Plot:
Ender's Game was written in 1985 by Orson Scott Card. It is a military science fiction novel. Set in the future, the story depicts an endangered humankind following two battles with a group of aliens known as the ‘buggers.’ In anticipation of a third attack, children are taught to prepare, through progressively challenging games. Ender Wiggin, the protagonist, wins a fight against Stilson, a school bully. This act causes military recruiters to request that Ender lead the army against The Buggers. Ender has a problematic family life as his sister Valentine tries to look after him but his brother Peter wants him dead. Whether at school, at home, or in his own head, Ender has some tricky demons to face.
Settings:
Ender’s Game is set in five places: North Carolina, Battle School, Fairyland/the End of the World, Command School, and the Colony.
Ender’s family relocates to Greensboro, North Carolina, once Ender has entered the army. This quiet location allows Valentine and Peter to use their time and space to plan their world domination.
The Battle School provides the setting for a large section of the novel. During this, readers learn a lot about the various student armies and the games. Readers also start to realize that many students are manipulated by the administrators who have their own personal agendas, and that the military are covering up that the human species can now control gravity. While Battle School is unusual in that it is in space, and it is effectively a military camp for children, it also closely resembles traditional schools in its social structures, friendships, talented children, and bullies.
While Fairyland only exists in a mind game and is not technically a real place, it is nonetheless a vital setting as it is where Ender tackles his most significant worries. Through this setting, readers see Ender’s most personal conflicts and how he deals with them.
Command School is situated on Eros, a previous bugger base. Humans have commandeered this bugger settlement, which prefigures humans commandeering other bugger settlements later.
The colony is a short-lived setting, but is important as it is here that readers learn the truth about the buggers in that they don’t want to wipe out humans, and that they still exist. The colony also provides a destination where Ender is free of many of his physical worries, for example, Graff and Peter. Like the readers, Ender also learns a great deal at the colony, both about the buggers and about himself.
Characters:
Ender is born into a difficult life; he is the third child in a world where families are encouraged to have only two children. Furthermore, Ender is slight in frame and very intelligent, making him an obvious object for school bullies. Ender struggles at home as well as at school, mainly because his brother Peter wants to kill him. Ender’s biggest fear is that he might be a vicious killer, just like his brother. While Ender is smaller in stature than any of his enemies, he always wins as a result of his quick wit.
Valentine and Peter, Ender’s sister and brother, appear to be polar opposites in how they feel about and behave towards Ender; Valentine loves him, Peter hates him. However, interestingly, Ender’s relationship with Peter helps him to avoid becoming a violent killer, where as his loving relationship with Valentine leads him into constant battles.
Valentine and Peter are thought-provoking characters in their own rights but they seem to mostly be in the story as a benchmark against which readers can compare Ender, and as a way of seeing his personality as he responds to his siblings in their various conflicts. Valentine and Peter were both rejected by the army as their personalities did not fit well with the ethos, but they prove themselves proficient, both as individuals and as a team, when plotting to take over the world.
Works Cited
Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game. Atom. 2002. Print.
