We all dream of an ulterior world, a world in which we picture a perfect life with no struggles, problems, or pandemics. Both Interstellar, by Christopher Nolan, and Station Eleven by Emily Mandel, depict their characters as struggling not only with survival, but their sense of their own identity and security. Within Station Eleven, the saying, “survival is insufficient” is a recurring theme of Interstellar as well. While there are some differences between Murph in Interstellar and Kirsten in Station Eleven, the similarities are their connections to their identity in which adapt to the force of change within their world. As they struggle with adaptation, they cling to books, they remain sane, and becomes motivated to continue battling due to …show more content…
For example, Murph cracks the code of her “ghost”, thus being the key that saves their planet. Through the Dr. Eleven Comics, she is able to retrace the steps of Arthur and other characters within Station Eleven.Also, they choose to gravitate towards books and studies that connect them to their father figures. Both Murph and Kirsten grow up without parental guidance from their mothers and fathers. As a result, they escape the insanity of the world by leaning towards their own personal book within their world, not as a guide, but an escape from reality. For example, Murph clings to the intellectual books focusing on space and NASA because it is part of the strong bond she holds with, Cooper, her father. As Cooper leaves, Murph holds on to her love and knowledge of space by choosing to better her fallen world of blight and limited resources by cooperating within the study of helping the Earth. Likewise, Kirsten grows fond of the Dr. Eleven comics because she grew up without her parents, and Arthur, the person to give her the Dr. Eleven comics, was her only father figure that she felt that she had. Both Murph and Kirstein had a choice to make. They could have either sat around in their shattered world and do nothing, or they can have a purpose to push through and take that opportunity of bettering their world. They gravitated towards these books in order to …show more content…
In Station Eleven, the reader observes certain characters unable to maintain their sense of identity after the collapse. For example, Tyler, Arthur's son, seems like a typical boy, but overtime he loses his video games and repetitively goes over the Dr. Eleven comics until he has gone insane and convinced himself that he was chosen to be a prophet of the new world. Also, Dr. Mann in Interstellar sends a false report in hopes for someone to rescue him. Likewise, Dr. Mann went insane being on “Mann’s planet” for so many years alone. This long time frame caused him to result to manipulate and take advantage of the crew’s incompetence of Mann’s planet. As continuing to live becomes harder, the challenges that Tyler and Dr. Mann face causes them to go out of line with their normal behavior due to their survival instincts. During Interstellar, the human race is struggling to produce crops due to the constant blight situation. Although times are bad within Interstellar, no one got to the point where they went insane because they just could not take it anymore. On the other hand, some Station Eleven characters could not handle the loss of certain things due to the collapse. As a result, this caused some characters to try and take
Kristen’s tattoo read, “Survival is insufficient.” In the beginning of the novel, Station Eleven, there is a quote, “No one ever thinks they’re awful, even people who really actually are. It’s some sort of survival mechanism” (20 Mandel). Emily St. John Mandel portrays throughout the book how survival is insufficient, a repeating statement and theme. Arthur, Kristen, Tyler, Elizabeth, Jeevan, Clark, Miranda, in the book play a main role in this theme and connect into how survival and death is one of the greatest factors in the book. The novel contends that people, to be human, must accomplish something other than survive; they should live.
are what keep us interested in the plot of a book. The ongoing battle between a
The conflict that the individual faces will force them to reinforce and strengthen their identity in order to survive. In “The Cellist of Sarajevo” all the characters experience a brutal war that makes each of them struggle albeit in different ways. Each of them have their own anxieties and rage that eventually makes them grow as characters at the end of the book. When looking at what makes a person who they are it becomes obvious that the struggles they have faced has influenced them dramatically. The individual will find that this development is the pure essence of what it truly means to be
...cters and event influences, helping them to develop their character by the end of the story.
All human beings cope with different challenges in life. These challenges can be emotional, mental, financial, social, or spiritual. The challenges in life learned in this course will be examined in different literary works such as novels, plays, and short stories. Isolation and conflicts are the challenges involved in Ender’s Game. Then, The Miracle Worker deals with reaching out someone and to an individual with a disability. Finally, conflict involving technology is evident in The Veldt. The challenges revealed in different works of literature are essential because they enable people to develop human qualities that give them opportunities to succeed and move forward.
Their main purpose was to write to educate and edify and not so much as
at the time I read this, I still got much from the reading. Haught, in this book, did the
At a time where the future has never looked brighter, it is baffling how some people have become more pessimistic than ever. Why do people who are faced with traumatizing situations always seem to focus on the negatives? Why is it that when people are faced with despair, they always seem to rely on how the situation looks repugnant? Science fiction stories have a tendence to show all these questioning thoughts. There are many key details in the science fiction short story book titled Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Twentieth Century that shows pessimism and has a negative tendency of expecting the worst from life and how people treat each other. This is certainly shown in the acts of communication, isolation, and hopelessness.
Indicating the conflict between the individual and society was one of the most prevalent themes that both McCarthy and Collins focused on through their literature. They both established the common themes such as survival and violation in literature to discover unreal and unstable future for the region. Life is incredibly difficult for those who living in the society; therefore, they require managing a great strength of spirit to survive. There is a big connection between fiction and environmental discourse, which developing an argument in contemporary Ecocriticism. The novels are undoubtedly thematically focused on life and survival, but
Similarly, the book’s three leading protagonists ultimately possess a common objective, escaping their unjust circumstances in pursuit of seeking the “warmth of other suns.” For this reason, they abandon the laws of Jim Crow and the familiarity of their hometowns as they flee to a better life. In the process, they all assume a level of risk in their decisions to rebel against the system. For example, Ida decides to embark on a precarious journey while in the beginning stages of a clandestine pregnancy. Any number of unpredictable events could have resulted from this judgment, including fatality. All of the migrants shared an unspoken agreement that the rewards would far outweigh the dangers involved.
... authors conclude that it is through alienation within a small society that ultimately leads to the primary characters’ demise and death. Whether their individual cases are self imposed or externally imposed, the results and the impact are the same, annihilation of the human soul. Their craft make emphatic use of setting to the successful depiction of this theme. Both characters ultimately fall into the abyss of loneliness and despair proving that human existence cut-off and on its own is more destructive than positive . Thus their message seems to suggest that as humans, we need society in order to truly belong and have a connection, purpose and worth in this life, in order to truly live.
In the library she would alternate what types of books they would read. Whenever she would read to him she would read in a way that made you cling to every word the author wrote. In times like these, Rodriguez would become engaged in these books. “I sat there and sensed for the very first time some possibility of fellowship between reader and writer, a communication, never intimate like that I heard spoken words at home convey, but nonetheless personal.” (Rodriguez 228). During this part of Rodriguez’s life, his view towards books changed.
Emily St. John Mandel is the author of Station Eleven, a novel about a plague that destroys over ninety-nine percent of the human race and how their lives have changed afterwards. This morbid topic is approached in an interesting way as Mandel focuses on how culture and art can survive in such horror. Author Roy Scranton writes about how humans have succeeded in destroying our own lives by ignoring the warnings of global warming in his work, “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene.”
Richard Wright, in his essay “Discovering Books,” explains how reading books changed his outlook on life and eventually his life itself. The first book that widened his horizons was an overtly controversial book by H. L. Mencken. I have a story not so dissimilar from his.
In a world based on the motto “Community, identity, stability,” every aspect of society follows that phrase. In the Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, everyone belongs to everyone else. The people live in one community, follow their pre-destined identity and lead stable lives as a result.