Shakespeare's plays is one of the main thread in the fiction Station Eleven, so why these plays written in the Renaissance will matter in the fiction about a post-apocalyptic world? And what's the purpose of Mandel mentions Shakespeare's life in this book even though it seems like no influence to the plot.

From my perspective, the objective this fiction is more about depicting the life after a collapsed world. It's more about to reassess the importance of art and spiritual needs when the basic demands cannot be satisfied (eg. food, water or survive). As what is carried on the lead caravan in the book "Because survival is insufficient". Therefore, the Shakespeare's play and his life point the theme of this fiction out. In the fiction, death and chaos are everywhere after the flu, and one of the objective of the travelling symphony is to bring the hope and optimistic to people because art can provide the spiritual strength to people and keep their living by the spiritual value as being a human, and this is what Shakespeare's play has done in the age Mandel mentioned "Plague closed the theaters again and again, death flickering over the landscape"(57) in the fiction. Even though there is a huge time gap between the Renaissance and the world in the fiction, the Shakespeare's plays play a same role in the post-apocalyptic world as it did many year before: it save people when their spirit die as losing hope and value of living. Includes Shakespearean references here mention us that no matter when and where, the survive is not the only goal. Art can always keep people possessing higher pursuit to keep their spirit alive in disaster, and that is what Shakespeare's play did before and in the fiction. In addition, Mandel mention the Shakespeare's miserable early life. This also reflect the truth that why art is important in the dark time. It can always provide a heaven for people, like maybe what it did for Shakespeare many years before when his life was cruel to him and what it means for the comic author Miranda when her life knock her. Therefore, include the Shakespeare is a way author to light or indicate the significance of the art in this story.

By and large, Shakespeare seems so far from the time and place where the story unfold. But once the travelling symphony use his plays as a medium to tell people that "Because survival is insufficient", Shakespeare and his plays are given another meanings, as a symbol beyond survival.