Station Eleven Summary and Analysis

Section Two Summary A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Section Two opens 20 years later, in a post-pandemic world. Kirsten, now an adult, lives with the Traveling Symphony, a group of actors and musicians moving by foot and horse-drawn caravan as they move along the shore of Lake Michigan, performing King Lear. She has a tattoo of two knives on her wrist. The Symphony is headed to the town of St. Deborah to reunite with Charlie and Jeremy, Symphony members who remained there two years previous. As they travel through abandoned areas, Kirsten always looks for magazines featuring Arthur Leander, whom she remembers, despite forgetting much of her life before. Arthur gave her two comics—unique, limited edition items—that she still carries with her: Dr. Eleven: Station Eleven, and Dr. Eleven: The Pursuit. The comics show the scientist and his dog Luli living on a space station that resembles a small planet.

When the Symphony arrives in St. Deborah, the town seems different. The company performs A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is awkward for Kirsten and her ex-partner Sayid, as they play ex-lovers Titania and Oberon. Kirsten sets out to find her friends and talks with a woman who confirms they left a year ago after having a baby. Privately, she tells Kirsten that Charlie had “rejected the Prophet’s advances” and that the Symphony should leave town immediately. Kirsten then finds Dieter, another company member, who shows her grave markers for Charlie, Jeremy, and their child. Kirsten is devastated, but Dieter points out there are no actual graves, just markers. Deeply worried, they make their way back to the Symphony. The Conductor says they will perform as planned.

The town loves their show, but after it ends, a young man stands up and preaches. He is the Prophet, and his message, that everything happens for a reason, soon becomes more explicit. He says that the virus culled the unworthy and that more will soon die. He refers to the Symphony’s friends as the fallen, who have “slunk away without permission.” He states that anyone in the town is free to leave, and the Symphony packs up immediately. A boy standing guard asks them if he can go with them, but the Conductor refuses. She tells Kirsten privately that the Prophet wanted her to leave 15-year-old Alexandra behind to be one of his brides as a promise of future good relations with the town.

Uneasy about the Prophet and unsure where their friends are, they decide to head for Severn City, outside their usual territory. As they travel, Kirsten looks through her few belongings: the Dr. Eleven comics, the clippings about Arthur, and the glass paperweight given to her the night Arthur died.

Section Two Analysis A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Once again, central themes of art and civilization and survival are intertwined. Cities are gone, and instead people live wherever they stopped walking. Life is built around abandoned restaurants and chain stores, and communities are often unwelcoming. But the Symphony and their art remain, and the company has learned in their years performing that people mostly enjoy Shakespeare, rather than more recent and relevant theater. The motto on the side of their caravan is an emblem of the need for something beyond just survival; their art provides this. The performance reminds Kirsten of what remains, when so much has been lost: Shakespeare’s words and her love of acting. The words that are written on the side of the lead Symphony caravan exemplifies the Symphony’s existence: “Survival is insufficient.”

But the Prophet, who is a more specific danger than the general environment, represents another, more ominous element of survival. His sway over the town shows the way dystopian societies can form in a post-apocalyptic world. That his dog’s name matches the dog in Kirsten’s Dr. Eleven comics adds an echo for readers who increasingly wonder how these stories will intersect.

Kirsten’s love of acting transcends both the challenges of the post-collapse world and the dangers in St. Deborah and illustrates the importance of art, even amidst the need for survival. This is echoed at the end of the section with the mention of her paperweight: an item wholly impractical but lovely that she can’t bear to give up.