Station Eleven: Imagery 5 key examples

The shift from the play’s staged snowstorm, with its “blues and whites,” to the harsh yellow of real overhead lights makes the reader feel how surreal the events of this scene are. In the scene where Arthur dies, Lear is wandering out into a snowstorm to die. However, because Arthur is actually dying, there’s grim continuity between the events in the story and his real life onstage. The cool, ethereal tones of the play’s fake winter scene of the performance give way to a “fluorescent glare,” stripping the moment of its theatrical illusion. This contrast heightens the audience and Jeevan’s sense of disorientation, as they unexpectedly make the transition between the controlled spectacle of the play and this unscripted life-or-death moment. Mandel’s description of the fluorescent lighting as “margarine light” adds a further unnatural quality to the scene. The word choice here makes the “yellow glare” seem thick and heavy, as though it is also preventing Arthur from breathing.

Electric light is largely gone from the flu-stricken world, as far as Mandel’s characters know. The imagery of light touching objects—pools glowing green from underwater lamps, stadium floodlights illuminating games, porch lights drawing in moths—is a visual way of representing things that electric light changed or showed. These images evoke the vanished past, making the reader feel the absence of not just physical places and activities, but the particular way they looked and felt.

The mention of “chlorinated water lit green from below” captures a very specific sensory experience. It might not seem beautiful or extraordinary in a pre-Georgia flu world. However, the reader is reminded that none of the children born after the pandemic have ever seen the particular glow of backlit water or the cold light of a sports game when the night outside the stadium is dark. Even something as mundane as the sight of insects gathering around a lamp has, after the flu, been erased forever.

Because the Symphony are all preoccupied with what could happen if the Prophet were to attack them, Mandel’s description of the scenery here is also vague and unspecific. From the "vantage point" of their rapid flight from the town, nothing but escape seems important. The description of the wildflowers as “abstract” and reduced to “paint dots” helps create this impression of detachment. Instead of being realistic and distinct, the scenery around the travelling community blurs into the background. Their surroundings, though beautiful, feel far less relevant than they might otherwise.

The auditory imagery of the “dull buzz of insects” also adds to the scene’s haziness. Although insects are an annoying nuisance, the sound lacks sharpness or energy. Like the flowers and grass that surround the group, the sounds of the afternoon feel more like an ambient hum than an immediate presence. The group has stopped moving, but there’s no relief from the threat of the Prophet retaliating against them.

Even though these people are living through a tragedy, they still band together to get what they need and end up inadvertently wearing a sort of Severn City Airport uniform. Mandel’s description of people wearing bright red and blue shirts out of necessity so they can wash their other clothes feels oddly cheerful in this context. The “bright red or blue Northern Michigan” shirts are the best solution they have in the circumstances. 

The image of the strings of hanging laundry is also a striking visual moment, because it reminds Clark and the reader of celebratory flags. Before the pandemic, groups of people often hung decorative buntings around a shared space to celebrate important occasions. Even though this isn’t itself a celebration, Clark feels briefly comforted by the “strings of bright flags.” They are a touch of normalcy in an otherwise unprecedented situation.

Kirsten has only a distant memory of electricity, so when she first sees the town through the telescope she cannot believe her eyes. The description of the lights as “pinpricks” emphasizes their smallness against the vast darkness. It’s almost possible to dismiss them, but when they are still there after Kirsten blinks, their presence feel almost miraculous. The grid-like arrangement makes Kirsten recall the distant memory of cities from the time before. Ordered lights in the darkness can only mean civilization, which is a stark contrast to the scattered and survival-based existence that she’s had to acclimate to. The precision of the pattern also reinforces the idea that what she is seeing is not just a campfire or a temporary settlement but something more structured, with “streets lit up.”

The contrast between the glowing lights and the dark, distant night surrounding them intensifies the moment’s emotional weight. Kirsten is overwhelmed by the sight. It’s the opposite of the “light and darkness” metaphor that the Prophet has been preaching all over the Great Lakes region. Instead of the false “light” of his violent cult, these are the real “lights” of the ordered world returning.