Station Eleven and other Transitory Homes

Abstract

This essay explores the ever-changing relationship between humans and spaces through an analysis of Emily St. John Mandel's novel Station Eleven. The pandemic within the novel changes how people use the built environment, as well as how human characters are affected by space. The crisis in Station Eleven upsets ideas of how spaces should function, rendering many spaces dysfunctional, according to Michel de Certeau’s theories of spatial practice and “haunted places.” This leads to the key question: what makes a home? Between houses, airports, and caravans, the novel supports the idea that even transitory, impermanent, or dysfunctional spaces and objects can shift to become home; they are not necessarily fixed by preconceived notions. On the other hand, these notions, embedded in preexisting spaces, also have the power to shape humans’ emotional—and consequently physical—experiences through memory. This essay follows the characters’ relationships with built environments before and after the world’s collapse—such as experiencing a stark office space as an escape, an airport as a neighborhood, and houses and hotels as uninhabitable—enforcing the understanding that humans and the environment change each other as the world changes.