Spring Literature Analysis #1: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Ender’s Game

by Orson Scott Card 

“In the end, really…what is more pure, more cruel than a child?”

Literature Analysis

by Hayden Robel

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GENERAL_QUESTIONS_

1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read, and explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).

2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid clichés.

3. Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).

4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.)

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1. In the distant, unidentified, future, mankind wages a relentless war against a hostile alien “arthropod” (insects) species colloquially titled the “Buggers”. Teetering on the edge of collapse, humanity begins a program recruiting exceptionally intelligent/ “gifted” children (kids genetically selected/vetted to be imbued with strategic/instinctual military intelligence rivaling that of history’s greatest strategists) in order to combat the alien threat. This is where Ender Wiggin, a six year old introvert/precocious child, (the Third candidate) our protagonist emerges. Recruited into the program for his “ruthless/unprecedented strategic rationale” (though Ender despises violence and is in fact frightened by what he does/is capable of) Ender is enrolled in the “Battle Academy” where he is confronted not only by fellow hostile students but so to confronting his own inner turmoil, unable to connect fully with others, anyone at all. That is until Alai, a stubborn but supportive student, becomes Ender’s first and (one of his only) true friends. By the end of the novel Ender is beguiled into commanding a “simulation” where he assaults the “bugger” home colony but it is ultimately revealed he was in fact actually commanding over his fellow students in a genuine war effort. Though victory was hard-won, many of his friends were killed by his self-described “pathetic incompetence” including Alai. Left with a translated transmission from the nearly extinct Bugger race, the alien species does not blame Ender for his genocide, entrusting him with a cocoon a pupa, the last viable of the species. Ender, able to protect the egg or destroy it, destroy an entire species, ends the novel (connoting Orson Scott Card’s penultimate theme for the work) wondering who truly his enemy was, the alien buggers or, himself, man.

2. As the introductory quote (a working quote from my novel) comments, In the end…really…What is more pure and cruel than a child? From deception, the manipulation of children, warfare to introspective self-isolation there are a plethora of themes underlying concurrently within Ender’s Game, but none so prominent as the following. Throughout the novel Ender is frequently attacked by his fellow students (children ages 5-14) both verbally and physically (Even his own brother, Peter, tries to kill/torture him on more than one occasion). Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, like the Legendary Lord of the Flies, employs children as a metaphor for humanity at large, the morality, duality, capacity for “good” or “evil” that every human being innately possesses. The end of the novel, where in Ender can either protect and attempt to propagate, rebuild the alien species he essentially exterminated, or destroy the egg, destroying any chance of the species survival, connotes this idea of duality perfectly. Calling in to question another theme, who really was his enemy our enemy? What is an enemy, really? Is it some opposing entity, force, or is it something else? Indefinable or defined, informed, by someone else’s declaration, or is it informed by our own perspicacity? Is the enemy, as Ender ruminates, really…ourselves?

3.

·        “Human beings are free except when humanity needs them.”

·        “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.”

·        “They couldn't beat him in the battleroom, and knew it – so instead they would attack him where it was safe, where he was not a giant but just a little boy.”

Orson Scott Card (OSC as I will begin abbreviating) is a master of the written craft, the tone of Ender’s Game in particular depicting his talent. Marauding with a sense of impending dread, the contrastingly sterile setting of the future, the sterilized diction utilized by OSC pervades and punctuates the entirety of the work. Whether it be the dire situation of humanity as it wages a war for survival, or the manipulating alternate agendas of Ender’s adult commanders or even fellow rivaling students, the tone of Ender’s Game can only be described as urgent, tense, oppressed as Ender himself is oppressed by the military, oppressed by his own inner turmoil as he wages the greatest war…the war waged within ourselves. 

4. Here we go, ad infinitum.

·        Allusion: “"But shouldn't they still act like children? They aren't normal. They act like – history. Napoleon and Wellington. Caesar and Brutus." (pg. 110) Colonel Graff connects historical figures of war to that of the battle academy students, an allusion if I’ve ever seen one.

·        Metaphor: “Like children fighting with grown-ups.” (pg. 122) Ender’s comment is a metaphor for how humans look whilst waging a futile war against the ultimately much more advanced Bugger aliens.

·        Theme: "Peter, you're twelve years old. I'm ten. They have a word for people our age. They call us children and they treat us like mice." (pg. 62) Connotes the theme of manipulation as Ender discusses with his brother that the adults don’t perceive the students as children but as tools, wepons of war, means to their own ends.

·        Metaphor: “Out of the woods emerged a dozen slavering wolves with human faces. Ender recognized them – they were the children from the playground. Only now their teeth could tear; Ender, weaponless, was quickly devoured.” (pg. 69) The children are as vicious as any animal as they visibly plot/prepare to get revenge on Ender in this metaphor of the cruelty any human being, even a child is capable of.

·        Simile: “For a moment, as Ender looked around at the laughing, jeering faces, he imagined their bodies covered with hair, their teeth pointed for tearing as if like wolves. Am I the only human being in this place? Are all the others animals, waiting only to devour?” (pg. 103) As if like wolves or animals, Ender ponders yet again on how savage another human being can be in this revealing/evocative simile/metaphor.

·        Symbolism: “This is war. To them, this was a game.” (pg. 84) The simulation of war that the kids are frequently subjected to is a persistent symbol for the short-sided perspectives of the students as well as agendas of the adults.

