Station Eleven Summary and Analysis

Section Six Summary The Airplane

Kirsten and August look through old magazines and find a photo of Arthur’s first wife Miranda outside the Toronto theater. Kirsten realizes that she was there when the photo was taken. August also realizes that the scar on the man they met was in the shape of an airplane, and they assume it was a punishment from the Prophet.

The novel then pivots to two weeks before the collapse, when Jeevan took Miranda’s photo outside the theater, frustrating Miranda. She and Arthur catch up, and he tells her about the forthcoming Dear V book. Later, Kirsten joins them in Arthur’s dressing room. Miranda shares two copies of Dr. Eleven with him before leaving. Having forgotten to return the paperweight that she took all those years ago, she arranges to have it sent to the theater before flying to Asia.

Miranda is in Malaysia when the Georgia flu hits. She receives a call from Clark, telling her that Arthur has died.

Clark and Arthur’s lawyer talk about who will tell Elizabeth and Arthur’s son, and Clark arranges his flight for the funeral, not really paying attention to the news of the pandemic. Elizabeth and Tyler are on his flight, and by luck or fate, none of them are infected. However, the rising pandemic in Toronto causes the plane to make an emergency landing in Severn City, Michigan.

In Malaysia, Miranda is at first too distracted by her work and the news of Arthur’s death to focus on the pandemic. By the time she understands the scale of the disaster, she has a sore throat, and her hotel is deserted. Realizing what is happening, she makes her way back to the beach, where the view, in her feverish state, reminds her of Station Eleven. She dies on the beach at sunrise.

Section Six Analysis The Airplane

There is a sense of events speeding up here, as the timeline jumps from Year Twenty to two weeks before the collapse to the day of the collapse, while the perspective jumps from Kirsten to Miranda to Clark. Events that had only been alluded to or vaguely remembered, like Kirsten’s time in Arthur’s dressing room, are shown in detail through Miranda’s point of view.

The scope of civilization before—global air travel, international phone calls, media attention—is in sharp relief as Miranda loses access to them. This section also reveals how certain objects move, through fate or luck, through the story. The paperweight makes its semi-final transition; Miranda sends it back to the theater where Tanya will eventually give it to Kirsten.