Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Ender ‘ s game essay
Ender game manipulation essay
Ender's game essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Ender ‘ s game essay
Fate determines our lives. All species on Earth are set on a path towards an end goal from their first breaths. In the novel, Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card attempts to convey the reality of how every person’s fate is predetermined from the beginning. This idea is showcased through the experiences of a young character, referred to as Ender Wiggins, who is the third child of the family with one sister, Valentine, and one brother, Peter. He is used by the adults to become a soldier at a remote facility called Battle School to save the human race from the buggers. Ender is faced with many social challenges since most older students often pick on him as they envy his talents and skills. Ender gets rapidly moved up the ranks by the officials to …show more content…
This novel reveals the non-existence of free will by showing how as a result of the adults, children are separated from their childhood desires, their true personality is oppressed and their path of life is significantly altered.
Through this novel, Orson Scott Card evinces the reality of how children are no longer in control of how they choose to live their childhoods. This is proven when Ender argues with Colonel Graff, “Colonel Graff, I just want to go back and swim in the lake...We’ll keep you under armed guard at all times. The military knows how to handle these things” (293). It is clear that the ones in charge do not care about how children want to spend their time and their only priority is doing the action that benefits them the most. Even when Ender’s duty is done, he would still not be free to do what he desires and his every move would be noted by armed guards. Ender has been so greatly isolated from the ordinary society that he cannot think of anything else to do on his spare time. This is seen when the author writes, “Then he went into the simulator room for practice. Even though he was free, he could not think of anything else to do” (332). Since he has never been an ordinary child and has never been allowed to explore on his own to figure
…show more content…
The I.F. Selective Service chooses Ender’s destiny without even letting him pursue his interests. When Colonel Graff comes to take Ender to Battle School, he states, “Of course we already have your consent, granted in time of writing at the time conception was confirmed, or he could not have been born. He has been ours from then” (50). This further enhances the idea of how it is known that Ender is going to become a soldier and save the planet from the buggers if he qualifies. The level of manipulation from the adults towards the children is at such a great degree that even Ender with his young age is able to recognize what they have done to him. When he is no longer eager to continue, the author expresses Ender’s emotions, “This was part of their manipulation. And the despair filled him again. Now he knew why… He had no control over his own life. They ran everything” (187). His entire days are structured by the commanders. He is never able to think of what he wants to do and pursue. When the I.F. believed that Ender should become a commander, he is never consulted on whether this would interest him. While he is fighting against the buggers, he believes that it is solely another game to challenge his strategies. After Ender is victorious against them, he voices his emotions,
Before Ender got picked to fight the buggers he was just a normal boy he went to school like every other kid, one day he got put in a test and if he passed he would go to battle school in space, Ender eventually passed the test and he had a military personnel come to his door and tell his parents that he passed the test and is going to battle school.
As a child, Ender is constantly bullied at school for being a “Third”, because in this futuristic world, you need special permission to have more than two kids. He quickly learns to stand up and
Ender is selected to go to Battle School in space because of the actions he has displayed against a bully after a device known as a monitor, which allows the leaders of the I.F. to watch and hear everything Ender perceives. Although Ender’s conception was predetermined (in this time period, families are only allowed to have two children unless stated by the government which is why Ender is often called a “Third”), he had to display the correct characteristics to be selected. Ender’s siblings, Peter and Valentine also wore the monitor, but neither wore it as long nor was selected because Peter was too cruel and Valentine was too mild. Once Ender arrives, he makes a couple new friends from the other selected children, including a boy named Alai. When Ender is alone, he plays a mind game and progresses farther than anyone has before so out of the blue, Ender becomes promoted to a group called Salamander Army, where he befriends the only girl, Petra Arkanian, at Battle School. As Ender continues to display his brilliance, he is continuously being promot...
In Orson Scott Cards Ender’s game, the main character Ender does not have a normal childhood compared to other children. He is destined for a hard life ahead of him from the moment he was born. Through Ender and the characters around him Card draws us a picture about the world around us. One’s past does not shape their future or the kind of person they will be. A different choice can be made at any time.
Therefore, Ender shows the reader that he takes responsibility as an adult for just waking up early and on time for his battles. Therefor, Ender taking that responsibility must be hard since he's just a kid and has to be responsible for
After years of being monitored by government officials, Ender Wiggins, the main character of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, finds himself completely alone. The loneliness set's in as he finds himself in a new school, away from the watchful eyes of the government and bared to the world. He is a Third. This feeling of being a third makes Ender feel even more isolated, "It was not his fault he was a Third. It was the government's idea, they were the ones who authorized it - how else could a Third like Ender have got into school?" (Card 5). There was no one there to keep the bullies away now. Although he never really liked the monitor, he now found himself alone and missing the advent ages of having it on and knowing that someone, somewhere was always with him and watching him. At battle school, Ender knows that he will be isolated from the other students. Colonel Graff tells the other students of Ender and how superior his talents and intelligence is compared to the rest of the group. The other students don't like Ender and don't trust him. Throughout battle school, Ender is kept from his family and isolated from other children.
In the beginning of the book, Ender is ashamed when his decisions harm others. After receiving ‘special treatment’ on his way to Battle School, Ender is being harassed
In the book it took Ender a 4 year struggle to gain leadership skills and eventually respect. The book Ender's game is better than the movie Ender’s game due to more detail within the story allowing a better connection with the characters. Crucial elements in Ender’s game are the Bugger threats, which appear in both the book and movie. We see the Bugger threat as the main incentive for a better military.
