{"id":1681,"date":"2017-05-03T17:52:52","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T21:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/?p=1681"},"modified":"2017-05-03T17:53:24","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T21:53:24","slug":"how-do-we-measure-a-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/05\/03\/how-do-we-measure-a-life\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do We Measure a Life?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In reading the last few chapters of <em>Station Eleven<\/em>, there was one quotation that particularly stuck with me. At the beginning of chapter 53, Emily St. John Mandel details Arthur Leander\u2019s last day on Earth. She describes how Arthur, \u201cmade his late breakfast\u2014scrambled eggs\u2014and showered, dressed, combed his hair\u2026 all of the small details that comprise a morning, a life\u201d (317).<\/p>\n<p>I noticed a similarity between this quotation and a song from the famous Broadway musical <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rent_(musical)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Rent<\/em><\/a>: \u201cSeasons of Love.\u201d In this song, the main characters contemplate how you measure a year in a person\u2019s life.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Seasons of Love (HD)\" width=\"525\" height=\"295\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UvyHuse6buY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSeasons of Love\u201d seeks to understand how to measure a year. It is not a big leap to go from a year to a life, as a life is the culmination of all the hours, mornings, days, and years in a person\u2019s existence. Thinking on this quotation and the message in \u201cSeasons of Love,\u201d I began to wonder: how do we measure a person\u2019s life after their death?<\/p>\n<p>I believe that this is one of the fundamental questions at the heart of <em>Station Eleven<\/em>. How are we remembered after we are gone? I believe that the best exploration of this question is found through the book\u2019s use of Arthur. Arthur is remembered by Kirsten after he is gone thanks to the legacy he left behind due to his fame. Tabloid pictures of Arthur, along with <em>Dear V.,<\/em> along with a few shadowy memories, inform Kirsten\u2019s view of Arthur. However, Clark also remembers Arthur and remembers the person he met when they were both young upstarts.<\/p>\n<p>I am not sure what Mandel is trying to say with regards to how we are remembered. Is she saying that we are remembered by the legacy we leave behind or by the people in our lives that we have touched? Perhaps, Mandel is saying that we are remembered for \u201call of the small details that comprise\u201d our lives. Regardless, I think that this is a question that deserves exploration when discussing <em>Station Eleven<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In reading the last few chapters of Station Eleven, there was one quotation that particularly stuck with me. At the beginning of chapter 53, Emily St. John Mandel details Arthur Leander\u2019s last day on Earth. She describes how Arthur, \u201cmade his late breakfast\u2014scrambled eggs\u2014and showered, dressed, combed his hair\u2026 all of the small details that &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/05\/03\/how-do-we-measure-a-life\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;How Do We Measure a Life?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[219,220,225,224,223,221,222,226,209],"class_list":["post-1681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-c","tag-arthur","tag-arthur-leander","tag-clark","tag-dear-v","tag-emily-st-john-mandel","tag-kirsten","tag-kirsten-raymonde","tag-rent","tag-station-eleven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1682,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1681\/revisions\/1682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}