Ender's Game Literary Analysis

Morality is the “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.” (1) While reading Ender’s Game, the reader will question the morality of the characters often. Ender’s Game is a military related, science-fiction novel written by Scott Orson Card in 1985. The lens of moral criticism, which is “a tendency… of literary criticism to judge literary work according to moral rather than formal principles,” (2) asks the question of what is right, what is wrong, and what are the intentions of the characters. The morality of Ender is one that is controversial and important through the book; But he is an innocent person with guilty actions, and the opinions fall from there. There are lots of examples of his violent

actions but his mind is pure and unknowing of the truth behind those actions.
Throughout the whole book, the morality of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin is undecided if he is cruel or misunderstood. In example, when he beat up, and killed, not only Stilson, but Bonzo as well. “For a moment, the others back away and Stilson lay motionless. They were all wondering if he were dead. Ender, however, was trying to figure out a way to forestall vengeance. To keep them from taking him in a pack tomorrow, I have to win this now, and for all time, or I’ll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse. Ender knew the unspoken rules of manly warfare, even though he was only six. It was forbidden to strike the opponent who lay helpless on the ground; only an animal would do that (Card 5).” At this point, even only six pages into the book, we are reading from his perspective and feeling sympathetic for him. It blinds us to realize that this six-year-old not only beat up this kid, but even defied what he called the “unspoken rules of manly warfare.” He quite literally kicked the man when he was down and ended up a murderer. And then he repeats the action yet again with Bonzo Madrid when he’s around eight years old. “Bonzo did not cry out in pain. He did not react at all, except that his body rose a little in the air. It was as if Ender had kicked a piece of furniture. Bonzo collapsed, fell to the side, and sprawled directly under the spray of steaming water from a shower. He made no movement whatever to escape the murderous heat… All Ender could see, though, was the way Bonzo looked as Ender kicked upward into his groin. The empty, dead look in his eyes. He was already finished then. Already unconscious. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t thinking or moving anymore, just that dead, stupid look on his face, that terrible look, the way Stilson looked when finished with him (Card 149-150).” Ender committed murder twice, but he is never aware of his actions. As the readers learn on pages 158 and 159, Ender was never told that his fights ended in deaths, so does this make him morally guilty? He had the intention of proving a point, that they should stop messing with him and everyone else, and so when he came to the same situation, he did nothing different because he thought it wanted the same conclusion. And then the book adds that the teachers and adults knew about both of these fights and did not attempt to stop them, despite them knowing about Ender’s strength. As far as Ender knows, he proved a point, but he doesn’t know that what he has done is murder and unacceptable because he was never told. This crucial information was held from him, because the adults wanted a commander and Ender would’ve not grown to be the commander he grew to be had he known about Stilson’s, or Bonzo’s, death. Either way though, he felt bad after each fight. In example, on page 6 he thinks “He turned and walked away… Ender leaned his head against the wall of the corridor and cried until the bus came (Card 6).” And then later he is regretful of the fight with Bonzo too: “Then, to Dink’s surprise, Ender began to cry. Lying on his back, still soaking wet with sweat and water, he gasped his sobs, tears seeping out of his closed eyelids and disappearing in the water on his face. ‘Are you alright?’ [said Dink] ‘I didn’t want to hurt him!’ Ender cried ‘Why didn’t he just leave me alone!’” Ender doesn’t enjoy what he’s done, but does it anyways because that is what he’s learned and doesn’t know how else to react. But this is not the only violent acts Ender commits.
He also launched Bernard and broke his arm. “‘Hey fart-eater,’ came the whisper from behind him. He was hit on the head again. ‘Do you like this? Hey, super-brain, is this fun?’ Another blow, this one so hard that Ender cried out softly with the pain. If Graff was setting him up, there’d be no help unless he helped himself. He waited until he thought. And yes, the blow was there. It hurt, but Ender was already trying to sense the coming of the next blow. Now. And yes, right on time. I’ve got you, Ender thought. Just as the next blow was coming, Ender reached up with both hands. Snatched the boy by the wrist, and then pulled down on the arm, hard. In gravity, the boy would have been jammed against Ender’s seat back, hurting his chest. In null gravity, however, he flipped over the seat completely, up toward the ceiling. Ender wasn’t expecting it. He hadn’t realized how null gravity magnified the effects of even a child’s movement. The boy sailed through the air, bouncing against the ceiling, then down against another boy in his seat, then out into the aisle, his arms flailing until he screamed as his body slammed into the bulkhead at the front of the compartment, his left arm twisted under him (Card 24).” As reading from Ender’s perspective, the reader knows that Ender did not intend to send Bernard flying, but merely just send him into his chair. This is another instance where Ender reacts and ends up guilty when he was being pushed into a corner of options. This shows how Ender plans for one thing to happen after each encounter, but another thing happens that he doesn’t mean. In the murders, he only meant to beat them up but ended up killing. In this, he only meant to hurt his chest, but instead he broke an arm. Yes, it is wrong to kill and it is even probably not moral to launch someone in null gravity to leave them helpless but Ender is a six-year-old who doesn’t understand his capability at this point. He doesn’t know what he is doing and how it is bigger than he knows.
Another violent act the readers see Ender does it when he beat up some kids in the battlefield after he was giving a private lesson.

