Station Eleven, a science-fiction novel that is written by Emily St. John Mandel, is a unique piece of work in the grand literature field. While other post-apocalypse novels are still writing about dangerous environment and struggle of survival, Mandel takes her aim at portraying a Symphony of joyful artists who travel from towns to towns in a ruined world. For each stop, the Symphony would build up a stage and entertain the local publics with classical concerts and Shakespeare’s theatrical plays. Indeed, the content of Station Eleven has successfully drawn readers’ attention, and Mandel is adept at giving her characters’ emotional features to make them particular. However, she applies the genre of post-apocalypse in a defective way. What Mandel …show more content…
Abraham Maslow, a prominent American psychologist in 20th century, has developed a scientific model --- “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,” to explain the complexity of humans’ physical and psychological demands. In that model, the lowest level is physiological demands, which includes physical requirements for human survival, such as food, water and air. The second level is safety, which summarizes the importance of personal security and physical health. The third is loving and belonging. The fourth is esteem, also known as the needs of acquiring self-esteem and self-respect. The highest level of this model is self-actualization, which refers to the desire that humans try to accomplish any skill in the range of their capabilities. For example, either playing instruments or acting drama plays is the highest psychological demand of people in Maslow’s theory. More importantly, the core idea of this model is, the upper level of demands would only appear in one’s mind if the lower level of demands have been satisfied. However, in the Station Eleven, Mandel only argues that art can fulfill survivors’ hollow mind without clearly points out how survivors manage a way to satisfy their basic, physical demands before they can develop their upper psychological requirements. In other words, her viewpoint is deceptive while it is inconsistent with a scientific model. Violinists would never stop getting hungry with their favorite instruments in their hands. They would break the violin apart, use the fingerboard as a bow, the strings for arrows, and burn the rest of it to make a campfire because this is the only way how they may