bourgeoisie) and proletariat (Jeevan represents the
proletariat) are reinforced in this chapter?

2. Apply a Marxist lens analysis of the quote below by specifically looking at

Mandel’s use of diction (how and what Arthur says to Jeevan), discuss
class division. In this scene, Arthur questions Jeevan about his choice of
profession: “‘I’m just curious. How’d you get into this line of work? … I’ve
always wondered what drives you people’” (169).

3. Do you think that Jeevan will keep his word (he says he’s a “man of [his]
word”) when he promises Arthur that he won’t publish the story for 24
hours? Use the psychoanalytic lens here to explain why you think Jeevan
may or may not keep his promise.

Chapter 28
1. What is the timeline in this part of the novel? What is happening? What is
Jeevan thinking about in order to distract himself?

Chapter 29
 1. What part of Jeevan’s psyche (id, ego, superego) is having the most
influence on him right now? Explain and prove with a direct example.

Chapter 30
1. All post-apocalyptic genre stories begin chaotic. The beginning of the
novel began with Arthur dying and then news of the Georgia Flu pandemic.
We are now back to the beginning of the novel and will find out how the
world looked during the outbreak. Science fiction thrives on the question,
“what if?” In this case, the question is, what if the world ended? What
would happen? How would people respond? Describe some of the chaos at
the beginning of the pandemic that Jeevan shares. Also, identify some
conventional setting elements in the post-apocalyptic genre that are
described in this chapter.

2. What common complaint about modern civilization, or the modern world,

does Jeevan express people had? Why does he disagree with this now?

3. Jeevan and Frank have opposing views about survival: “ ‘Well, we’ll just
stay here till the lights come back on or the Red Cross show up or
whatever’ … ‘What makes you think the lights will come back on?’ Frank
asked” (179). Explain.

Chapter 31
 1. Using the psychoanalysis lens, explain why Kirsten seems to remember
Arthur’s death so vividly but admits to not remember much more from that
time.

Chapter 32
1. Jeevan and Frank will now be confronted with a civilization that is
unrecognizable to them, just like earlier civilization. Earlier civilizations
were faced with a world that seemed hostile to everything that is human
(“The Singing School”). Civilizations survived because they adapted;
however, Frank believes Jeevan can adapt and survive but he won’t be able
to, why?

Chapter 33
➔ An interview with Diallo and Kirsten
➔ Kirsten recalls the night Arthur died and her and Diallo discuss Jeevan (they still
don’t know his identity though)
➔ Kirsten also recalls that her “babysitter” gave her the paperweight and that her
brother Peter had picked her up and took care of her that night
➔ Her parents never made it home (Kirsten assumes they were one of the first to
die that first day of the outbreak)
➔ No questions

Chapter 34
1. What is the theme of Frank’s reflection? How does it connect to his own
life, Jeevan’s, and Arthur’s?
Chapter 35
1. In order to survive, what was the only reasonable course of action that both
Jeevan and Kirsten take? How is their strategy to survive similar?

Chapter 36
1. Using the archetypal lens, explain the significance of the following quote:
“For an instant the city had vanished around him, and then the lights were
back so quickly that it was like a hallucination … and at the time he’d been
chilled by the suggestion of a dark city. It was as frightening as he would
have imagined. He wanted only to escape” (190).

2. We get a little more information about the Georgia Flu from Ben. What does
he reveal to us about it?

Chapter 37
1. Using the psychoanalytic lens, explain why Kirsten doesn’t remember the
first year of the outbreak on the road but then remembers everything once
she settled into a town. Also, what cliche comes to mind?
Section 6: the airplanes

Chapter 38
1. What event connects Miranda, Arthur,and Kirsten?

2. Kirsten mentions that she would want to live in the world in the comic
book, Station Eleven. Applying the archetypal lens, 4 story model and the
literary cycle in particular, why do you think that even though Kirsten calls
it beautiful, it may not be as utopian as she thinks?

3. What does August say the brand the prophet uses looks like? What do you
think it may represent?

Chapter 39
1. What is ironic in Miranda’s statement about Kirsten growing up to become
someone “unadventurous and well-groomed” (213)?
 2. How do the people living in the Undersea world in the Dr. Eleven comics
mirror the life of the people living in the after-collapse world?

