Memory In Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven

Etta James was a well known American singer that sang many genres. She sang gospel, blues, R&B, rock and roll, soul and even jazz. James went through a lot and overcame even more things to get to where she was. She started her career at a very young age and then everything began building by itself. James earned everything she had, and made decisions that changed her whole life. Now she is well known and still considered one of the most dynamic singers in music. James started singing in a church choir, then began singing on the radio and that’s where she became popular. She moved to San francisco and then and had a better chance of having a career because she met bandleader “Otis”. James career than really began to come to her in 1954 and began to soar in 1960 when she signed with Chess Records.

“There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory.”-Josh Billings. In “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls you will find out how memory can play a huge part in our lives and how your perspective can change your whole idea on something.

“Toronto existing in layers” (Mandel) and such is the impression of Miranda as she ventures once more into the vast city of Toronto, after her time in New York. Upon her arrival in the city, a pang of nostalgia hits her as she reminisces her first arrival: “she’d always liked the descent into this city, the crowded towers by the lakeshore, the way an infinite ocean of suburbia rushed inward and came to a point at the apex of the CN Tower…the city had shocked her with its vastness when she’d arrived…” (Mandel). Such descriptions might appear as mere imageries of the city, for these are common sights—the crowded city, the suburbs, and the CN--one can see when travelling into the city of Toronto. It is a familiar setting and something that is

Throughout the plot of the 2014 novel Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, many themes appear and affect the characters and the book as a whole. One of the themes that seems to have the greatest affect on the characters is the question whether remembering or forgetting the memories they made before the Georgia Flu hit is the preferable option. The novel switches back and forth between before and after the Georgia Flu, allowing the readers to see the characters in both situations. The novel starts with the play King Lear, which is being performed before the pandemic kills ninety-nine percent of the population. This play turns out to be a significant event in Kirsten’s life, one of the main characters of the novel whom was very young when this play occurred. Arthur Leander, the actor who played the main character in the play, has a heart attack on stage. Another significant character that was affected by the outcome of this event was Arthur Leander’s son Tyler, who later becomes more religious and becomes the Prophet. Not long after this major event occurs, the novel switches to after the Georgia Flu has occurred. It then introduces the reader to the Traveling Symphony, a group that performs Shakespeare plays to people in the area. The novel continues in this pattern and follows the characters who make up that group, back and forth between the past and the present pandemic-ridden world. The thoughts and rationales of the characters are provided through the explanation of a

Paul Dooley and Winnie Holzman’s Post-its (Notes on a Marriage) is an accurate representation of how fast life actually goes by once one becomes an adult. The play begins with two maturing adults, Actor and Actress, in the beginning stages of a dating relationship, and they quickly develop into a dysfunctional family of three. The scenes then progress to a renewed relationship between Actor and Actress, and as time goes on, one proceeds to witness Actor, Actress, and Eugenia grow and mature. While one reads the play, one sees that Actor and Actress’s relationship takes time and communication for them to grow together. The play, although only a few pages long, is able to depict how the stages of life, the birth of one’s child, one’s marriage, the

What is legacy? According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of legacy is, “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past.” What makes the thought of leaving a legacy so important? For most of us, something drives our lives. Our jobs, our families, or our travels. It isn’t until the end of our lives when we are able to see the impact we are leaving, or have left on the world. Legacy, in a general sense, is completely different to each and every one of us. In Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, legacy is easily defined in a few key characters she created. Specifically Jeevan, Arthur, and Miranda. Throughout the text, each character battles with themselves as they are not only trying to find themselves, but also trying to make sure that what the public sees is a reflection of who they believe they are.

