Summary:
Ender's Game revolves around the lives of children and their contrasting relationships with the adults around them. It seems from the beginning that the adults are trying to manipulate the children, but that isn't always the case.
Deception can involve being tricked by others, or tricking one's self. In Card's novel, trickery and false promises are parts of both games and deadly conflicts. Discuss the ways that deception is figured in the novel.
Deception-the act of deceiving; state of being deceived; artifice practiced; fraud; double-dealing; to mislead the mind of; to impose on; to delude; fraud; guile; cunning (Webster Dictionary). Deception is universal and serves many purposes. Deception can be used to hurt or protect, depending on the motives of the deceptor. In Orson Scott Card's novel, Ender's Game, deception plays many roles. The main use of deception is the adults versus the children. Early on in the novel it is indicated that Ender already realizes adults lie when the subject of the monitor being removed is discussed. The adults are also deceptive when they remove the monitor and allow Ender to think he was not accepted into the program when in fact they just wanted to see how he would behave without the monitor.
Most of the children know about the web of deceit and the manipulation, including Ender who works around it because of his own beliefs of his own purpose. Although he is needed in the mission to save the world, from Ender's point of view he needs to do this for Valentine. Or is he just tricking himself into thinking this? Ender realizes there is deceit by the IF and teachers. They deceived Ender into thinking that Valentine's letter was sincerely written by her. Ender realizes that he is being deceived and manipulated, his thoughts were, "It isn't the real thing because they made her write it. She's written before and they didn't let any of those letters through. Those might have been real, but this was asked for, this was part of their manipulation" (Card 150-1). Ender's realization of the deceit by the teachers changes his actions and reactions at the Battle School. Although Ender has already drawn conclusions about the deceit towards him, Dink Meeker plants a seed in Ender's head about what he thinks the battle school's about and what he thinks the teachers are doing. At this point, Ender starts seeing another side to things; and even though Ender realizes and admits to himself what the teachers are doing and that he is being manipulated and tricked, he still continues onward.
The IF and teachers graduated Ender on to Commander School. Before he actually goes to Commander School, he spends three months on Earth, during which he decides he doesn't want to continue going to school. Graff decides to use Valentine to manipulate him into going back to school. "We meant his leave to last only a few days. But you see he doesn't seem interested in going on with his education. Oh so I'm therapy again" (Card 233).
Valentine does go to see Ender. "For she had, after all, done just what they wanted. She had talked Ender into going back into his training and he wouldn't soon forgive her for that" (Card 242). Ender feels responsibility toward Valentine and toward his own Army and then eventually toward the world. "All your tricks worked, Valentine, too; she was another one of your tricks to make me remember that I am not going to school for myself" (Card 244).
Many people look up to Ender. He's sort of like the hero of the lonely kids who may not fit in. When he hurts Stilson, he's enacting a sort of fantasy for many readers: sweet revenge. With a typical Ender twist, he engages in the violence in order to keep himself from getting attacked worse in the future: "This would not have a happy ending. So Ender decided that he'd rather not be the unhappiest at the end" (Card 6). Means and ends get twisted here, as Ender appears to be able to gauge the short and long term effects of his actions. Because it was wrong to hit a person who is down, Ender does this: "So Ender walked to Stilson's supine body and kicked him again, viciously, in the ribs. Stilson groaned and rolled away from him. Ender walked around him and kicked him again in the crotch. Stilson could not make a sound; he only doubled up and the tears streamed out of his eyes" (7). This is our protagonist. It's probably the case that he did not alienate most readers by this preemptive strike. We have sufficient common ground with the character that we can at least see why he did what he did, and this knowledge of motivation helps us learn about him. Strangely, the violence seems incidental--till we learn later on what really happened to Stilson as a result of this. By then, this concrete action of Ender's is more important for the strategy, for the ideas it belongs to. In the larger fight with the buggers, we see that he has been taught to believe he has no allies that no adults will get him out of troubling situations.
Ender's Game revolves around the lives of children and their contrasting relationships with the adults around them. It seems from the beginning that the adults are trying to manipulate the children, but that isn't always the case. Ender's brother and sister, Peter and Valentine, often reverse these roles and through their intelligence and own manipulative manners, seem to gain control over the adults. Ender, on the other hand, does not wish to exercise influence over anyone and is brutally manipulated by the adults, yet even they are aware of his superior intelligence. There really isn't much difference between the children and the adults in this novel. They are the same, if not more advanced in intelligence. Even with the deceit and manipulation, the commanders know that the children must be taken seriously. They are the ones who are capable of not only killing, manipulating and hating, but also of creating and helping.
Works Cited
Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC. 1991
New Webster's Dictionary: Expanded Edition. Weston, FL: Paradise Press, Inc. 2003
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