John Mandel Station 11 Analysis

Ever-changing Happiness

According to new statistics, only one in three Americans are truly happy. That is, if there are nearly 319 million people in America, only 106 million people will achieve true happiness, despite the fact that everybody has the ability to control it; This idea is prominent in the book Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel. Station Eleven is about people and their ability to manage and navigate through the “new world” put upon them after most of the population is killed from a terrible disaster. The book is essentially split into three parts – the time period prior to the collapse, during the collapse, and after the collapse. In each of these sections, characters unlock new levels of happiness, however the stimulation

This is seemingly the case in the time period prior to the collapse of society. For example, when a character named “[Jeevan] reached Allan Gardens Park… he found himself blindsided by an unexpected joy. Arthur died… there’s nothing to be happy about. But there was… now he was certain, absolutely certain that he wanted to be a paramedic” (11). When Jeevan finally realized what he wanted to be, his true calling, he was overwhelmed with joy. Even though somebody had just died, all he could feel was happiness because he found something within himself. When Arthur was beginning to reflect upon his life, “He stared at his crown and ran through a secret list of everything that was good… Dancing with Clark when he was eighteen… Tanya sipping wine, her smile… Riding in his father’s snowplow when he was nine, the time [he] told a joke and his father and his little brother couldn’t stop laughing, the sheer joy he’d felt at that moment” (327). All of these different things brought Arthur happiness and eventually sadness at some point in his life, showing that nothing can keep you happy forever. The meaning of happiness is ever-changing. Since happiness was based off of how much you had, people had the ability to manipulate it by obtaining more