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Morgan Vickery

Michael Gutierrez

ENGL 124-001

9 November 2015

A Blurred Line:
The Use of Alternate Realities within Dept. of Speculation and Station Eleven

In Dept. of Speculation and Station Eleven, Jenny Offill and Emily Mandel apply diverse

perspectives through the use of alternate realities to flesh out the purest motivations and natures

of their characters. By abstracting themselves from what is real, they are able to self reflect. In

the venue of Dept. of Speculation, ‘alternate reality’ encompasses The Wife’s attempts to justify

her actions through the philosophic quotes, the parallels of her experiences to space, the novel

she is ghost-writing, and the existentialism of religion. The Wife is desperate and depressed, and

so uses these third-party perspectives to appraise her situation and make sense of it. Station

Eleven employs historic and popular references including Shakespeare’s King Lear and Star

Trek. The characters rationalize the apocalypse to themselves and their peers, through the use of

the ‘parallel universe’ game between Kirsten and August, Frank’s memoire, and Miranda’s

creation of ‘Station Eleven’ in her comic series. Furthermore, there is an emphasis on the

personal alternate realities of the characters as they are contemplating ‘what could have been’ but

is not.

The use of well-known third-party literature is utilized in both novels in order to

communicate initially hidden metaphors within the plot. In other cases, the characters use

historical context and literature to justify their actions to themselves and deny the potential

consequences. The uses of Shakespearian parallels within Station Eleven convey the

timelessness of their circumstance. “People want what was best about the world,” (Mandel 38),
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relying on the optimism and comfort of the past to momentarily forget the trauma of their

present. To contrast this 15th century allusion, Mandel uses the Star Trek quote “survival is never

enough” (119) to drive the Travelling Symphony and Kirsten forward. At this point post-

apocalypse, many have lost hope and see no reason to continue living solely for the sake of

survival. The Travelling Symphony, on the other hand, find reconciliation and comfort in the

world of art that they have created for themselves based on this single quote and their passion for

Shakespearian classics. This is the lone instance in either of these novels of a character’s

alternate/ideal universe becoming legitimate reality. Throughout Dept. of Speculation, The Wife

goes into detail regarding seemingly unrelated plots and histories in the midst of her own drama.

She mentions, “some of the most daunting challenges may, in fact, be psychological” (Offill 62)

and “we are tired of each other’s company…physically, mentally, and perhaps morally, then, we

are depressed, and from my past experience…I know that this depression will increase” (62-63)

regarding astronauts’ isolation in space and the explorers on the Belgica in Antarctica. Unable to

admit to the consequences of pain on her own mind, she uses these stories as metaphors and

coping mechanisms. Once she is hired to ghostwrite the novel on space travel, it presents an

opportunity for her to dive in to that theme, allowing the subject to interfere with her daily

stream of thoughts. Eventually, the two become intermingled as she writes herself into the story.

While religion and existentialism often take a literal role in both novels, these abstract

concepts have proven to uncover a human reliance and desire to explain the unexplained. In

Dept. of Speculation, The Wife often refers to herself as a Buddhist, comparing her relationship

with her daughter and husband to that of Buddha and his son, Rahula “The Buddha left his wife

when his son was two das old. He would never have attained enlightenment if he’d stayed,

scholars say,” (Offill 138) suggesting that the husband’s infidelity. “…The boring one, where the
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wife pretends to be a Buddhist” (129) refers to the story in which the wife depicted acts as an

allegory for her own life; criticizing the woman as a cliché and mocking her existentialist

observations of the people around her. As an English teacher, “she would not have let one of her

students write the scene this way” (129) as it reads as too dramatized and “implausible,” (129)

yet this is her reality. She is unable to avoid placing herself into her own story, using the

references to religion as clear markers for when she is blurring the lines. To diverge, Mandel

treats the institution of religion as a last-resort, extreme rationalization intended for those of the

weak of mind. She links religion with violence and cruelty in order to extenuate the purity of

maintaining the presence of art in this post-apocalyptic world. The Prophet uses religion to

explain this ‘rapture,’ and his desire to lead humanity into a new age. However, there are several

hypocrisies within Mandel’s depiction of religion, markedly The Prophet’s claims that “[they]

are the light” (Mandel 291). In addition to the positive connotation of light with love and peace

being contradicted with the senseless acts of violence, Sayid questions “…how do you bring the

light if you are the light?” Even if rudimentary, these holes within the Prophet’s principles are

enough to create doubt within the reader. Both works use faith to delegitimize the characters.

