Removed

A connection between a novel and a television show that has similarities between being "removed" from the normal world.

Hello again, this is my second blog post. You will read about the connection between Station Eleven and The Handmaid's Tale.

"Removed"

It is apparent that the novel, Station Eleven, written by Emily St. John Mandel is considered a dystopian genre as it talks about a post collapse that occurs after a world-wide pandemic. The word ‘dystopian’ can be described as “an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice”. When reading this book, the world has “so-on-so ended” creating the minimal survivors to reconstruct a new way of survival. This post collapse enforces people to act with their primal instincts, and where there is no real hierarchy at first, it creates one man to become greedy and want to be known as the “prophet”. The prophet becomes this man of power having authority of the many followers he recruits and of course, whenever there is an authority, there are also people who are against what they stand for. Meaning the prophet cannot control every single person left on the earth.

These overall aspects of a dystopian genre, surviving, and authority over others, are features that reminded myself of a television show I binged watched over the summer. From text to media, I can connect Station Eleven to the show, The Handmaid’s Tale.

Like Station Eleven, The Handmaid’s Tale is based on a dystopian city named Gilead that is separated from the rest of the world. Gilead is located in the United States but is still isolated from modern normal society. This show is about the different rich families that take advantage of fertile woman from the outside world and kidnap them to become handmaids for the rich who have infertile wives. With this, these handmaid’s are taken away from their own families and potentially become abused to bear a child for the rich. After the nine months they are impregnated, the baby gets rip from their arms and again the cycle begins and they are reassigned to a new family, weeks after.

In relation to the novel and the show, both worlds are “removed” and taken away from the lives they were once used to and must fight in order to survive. Survival in Station Eleven, is seen when a character must kill an opposing threat to keep living, similar to the show, where the handmaids must obey their “masters” or there will be extreme consequences.

Another aspect that connects this text to this media, is that there are both figures of authority that abuse the power they hold. The common theme of abuse of woman is seen in both instances as the prophet literally takes women and girls to wed, and the rich, kidnap women to impregnate. Additional to these men with power, in Station Eleven, like Kirsten Raymonde, she is an individual who opposes what the prophet stands for and is there to fight and protect the people who she cares for. In The Handmaid’s Tale, there is also a strong female role named Offred that tries to stand up for her own rights unlike the other handmaids that are too afraid to, she even attempts multiple times to escape Gilead to reach Canada, which is a place where Gilead cannot touch.

All-in-all, the dystopian theme demonstrated in both the novel and the show are clear connections that can be made. To live in either worlds, they both hold the similarity to survive, which includes suppressing one’s past memories so that that character will not break down and only grow stronger in the end.

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Additional Links

https://www.shortlist.com/news/20-best-dystopian-novels/43969

https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/the-handmaids-tale/9780771008795-item.html

https://www.hulu.com/press/show/the-handmaids-tale/