3. Based on the events in this chapter, how do you think Kirsten gets copies
of Dr. Eleven?

4. How do you think Kirsten gets a hold of Miranda’s paperweight?

Chapter 40
1. Who is Tanya Gerard? How is she connected to Kirsten?

2. Provide an example of the topic of fate and turn it into a theme.

Chapter 41
1. Apply a literary device to this quote and explain its significance: “She was
very tired, she realized, not feeling quite well, the beginning of a sore
throat, and tomorrow was another day of meetings” (225).

2. What are the Georgia Flu symptoms based on Miranda’s experience in this
chapter?

3. We see a glimpse into the experience of one person (Miranda) at the

beginning of the outbreak and what she went through and saw at a hotel in
Malaysia. Describe the setting, people’s behaviour at the hotel, what
Miranda goes through, and identify the mood that is created.

4. Apply the archetypal lens to this quote: “Miranda opened her eyes in time
to see the sunrise. A wash of violent colour, pinks and streaks of brilliant
orange, the container ships on the horizon suspended between the blaze of
the sky and the water aflame, the seascape bleeding into confused visions
of Station Eleven, its extravagant sunsets and its indigo sea. The lights of
the fleet fading into morning, the ocean burning into the sky.” (228).
Section 7: The Terminal

Chapter 42
1. Clark was 51 years old when the pandemic occurred; being one out of two
dozen survivors who lived in the before-collapse world, what responsibility
has he taken on?

2. Provide some examples of things that we take for granted in our modern
world that are obsolete in the after-collapse world.

3. The pandemic and its consequences will become a part of a collective

human experience and part of the collective unconscious (Jung). What
experience in particular does Clark state all humanity is facing (the
consequences of the pandemic)?

Chapter 43
1. Describe what happened at the airport Day 6, 7, 8, 12, 15, 16, and 17.

2. What does Elizabeth believe about their current state? Use the
psychoanalysis theory to explain her behaviour and beliefs.
 3. Why does Clark find maintaining his physical appearance important? Did
you maintain your physical appearance during the COVID-19 quarantine
period? He alludes to the Broken Windows Theory. What is it? What does
this allusion foreshadow?

4. Identify the satire, setting archetype used in this chapter lesson. What do
you think Mandel is implying by using this archetype?

Chapter 44
1. Elizabeth instills her own extreme religious beliefs onto her son Tyler. What
does Clark find Tyler doing? Explain the religious allusion.

2. Identify two developments in this chapter that indicate that civilization is

slowly being rebuilt.

Chapter 45
1. What does Diallo notice connects Symphony member’s survival stories?
What seems to be their collective experience during the pandemic?
 2. Using the psychoanalytic lens, explain why Kirsten can’t remember the first
year of the pandemic. Diallo asks her how she got the scar on her face and
she answers with, “‘I’ve actually no idea. It happened during that year I
don’t remember’” (267).

Chapter 46
1. Using the feminist lens, explain the prophet’s actions. How does he
perceive women?

2. How does the prophet manipulate people’s faith to get what he wants? As a
colonizer, what does he do and use to get what he wants?

Chapter 47
1. Using the post-colonial lens, how has the colonizer (the prophet) been
ruling St. Deborah according to Jeremy?

Section 8: The Prophet

Chapter 48
1. Freud said that “dreams are the royal road to the unconscious”; use this
idea to explain Kirsten’s dream at the beginning of this chapter: “Kirsten
woke abruptly with tears in her eyes. She’d dreamt that she’d been walking
down the road with August, then she turned, and he was gone, and she
knew he was dead. She’d screamed his name; she’d run down the road, but
he was nowhere” (283).

2. Kirsten and August were sleeping somewhere on the outskirts of Severn

City, and after about a mile or two, they saw a sign with a white airplane
and an arrow pointing to the centre of the town. Explain the dramatic irony
here.

3. How does Mandel create suspense right before Kirsten and August see two
of the prophet’s people walking with a tortured Sayid?

4. How does the prophet view women? Use feminist lens terminology.

Chapter 49
1. Provide two examples of dramatic irony in this chapter and explain them.
 2. Using the archetypal approach, how does Dieter explain the relevance of
Shakespeare’s work in the post-collapse world and what is the clarinet’s
response?

3. The theme of survival is evident in this chapter; what is the boy’s

explanation to Sayid about why he is following the prophet’s teachings and
orders?