·        Theme: “As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do it is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generations, giving birth to genius. The one who invents the wheel. And light. And flight. The one who builds a city, a nation, an empire.... Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something.” (pg. 35) Details the theme of freedom, how Ender must fight for his species, humanity’s freedom at the cost of his very own.

·         Simile: "There were TV cameras, perched like animals on the shoulders of crouching, prowling men." (pg. 28) A simile describing the incessant paparazzi, again likening man to animals, as they attempt to take photos of the new “genius” recruit, Ender.

·        Theme: “It’s the teachers, they’re the enemy. They get us to fight each other, to hate each other. The game is everything. Win win win. It amounts to nothing.” (pg. 108) Manipulation of children via the adult commanders, their myopic perspective plays to the theme of perspective in the novel as Ender continually argues on who truly is the enemy in this war for “life”.

·        Irony: “Right now is the time when I can shape events. The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win.” (pg. 130) A metaphor utilizing the concept of democracy ironically as the Valentine (Ender’s sister) describes how she alone can “shape events” and that “the man with the best voice will win” as in an individual, not a democracy, has the capability to make fundamental changes for the whole, the group.

·        Tone: “I’m trapped here, Ender thought, trapped at the End of the World with no way out. And he knew at last the sour taste that had come to him, despite all his successes in the Battle School. It was despair.” (pg. 141) As described earlier, the tone of Ender’s Game is oppressive, dreadful, a sense of despair marauding over the work as Ender prepares to battle for humanity’s survival, at the cost of another species own.

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CHARACTERIZATION_QUESTIONS_

1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization.  Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?

2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character?  How?  Example(s)?

3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic?  Flat or round?  Explain.

4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character?  Analyze one textual example that illustrates your reaction.

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                  1.

Direct Characterization

·        EXAMPLE 1:

·        “Not a joke, a game. I can make you guys believe anything. I can make you dance around like puppets." - Bonzo

·        EXAMPLE 2:

·        “"Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive." – Col. Graff.

Indirect characterization

·        EXAMPLE 1:

·        “He held up a limp hand. "See the strings?"” –Ender

·        EXAMPLE 2:

·        “Ender felt sick. He had only meant to catch the boy’s arm. No. No, he had meant to hurt him.”

“Any writers worth their royalties utilize both direct and indirect characterization.” – Hayden Robel after answering this question in five other analyses…

In other words, like all great writers, Orson Scott Card so too utilized both direct and indirect forms of characterization to develop his characters/reveal their respective perspectives. Example one (direct) directly characterizes Bonzo, Ender’s company officer, as a cruel, manipulative commander utilizing the kids as tools like puppets. Example one of indirect indirectly characterizes Ender’s own concession to this fate (like a puppet as he references strings), feeling helpless, like a puppet, lacking any freedom or salvation from his condemnation in Battle School. Graff in his perspective direct characterization (ex. 2) comments/fleshes out his own character as he, like most of the adults, perceive the children as tools, mean to an end, nothing more, nothing less. It could be argued that indirect example 2 is a direct characterization of Ender but I personally believe the emphasis on ambiguity/connotation here indirectly connotes the protagonist’s inner turmoil as he injuries a threatening student, even if it was necessary to protect himself he didn’t want to hurt anyone, while at the same time he realizes it was vital to assert that others could not just simply “walk all over him”.

2.

·        “Ender spread his hands over the child-size keyboard near the edge of the desk and wondered what it would feel like to have hands as large as a grown-up's. They must feel so big and awkward, thick stubby fingers and beefy palms.”

·        “You're wrong, Ender. You think you're grown up and tired and jaded with everything, but in your heart you're just as much a kid as I am.”

As exhibited above, Orson Scott Card’s tone/syntax remains oppressive while all the while deliberately childlike in diction, the author intentionally utilizing simple, laymen words so to effectively communicate the novel thru a child’s voice, however “jaded” Ender and the children of Battle School might be.

3. Though I absolutely despise the generalizations, the “all in one bag” terms of “static” or “dynamic” characters, Ender is indeed a “dynamic protagonist” in the traditional definition. Immersed in internal turmoil, Ender shifts back and forth, dynamically changing from a sometimes naive/innocent child to an altogether brooding, cynical adult in disposition and perspicacity. OSC presumably intentionally wove his own theme of duality and humanity’s capacities, facilities for “good” or “evil” acts into Ender as the protagonist can both at times be a lone light in the darkness or that hand snuffs the candle flame out (say, for example, saving the last remaining egg of an alien species or destroying it). 

4.

·        "Ender leaned his head against the wall of the corridor and cried until the bus came. I am just like Peter. Take my monitor away, and I am just like Peter.”

Peter (though Ender’s brother) is the antithesis, the manifestation of all things Ender fears. Cruel and relentless, Peter isn’t evil, nor is he good in any sense, but, rather, grey, “pure”, without morality. Ender despises this facet of his sibling and when he “accidentally” injuries another kid (though, for Ender’s sake, the kid was a bully threatening him) Ender realizes that he could (and does later in the novel), that he has the capacity to be Peter, committing such cruel acts as his brother. Crying, shedding sincere tears for what he has done, the emotional authenticity, actual, genuine, real and true remorse, guilt for his actions validates Ender as not a character but the essence of a person, the captured quintessence of human being imbued with a conscience (unlike the unrealistically Manichean/Machiavellian Peter), imbued with emotions, with imperfections, imbued with the capacities for good, for evil, for either and neither one at all. What more is man? Something great, something hopeful, Something flawed that can only ever be.