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The poem "For All we Have and Are" by Rudyard Kipling examines the sacrifices made in war. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, also analyzes the what an individual must give up for the survival of a group, but two of his characters, Ender Wiggin and Colonel Graff, would have differing views of Kipling's poem and a person's role in war.
Rudyard Kipling wrote his poem in 1914 at the beginning of World War I. "For All We Have and Are," is a calling to protect England from a real possibility of falling. Kipling describes an urgent need to fight back, "Stand up and take the war./ The Hun is at the gate!" He knows that fighting means the loss of life, but he believes it is worth it to defend what is at stake, "For all we have and are." Kipling makes the point that as long as England prevails, the death of an individual is unimportant.
Colonel Graff would agree with Kipling idea of individual sacrifice. It is the policy of the I.F. throughout the novel to forgo the freedoms of a person to ensure the survival of humanity against the buggers. At Battle School, Graff?s purpose is to train children for mankind to use as tools to fight the buggers. Graff cares for Ender, but he willingly misguides and manipulates him. He takes away Ender?s freedom, takes him from Earth, takes him from Valentine, and forces him to kill. Graff sacrifices his own humanity, so that Ender can become humanity?s tool. Graff explains to Ender the I.F. philosophy which parallels Kipling?s, ?Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. [. . .] if humankind survives, then we were good tools.?
Ender could not truly relate to Kipling?s poem because everything to Ender is distant. In Ender?s world the buggers are not the pressing threat that the Central Powers were in World War I. The buggers are light-years away. Ender has only faced them in videos and in his dreams. Ender understands he must be a tool, but he is never given an opportunity to be anything else. Graff understands the feelings Ender?s isolation creates, ?when you never meet people, when you never know the Earth itself, [. . .] it?s easy to forget why earth is worth saving.
Over many centuries, Poetry and song has been a way for people to explore their feelings, thoughts and questions about War & Peace. Rupert Brooke's “The Soldier” and Cold Chisel’s “Khe Sanh” provide two different insights into the nature of war. . “The Soldier” conveys a message of bravery for soldiers to go into war and fight while “Khe sanh” conveys a message about post-traumatic stress and the horrible factors of coming back into civilization after war.
Ender did not wish to annihilate bugger species, as he did not like murder in general. He believed killing the buggers were also a crime as to killing people. He believes that there were more to the buggers than what everyone perceived them to be. And since he nearly killed the entire species, he feels like it is his obligation to help find a new location for the buggers to repopulate. Ultimately, the novel is only a little over 300 pages and overall is an easy read. The only issue I had with the novel was the amount of side characters, making it difficult to remember who was who. Finally, I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys fiction novels that pertain to space and defending Earth from a foreign threat.
There are many things in this world that are impossible to understand without first hand experience.This can be especially irritating for people who have the knowledge, but see everyone else with the wrong idea. Philip Larkin and Wilfred Owen show this in their poems about the common misconception of war glorification. Through imagery and the use of similes, they explain what it's really like for a person to go into battle. To outsiders, fighting in war is a noble cause worthy of envy and praise, but from the inside perspective the only thing war does is take away the innocence of
Ender eventually goes to Battleschool and takes mass amounts of badgering and teasing from the other kids that are training too. Ender easily moves through the ranks and frustrates every instructor that he has. He becomes a commander and is given an army. He eventually goes to a planet called Eros, find the Buggers, and conclude that they are bugs, and that they have a queen like ants do. Ender finds an old man and finds that it is Mazer Rackham, his enemy. Ender finally finds that all the games he had been playing since Rackham became his enemy, was the real Third Invasion. Ender is a hero.
...t and only try to defeat the I.F. Just as important as knowing that they hurt Ender was knowing why. After talking with Bean he realized that he was becoming everything he wanted to avoid. A commander that pushed around his soldiers and put them down. But he knew why. He thought, “Graff had isolated [me] to make [me] struggle” (Card 167). He was beginning to be like the people he hated because of his own isolation. He was supposed to struggle so he didn’t feel like anyone would help him but that only made his situation worse. Once again, knowing who the real enemy was was a key step to defeating the real enemy. Truly knowing your enemy can help a lot when trying to defeat them.