The important part about this though is where he says “Several enemies had already rebounded toward him. Ender was startled to see Stilson’s face among them. Then he shuddered and realized he had been wrong. Still, it was the same situation, and this time they wouldn’t sit still for a single combat settlement (Card 82).” Here, we see how Ender regrets his decision and his actions, even years later after tons of other memories; he remembers. Anyways, he continues to tear the ear of one boy, give another a nose bleed, and hurt some others pretty bad. He knows this is bad though. (“I’m doing it again, thought Ender. I’m hurting people again, just to save myself. Why don’t they leave me alone, so I don’t have to hurt them? (Card 82)” He regrets his violent actions now and before but he feels like he keeps being placed in these situations. And from here, the decision is no longer his to choose. He is specifically placed in a certain position to

kill.
The leaders of battle school continue to work and break Ender, forcing him to play what he thinks is a simulation until a certain point, when they finally tell him it was not a simulation.

During the time he thought he was training, he was actually commanding his friends in combat against these aliens and eventually committing xenocide against them. Throughout the end of his trip through battle school and especially in command school, Ender is constantly down and almost what seems to be in a deep depression or some sort of mental disorder, like Colonel Graff predicted would happen. Ender did not enjoy the fights, day after day, and so when he realized that he had actually killed all the buggers, he was not happy in the slightest. “Ender’s mind was too tired to cope with it all. They weren’t just point of light in the air, they were real ships that he had fought with and real ships he had destroyed. And a real world that he had blasted into oblivion. He walked through the crows, dodging their congratulations, ignoring their hands, their words, their rejoicing. When he got to his own room he stripped off his clothes, climbed into bed and slept (Card 108).” Ender never would have acted so violently if he knew that it was real, like his fights. He never would’ve acted so violently if he had known his strength or if he knew what was being presented upon him. (“’Ender grabbed Mazer’s uniform and hung onto it, pulling him down so they were face to face. ‘I didn’t want to kill them

all. I didn’t want to kill anybody! I’m not a killer! You didn’t want me, you bastards, you wanted Peter, but you made me do it, you tricked me into it!’ He was crying. He was out of control (Card 208).”) Even Colonel Graff knew this: “’Of course we tricked you into it. That’s the whole point,’ said Graff. ‘It had to be a trick or you couldn’t have done it. It’s the bind we were in. We had to have a commander with so much empathy that he would think like the buggers, understand them and anticipate them. So much compassion that he could win the love of his underlings and work with them like a perfect machine, as perfect as the buggers. But somebody with that much compassion could never be the killer we needed. Could never go into battle willing to win at all costs. If you knew, you couldn’t do it. If you were the kind of person who would di it even if you knew, you could never have understood the buggers well enough.’ (Card 208).”
Ender is not an innocent boy, that is for sure, but it wasn’t his fault he was acting this way. He did not receive the whole picture and therefore his actions are not to point a finger at him. Every time Ender encountered a fight with someone in the story, he regretted it tremendously and wished it did not happen at all, which shows he is not a vicious killer like most people would image him to be without context; Instead he is a powerful, young boy who is manipulated into fights that caused horrible outcomes. Ender is at fault for the actions and getting his hands dirty, but the commanders are at fault for the planning. Therefore, he can be seen as morally accepted, with his thoughts and backstory behind it. Ender is a guilty boy, with an innocent mind.