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Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Station Eleven, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Death and Survival
Faith and Fate
Civilization
Memory
Art
Summary
Analysis
Jeevan walks in the park reflecting on his career, his brother Frank, and his strange interaction with young Kirsten. Suddenly, he receives a tense call from his friend Hua, a doctor at Toronto General. Hua explains that he has been treating patients for the Georgia Flu, which is poised to break into a serious epidemic.
After the previous chapter’s hints, Hua properly introduces the Georgia Flu here. This phone call can be seen as extremely lucky, since it is likely the reason that Jeevan is able to live while so many others die.
Themes
Jeevan walks a little more, before receiving another phone call from Hua. This time the doctor tells him to get out of the city with his family, or at least to stock up on food and stay in his apartment. The flu is apparently spreading throughout the city at an alarming rate. As Hua hangs up to make other calls, Jeevan realizes that this flu will be a divide in his life between “a before and an after.”
Again, Jeevan is extremely lucky to receive this information from Hua. Slowly, he begins to realize the extent of the epidemic the world is about to face. He knows his life is about to change fundamentally, and that even civilization itself will be divided into before and after the Flu.
Themes
Jeevan decides to go to his brother Frank’s apartment, since getting out of the city wth Frank will be impractical given that he is paraplegic. Jeevan then immediately begins stocking up on survival supplies. He fills grocery carts with water, food, and other essentials. He learns from Hua that the situation is still progressing and worsening, and decides to call Laura. He tells her to get out of the city as quickly as possible. He then takes his seven shopping carts to his brother’s apartment in hopes of surviving the epidemic.
Jeevan’s quick thinking and ingenuity enables him to survive. With the benefit of Hua’s phone call, he is able to make emergency preparations and get to a safe spot before all of the chaos begins. In the course of one evening Jeevan has gone from attempting to save one life to trying to save his own amidst a sea of death.
Themes