The novels discuss the use of hypothetical realities in which characters contemplate the

butterfly effect of an action that contradicts the one made in their reality. The characters fantasize

over what could have been rather than coping with the present. Their emotional wellbeing relies

on creating a distance from the turmoil of their every-day lives. Through chapter 38, Kirsten and

August play the ‘parallel universe’ game as a technique to escape their nightmarish reality and

reminisce on the few collect memories that they can recall from their childhoods within “…a

universe in which civilization hadn’t been so brutally interrupted,” (Mandel 200). Kirsten craves

a universe where she does not have the knife tattoos on her wrists and her friends were not at risk
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of disappearing without a trace. The fantasies concocted within their game also display parallels

that draw to other characters’ realities. For example, they discuss the legitimacy of space travel

and airplanes, referencing the airport that Clark turns into a museum and the fictitious universe

of Station Eleven and Dr. Eleven. Jeevan’s brother, Frank, also takes it upon himself to write a

memoire of his life as the world is ending. As he writes down reality as he has known it on

paper, he imagines an alternate world where he is dead, but his memory is immortalized, as

though there will be enough people to read it. He has disregarded the present and committed to

molding the future in his image. In Dept. of Speculation, The Wife beings fantasizing not of what

used to be, but what could be if she acted on impulse: “she has wanted to sleep with other

people…” (Offill 140) She refers to herself as a character immediately after explaining why she

became a writer; she is blurring the lines between her role as the author and the protagonist of

her own story. Likewise, the novel about astronauts that she is ghostwriting is a distraction. As

an ‘art monster’ the thing that she took pride as a writer has been taken from her at the cost of

her dignity and desperation for money. She even admits to “secretly…squirreling away money in

books and journals” (159) and “mak[ing] a plan a, a plan b, a plan c and d and e…only one [of

these] involve[ing] the husband” (159). This shows the meshing of fictional universes – books –

with her unfortunate circumstance – the money – as symbols. What used to be her fiction is now

bleeding into her reality, however rather than relying on already existing illusory worlds, Kirsten,

August, Frank, and The Wife have resorted to the creation of original ones.

One of the most terrifying questions to be asked is “what if?” Humans are the sole

creatures on the planet to anticipate and plan into both the immediate and distant future: creating

goals and prompting regrets. Yet dreaming and fantasizing about what is not real is one of the

most basic human instincts for coping with turmoil. Hypothetical realities help to justify
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psychoanalysis of the characters and plot. By being susceptible to the creation of opposing

realities, characters allow themselves to experience existentialist thinking, and develop in a way

that reveals the truth behind human nature. Offill asks “but what if I’m special? What if I’m in

the minority?” (7), epitomizing the human desire to be unique, or to possess a quality that none

other does. These figures identify themselves within already-existing fictional universes,

grasping that they are not special - but just another pawn in fate - to finally recede into their own

imaginations for solace. They use these worlds to justify the horror and trauma around them;

therefore blending reality with their own desired illusions. The Wife and Kirsten, notably, exist

in a state of purgatory between multiple universes, unable to find peace.

In the finals pages of both novels, Kirsten and the Wife find themselves in new physical

locations, acting as metaphoric representations of this ‘purgatory.’ “The wife has begun planning

a secret life. In it, “she is an art monster…She thinks she should go off her meds maybe so as to

write more fluidly. Possibly this is not a good idea…But only possibly,” (Offill 161). Out of

options, she is stuck in a romanticized and isolated depiction of Pennsylvania: “Snow. Finally.

The world looks blankly beautiful…No one young knows the name of anything,” (177). The

language mimics a dream-like state of indecision and helplessness. Station Eleven portrays

purgatory in a more literal way, placing Kirsten and the Traveling Symphony “arriving at the

Severn City Airport” (Mandel 313). As a combination of the lost world and the apocalyptic

present, the Museum of Civilization is a purgatory-esque location. Kirsten donates her beloved

Station Eleven comics to Clark, contributing to the memory of the lost world, and departs after

five weeks for unknown territory (331). There is no end in sight, and once again, we are left with

a sense of ambiguity regarding where the Travelling Symphony will end up.
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While both novels utilize the use of imaginary and hypothetical realities, the use of

religion and third-party literature takes on a more symbolic role within Dept. of Speculation and

a literal one in Station Eleven. By contextualizing the use of fabrication through contrasting

perspectives, the concept of a blended ‘purgatory’ state becomes evident within both pieces. The

blatant use of ‘the parallel universe’ game within Station Eleven and Offill’s reiterated theme of

‘what if’ scenarios coincide with their central themes; that humans are unable to manage trauma

independently without the use of fiction, faith, and fantasy as coping mechanisms.
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Works Cited

Mandel, Emily St. John. Station Eleven. New York: Vintage, 2014. Print.

Offill, Jenny. Dept. of Speculation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. Print.