4. From a post-colonial lens, what has been the prophet’s strategy of

occupation? Which military tactic is used?

Chapter 50
1. Using the psychoanalytic lens, explain the significance of the passage
below by answering the questions and applying a direct quote for your
points to support your answers. Focus on the sections in the passage that
are highlighted for you.

a. Which behaviours of Kirsten are conscious ones?

b. Which behaviours of Kirsten’s are unconscious?

c. Which theories of Jung’s are applicable to this passage? Explain.

d. Using the brain theory about fear and survival that you learned about while
viewing Brain Games, what part of the brain is triggered when one
encounters a dangerous situation? Prove that this part of the brain is what
helped Kirsten survive.

e. How does the id, ego, and superego influence Kirsten’s behaviour?

f. What do Kirsten’s emotions and behaviours reveal about her psychological

state?
 Sight Passage:

THE KNIFE TATTOOS on Kirsten’s wrist:

The first marked a man who came at her in her first year with the Symphony,
when she was fifteen, rising fast and lethal out of the underbrush, and he never
spoke a word, but she understood his intent. As he neared her, sound drained
from the world, and time seemed to slow. She was distantly aware that she was
moving quickly, but there was more than enough time to pull a knife from her
belt and send it spinning - so slowly, steel flashing in the sun - until it merged
with the man and he clutched his throat. He shrieked - she couldn’t hear him,
but she watched his mouth open, and she knew others must have heard,
because the Symphony was suddenly all around her, and this was when the
volume slowly rose, and time resumed its normal pace.
‘It’s a psychological response to danger,’ Dieter told her, when Kirsten
mentioned the soundlessness of those seconds, the way time stretched and
expanded. This seemed a reasonable-enough explanation, but there was
nothing in her memories to account for how calm she was afterward, when she
pulled her knife from the man’s throat and cleaned it, and this was why she
stopped trying to remember her lost year on the road, the thirteen
unremembered months between leaving Toronto with her brother and arriving
in the town in Ohio where they stayed until he died and she left with the
Symphony. Whatever that year on the road contained, she realized, it was
nothing she wanted to know about” (295).

2. Explain the irony behind Kirsten and the prophet both reciting lines from
Dr. Eleven.

3. The prophet and Kirsten recite the following passage from Dr. Eleven: “You
think you kneel before a man, but you kneel before the sunrise. We are the
light moving over the surface of the waters, over the darkness of the
undersea” and Kirsten continues reciting with, “We have been lost for so
long … We long only for the world we were born into”; the prophet
responds with, “But it's too late for that” (302). Explain the significance by
applying symbolism.
Chapter 51
1. What event at the end of this chapter is a sign of hope that civilization is
being rebuilt? Identify an archetypal symbol that represents hope and a
new beginning.

Chapter 52
1. How does Jeevan’s brain remind him of his past life? Use Freud’s theory.

Section 9: Station Eleven

Chapter 53
1. The night of Arthur’s death, he reflects on his life and seems to regret
everything. What epiphany does he have about life and what does he
decide to do about it? How does the end of Lear’s life in Shakespeare’s
play mirror the end of Arthur’s life?
 2. How does Tyler summarize the graphic novel Dr. Eleven to Arthur? How
does it mirror the current world and how is Dr. Eleven (the actual doctor,
not the novel) a representation of Tyler?

Chapter 54
➔ No questions
➔ Short chapter summarizing a section from Dr. Eleven where Dr. Eleven is visited
by the ghost of his mentor, Captain Lonagan
➔ We’re taken back to the day of Miranda’s death on an empty beach in Malaysia.
➔ When Dr. Eleven asks the ghost of Captain Lonagan what it was like for him at
the end, the captain responds with, “it was exactly like waking up from a dream”
(330)
➔ This line implies that death is not bad.
➔ Both Miranda and Arthur describe the beauty around them before they die

Chapter 55
1. Freudian critics believe that authors may create stories that are
unconsciously inspired and represent aspects of themselves or their lives.
How is Dr. Eleven (the graphic novel) a representation of Miranda (the
author)? What does Clark realize when reading the graphic novel?

2. Archetypally, post-apocalyptic stories end hopefully. How does Mandel

create hope at the end of the novel hinting at civilization moving forward?