Throughout the novel, the adults use the children's innocence in order to manipulate them. To begin, the adults cover their true identities, as controlling personnel, by portraying themselves as good people to the children. While Colonel Graff and Anderson are conversing they say, "' I like the kid. I think we're going to screw him up.' 'Of course we are. It's our job. We're the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive'". (Card 10) The adults explicitly state that they use the children's innocence to control them, they display one thing but have an outcome of another. By choosing methods of manipulation that appeal to children, the adults influence the children’s actions as they do things they naturally wouldn’t perform. Furthermore, the adults control every component of the soldier's lives. While reflecting Ender says, "I've spent my life as someone's pawn"(312). The adults choose Ender’s ultimate fate and every other small factor. They have an upper hand in their relationship, hence Ender refers to them as the chess player determining each of his moves. Furthermore, the adults use Ender’s obliviousness to manipulate him to reach their life goal. After the battle with the Buggers, Mazer explains, “You had to be a weapon, Ender. Like a gun, like the little doctor, functioning perfectly but not knowing what you were aimed at. We a...
No one in this novel could go through what Ender had and still function, so I excluded the internal conflict. Mazer Rackham is a magnificent solider who would do what he can to accomplish his goal. “ A very dull voyage, Ender. Fifty years in space. Officially, only eight years passed for me, but it felt like five hundred.” Mazer had been away from Earth for fifty years, meaning that most of his friends and family have parish, he left everything he knew simply for the betterment of his mission. If Ender was in another major conflict that required sacrifices, he should emulate Mazer Rackham. Ender should be able to make great sacrifices in the future for his goal to be accomplished. Ender should also follow in the steps of Mazer Rackham and have a pupil. Ender has so much knowledge that doesn’t even have to do with warfare, but it would be a waste for Ender's philosophy to die with
In John Connolly’s novel, The Book of Lost Things, he writes, “for in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be”. Does one’s childhood truly have an effect on the person one someday becomes? In Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle and Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, this question is tackled through the recounting of Jeannette and Amir’s childhoods from the perspectives of their older, more developed selves. In the novels, an emphasis is placed on the dynamics of the relationships Jeannette and Amir have with their fathers while growing up, and the effects that these relations have on the people they each become. The environment to which they are both exposed as children is also described, and proves to have an influence on the characteristics of Jeannette and Amir’s adult personalities. Finally, through the journeys of other people in Jeannette and Amir’s lives, it is demonstrated that the sustainment of traumatic experiences as a child also has a large influence on the development of one’s character while become an adult. Therefore, through the analysis of the effects of these factors on various characters’ development, it is proven that the experiences and realities that one endures as a child ultimately shape one’s identity in the future.
I related to Ender with many of the decisions that he was forced to make. I agree with his philosophy about ending the fight so that no more fights can grow from it, finishing your opponent, but only in self defense, and standing up too bully's. Ender's game reminded me of countries that expect to much for their children, and that would give everything for them to succeed, almost like overprotective parents.
In some points of this book, the children are naive and do not completely know what is going on around them. This allows the government to be able to manipulate them very easily. But, as the book goes on the readers realise the children are more aware and in fact smarter than the adults in many ways, in both the war and just in general. The government is still able to have some control over the children because they can manipulate them into doing what they want without them knowing. This causes Ender to experience a lot of manipulation from the very beginning of this book. Ender, as well as the other children in this book, continue to suffer from manipulation throughout the whole book. In the beginning of chapter 11 we assume that Graff and Anderson are talking, but we do not know who is saying what. We can infer that Anderson says to Graff, ‘“This is best for Ender, too. We’re bringing him to his full potential.”’ (Card 173). Anderson and Graff always talk about what is ‘best for Ender’, but they are really only thinking about themselves because all they do is push Ender to his breaking point. So is it really what is ‘best for Ender’ or is it what is best for the government? The government manipulates Ender into becoming a soldier and then a commander so that he can eventually win the war, but is that what Ender really wants? Could he be better at doing something
One key component that is produced through Ender’s struggles at his young age is self-reliance. Ender is born unto a family where he is seen as an outcast; he’s a “third.” In a world where population control is major concern, a third-born child is looked upon in disgust. He is isolated even before he is brought into the world. John Kessel reveals his insights into Card’s interpretation of Ender’s exploitation when he says,” Orson Scott Card presents a harrowing tale of abuse. Ender’s parents and older brother (. . .) either ignore the abuse of Ender or participate in it” (Kessel 1). No one contributes more to this abuse than his older brother, Peter. Along with his birth, jealousy and hatred are especially common towards Ender. This disapproving outlook is particularly apparent from Peter. Peter let’s Ender know hi...
There will be people that continuously manipulate and treat others unfairly, considering they will sacrifice their own humanity to fulfill their needs, saying how good things do not come out of manipulating others. This is shown throughout the book when the humans battles the buggers and Ender is given command from the adults to do so. In the novel “Ender’s Game” the ends do not justify the means in terms of the treatment the kids in battle school received from the I.F, considering they lied and abused Ender to kill off an entire species, that the humans did not fully understand since understanding the opponent is the key to a successful battle. Ender and the kids in the I.F has been easily manipulated by the adults in a way to get them to do what they please, considering the