The memories that Kirsten grasps onto in the novel Station Eleven also display her human qualities, because humans commonly look to their past to define themselves. For example, Mandel mentions in Station Eleven how Kirsten would look through abandoned houses to find old articles in search of any remnants of her past (40). At another point in Station Eleven, Mandel offers insight into Kirsten’s mind as she reflects on the moment when she witnessed Arthur passing away in the play King Lear, and she remembers the stranger who comforted her and the lady who gave her the paper weight trinket which she treasured so much (41). Each of these moments connects the reader to Kirsten, because of her obvious desire to look to her past to better define and understand herself and simultaneously causes the reader to search his past and understand one’s self more introspectively. Although I would argue that each of these instances represents a positive moment Kirsten reflects on, Jordan also points out the moment when Kirsten said that “the more you remember, the more you’ve lost,” referring to the comparison between the pre-apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic world (195). Therefore, Kirsten seems to choose which memories to reflect on.

However, as in life, fiction has a funny way of making us remember, especially, things we would rather forget. Like everyone, she remembers, but Caroline’s past returns with a vengeance that threatens to destroy her or at least the comfortable life

In Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, she frames human life under two different eras in which they undergo a pandemic. The characters are in their present life living with concerns of their past life, in which ended twenty years ago after a worldwide collapse. Mandel seems to frame human life on both sides to let the reader know how civilization becomes affected through a great catastrophe. The story shows how human life was before the pandemic and its new meaning after the event. Throughout the novel, characters find material things that connect them back to the past. Mandel places importance on these material items as they provide happiness to the characters they never found in the past world. The material items they once took for granted are now items that become valuable as they help reach the inner fulfillment they never seemed to attain before the pandemic.

first, it provides the community of visual interesting visual of his history through "interactive exhibitions."

I choose the Crystal River State Archaeological State Park in Crystal River , Florida. It is more commonly know as the Indian Burial Mounds. The park itself is in a beautiful location , overlooking the Crystal River on one side and grassy plains on the other side. There is recreational activities in the park as well as the museum. Some of the activities are salt and freshwater fishing , picnicking , bird watching and nature walks. The museum itself features a video about the ancient tribe that once lived there and a collection of artifacts. A few of the artifacts are arrowheads , pottery , jewelry , stone and bone tools. The main attraction of the interior museum is a diorama of a scale model of the site when the Indians lived there .

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum showcases Mrs. Gardner 's collection to the public in greater Boston area. Each room functions as a pilgrimage, as one travels through various countries and time periods ending at the chapel and subsequently the Gothic room. In this paper, I will examine the Gothic room 's theme in relation to the placement of its objects. I will also evaluate the room 's strengths and challenges in serving the public, and how the practices employed in this room fit into the context of accessibility for the entire museum.

The speech from Elizabeth Loftus “The Fiction of Memory” she mentions that she study false memory for almost 30 years. False memory is the things that people remember but didn’t happened or remember it differently than the way they really were.

In the novel ‘The Moonstone’ by Wilkie Collins, memory is an important theme in the novel as it sets out the backbone of the book. It allows the author to structure however he chooses and in this case each person in the novel allows the reader to read their narrative. Not only that but considering that this was a detective novel, memory is what any detective in the Victorian times would have used and so it is important especially in discovering who had stolen the Moonstone. There was no other alternative than memory and so that is why memory plays a crucial role in this novel.

Memories allow us to have past knowledge so that we can better understand and relate to people. The New York Times article states “...Kate McLean, a psychologist at the University of Toronto in Mississauga. “This meaning-making capability — to talk about growth, to explain what something says about who I am — develops across adolescence.” (Benedict Carey). This backs up the point that through memories a person starts to more about their inner self. Remembering embarrassing moments can in some ways teach you how to grow up so you never act that way again. Along with learning about yourself you learn about other people. Also in the poem Memory As A Hearing Aid the poem talks about a guy who grew up and slowly his hearing deteriorated. He opened with “Somewhere, someone is asking a question, and I stand squinting at the classroom with one hand cupped behind my ear, trying to figure out where that voice is coming from.” (Tony Hoagland). This allows us to feel as if we are him because everyone has experienced a time in class where they were so far back in the room the can not hear what is going on. Hoagland uses this to describe what his life is like because he is deaf. Although we may not be deaf ourself we can use a memory of a time from when we could not hear very well to better understand how he