Andrew Wiggin is a very complex character because he is a young boy that faces many difficult situations. At a young age, Andrew is taken from his parent’s home and shipped off to Battle School to prepare for the war against the“buggers”. Andrew is forced into isolation due to the malicious tactics used by the school’s administration. Throughout the duration of this novel, Ender is bullied by multiple characters, such as his brother, Bonzo, and Stilson. He fears his dangerous older brother and he also fears that he will become him, and this creates an internal conflict. The text states, “He kept remembering how it felt to kill the snake, grinding it in, the way he tore the ear off that boy, the way he destroyed Stilson, the way he broke Bernard’s arm. And then to stand up, holding the corpse of his enemy, and find Peter’s face looking out at him from the mirror. This game knows too much about me. This game tells filthy lies. I am not Peter. I don’t have murder in my heart.” This quote conveys how afraid Ender is of becoming his older brother and the internal conflict that he faces. Ender also had to deal with the school’s administration rigging and changing certain rules to challenge him and sometimes they even tormented him. Even though Ender has had to endure these hardships, he is still responsible for saving humanity. These hardships shows how much of a complex character Ender
Ender knew they were going to hurt him and keep hurting him for the rest of the school year, so Ender decided to make this the first and last fight. Ender won the fight by ruthless blows to Stilson when he was down. Afterwards, Ender cried for what he had done because he didn’t like hurting people, he didn’t like being Peter. Colonel Graff came back to get Ender. It turned out they wanted to see how Ender could handle himself without the monitor, and he did it perfectly.
War poems usually deals with how the persona of a particular poem, reacts to life altering events such as war. “Totoy’s War” by Luz Maranan, “State of Siege” by Eric Gumalinda, and “War is Kind” by Stephen Crane are just three examples of the many war poems that exist. Each of the poems conveys different messages, as well as utilizing different methods to convey the said message, despite having one common theme.
In conclusion, when Ender is put in tight scenarios where he has very few options to choose from, it results with his emotions being expressed in a violent form. As a result, Ender’s mental state is affected by the violent actions taken upon Ender by showing the effect it has on the mind and how it effects one another. The effects upon Ender’s physical state results with him choosing to use violent acts in order to avoid the harm that is brought upon physical combat. Life is always based on decisions and many of these decisions are based on basic emotions like happiness, sadness, etc,however many of them result with others as well.
Through both of Stephen Crane's story "A Mystery of Heroism" and poem "War is Kind" he gives several different examples on how war was from this time and how it brought out the real person in any soldier whether they were scared or daring to be a hero for others. Them proving that they can be a hero themselves even if its from getting water for the rest of your team to comforting ones that have lost loved ones through war in the end of the grand scheme of things.
The development of a hero persona and the ability to combat enemies is shaped by encounters with personal hardships, within a fabricated and manipulative environment. Throughout Enders Game the pre-adolescent protagonist, Ender, has his nature and mentality warped by manipulative adults in order to make him into what they perceive, the most effective ‘saviour’ of the human race, only to result in Ender finding an equally as evil force within the battle school. The repeated dialogue at the opening of most chapters, between two unknown officers discussing the necessity of Ender’s submersion in “isolation” (1) and “enemies” (2) is an indication of intentional manipulation and exposure to a set of engineered human problems, in an attempt to turn Ender into the hero they want him to be. Card has further accentuated this idea by imbuing these discussions with ambiguity. No setting is described, neither is the identity of the two men revealed; granting them a sense of enigmatic authority. The alienation and isolation that ...
...us today, but Kipling seemed to marvel at the very thought that these people would not jump up in thanks to their "civilizing" conquerors. Rather than bring together to different people this work just created a larger divide between the two. It doesn’t seem though that Kipling intended the poem to be viewed as support of the imperialist endeavor; in fact, reading carefully the way he phrases the lines would reveal that Kipling was offering warnings to anyone who decided that such ideas needed to be carried out. He warns against laziness and debauched behavior as it can quickly derail noble goals and intentions. He also cautions the need of patience, and tries to make it clear that this kind of work (raising a people to a more civil culture) is difficult and can be quite burdensome – as he writes it is the “toil of serf and sweeper,” not the “tawdry rule of kings.”
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.
...is enemy, he became the most ruthless and yet most compassionate commander the world has ever seen in all the wars the human race has withstood. Above all, however, isolation is the tool that made all the attributes transparent and viable to Ender and to the I.F. Beyond the war, Ender became more than just a tool to be used; he became a savior. A savior of not only one, but two different races bent on destroying each other. Ender became the very definition of Hope.
He up agents a whole planet and a vast number of ships. He ends up winning by using a secret weapon on the planet that blows it up. When he finishes the battle he realizes that everyone is cheering behind him. When he asks why they tell him that all of his missions were real ones against the buggers and that he had just destroyed all of the buggers. My favorite character in this book is Ender. He is my favorite character for many reasons.