Ender’S Game: Depiction Of Society’S Greatest Flaw
Picture being only six years old and having the fate of humanity and all life on earth rest in your hands. This is one of the obstacles in Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game, which main character, Ender faces. Because of his high intelligence and strong will power and fight, Ender is chosen to command the world’s military against their alien enemies called the Buggers. As Ender makes his way through battle school, commander school and through his abnormal childhood, he confronts one of society’s worst flaws, which is revealed throughout the entire novel. Card demonstrates how through manipulation and deceit, human morality can be dictated by the society in which it lives in and the outcome of this dictatorship is often a negative one.
A prevalent theme throughout the novel is how manipulation of others can change who the person is and how they act. In the story Colonel Graff tells Ender:
"Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive."
"That's a lie."
"No. It's just a half truth. You can worry about the other half after we win this war."(Card, 35)
Colonel Graff tells Ender why people are used in society. The irony behind this is that in the story Ender is the one being used as a “tool”, yet he disagrees with Colonel Graff in this statement. It is also ironic that he is using Ender for the good of humanity when it is socially considered wrong to use someone. Through Graff’s training and tests in the Battle room he eventually manipulates the way Ender thinks and acts. Eventually making Ender into what he feared most: being violent like his brother Peter. Charles Lamb said “Society is like a large piece of frozen water; and skating well is the great art of social life” (Lamb). What he is saying is that the ability of have power over society is the greatest skill to have in social life. In Ender’s Game we see how Ender is over powered by the Battle School leaders and they manipulate and alter who he is. The ability to...
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