The traveling symphony's motto, “Survival is insufficient” is a driving theme, both spoken and unspoken throughout the novel. Each character is unknowingly intertwined, each living this theme whether they explicitly express it or not. There are many ways to interpret the motto. I think the most important aspect of the motto is how inspiring it is. I thought it was inspiring that that even though these people had lost so much they were able to thrive. Their situation is seen in many real-life natural disasters. One example that hits home for me, being from New Orleans, is Hurricane Katrina. People who left the city had to decide whether they wanted to return home and fight through the coming hard months or stay where they were. When a traumatic…show more content… One meaning it has is that they have to keep fighting for normalcy. The flu changed the entire world, wiping away everything they knew about the past and the future to come. The motto gave them something to hold onto when everything else pointed them to stopping what they loved. They each had a passion for entertainment, and the motto meant to them that they had to continue entertaining people to keep life as normal as possible. They would rather live a life that they enjoy than just wandering through life not experiencing it the way they hoped to in the past. The motto means to them that they still have an opportunity to live somewhat how they planned. “Survival is insufficient” also means to some of the group that it is their duty to preserve art in the world after the flu. Every member of the symphony had a love for the arts before the flu and appreciated what they meant to other people in the past. So, they want to continue giving people the gift of art even though the world has changed. The symphony takes other people’s and their own minds off of the situation they are living in and brings them back to simpler times. People do not want to constantly be reminded of the flu, and by doing plays and putting on concerts the troupe makes the world human again. The arts were used to calm people pre-flu, so they still use the arts to calm people after the flu. Their
