Navigation
•
Home
•
Members
•
Papers
•
Forums
•
Search
•
Signup
•
Links
•
Contact Us
•
About
Top 10
Popular Essays
Rated Essays
Newest Essays
Report
Print
Add to Favorites
Report
Messages
Rate
Similar Reports
Help
Enders game--enders empathic a (Click to select text)
Ender's Empathic Abilities Orson Scott Card's work of science fiction, Ender's Game, is the exciting and poignant tale of a genius, Ender Wiggin, whom the Government takes from home at an early age to mold into a military commander. From his turbulent childhood, to his days at the physically and psychologically taxing Battle School, to his conquest of the buggers and ultimate colonization of their world, the most essential and useful aspect of Ender's prodigious genius is his incredible empathic ability. From the portrayal of his early childhood in the novel's first chapters, it seems that Ender developed this empathic ability as both a physical and psychological defense against the many truculent characters in his life, such as his enemy in school, Stilson, and his older brother, Peter. The usefulness and necessity of Ender's empathy manifest themselves again at the battle school, where it helps Ender immeasurably to defeat his enemies, both in and out of the game room. Lastly, towards the novel's end, Ender's empathy takes on a much more universal significance when it first allows him to win the war for humanity against the buggers, and then at last is put to a more peaceful use, when Ender becomes a "speaker for the dead". From the very beginning of the novel, Ender's extraordinary empathic abilities are quite conspicuous. The first time the reader encounters Ender, in fact, he is making a very perspicacious observation about the way adults lie to children. A woman in charge of the maintenance of a monitor attached since birth to the back of Ender's head had told him that it was at last time for the monitor to come off, and that "it won't hurt a bit." Ender's response is a clear reflection of his empathic abilities. He ruminates, "It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn't hurt a bit. But since adults always said it when it was going to hurt, he could count on that statement as an accurate prediction of the future. Sometimes lies were more dependable than truth." Ender, here, has not only essentially read the mind of the monitor lady, but has also demonstrated his personal knowledge of a universal habit of adults' lying to children about certain things, such as pain. A short while later in the novel, still before he departs for battle school, Ender demonstrates even more dramatically the expediency of his empathic ability. The very day his monitor is removed, Ender is attacked by the leader of a gang in his school, Stilson. Ender manages to kick Stilson so that he falls down, and appears to be unconscious. Ender comes to the resolution that the only way to make sure that he never is picked on again is to scare Stilson and his gang so much that they never dare touch him. Ender's words and actions, in the following scene, are all calculated to make his point quite clear, "So Ender walked to Stilson's supine body and kicked him again…Then Ender looked at the others coldly. 'You might having some idea of ganging up on me. You could probably beat me up pretty bad. But just remember what I do to people who try to hurt me. From then on you'd be wondering when I'd get you, and how bad it would be.' He kicked Stilson in the face. Blood from his nose spattered the ground nearby. 'It wouldn't be this bad," Ender said. 'It would be worse'." Indeed, Ender's empathic abilities, in this case, prove themselves quite clearly, by the reaction of the other boys, which is just as Ender intended… "nobody followed him…He could hear the boys behind him saying, "Geez, Look at him, He's wasted." Perhaps even more than at home, Ender's employs his empathic abilities often and with great success at battle school. By the end of his stay, it has become clear that, of all his extraordinary abilities, his empathy is the most useful and necessary to his survival. One of the most obvious and significant reflections of Ender's empathy in battle school comes in his fight with Bonzo in the shower. Bonzo, a Spanish boy of modest ability compared to Ender, had had a vicious vendetta against Ender for a long time, in large part because of jealousy. Eventually, Bonzo and a group of his friends who shared his jealousy corner Ender in the shower room, and Bonzo challenges him to a fight. Although Bonzo is older, bigger, and stronger than he, Ender is able to defeat him in the fight because he predicts Bonzo's every move, and knows what Bonzo is thinking almost before Bonzo does. This is reflected, for example, in the following scene, when Bonzo has Ender in a hold, "The classic move at this moment would be to bring up his heel into Bonzo's crotch. But for that move to be effective required too much accuracy, and Bonzo expected it. He was already rising onto his toes, thrusting his hips backward to keep Ender from reaching his groin. Without seeing him, Ender knew it would bring his face closer, almost in Ender's hair; so instead of kicking, he lunged upward off the floor, with the powerful lunge of the soldier bounding from the wall, and jammed his head into Bonzo's face." Ender goes on to defeat Bonzo, in large part because his empathic ability allowed him to always be one step ahead, again proving how integral it was to his life. Yet another place where Ender's empathic abilities are a large factor in his success are in his attack on the buggers, and subsequent leading of a colonization of one of their empty planets. Ender, all the while believing his teachers that it is only a simulation, attacks and destroys the buggers' planet (and thus their queen, and thus all the buggers themselves), by hitting it with a "Dr. Device". Once again, Ender's empathic abilities were a large factor in his victory. Graff explains to him afterwards, "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." Certainly, Graff and his colleagues seem to have made a very wise choice in Ender as a commander, to a great extent because of his empathic abilities. Given that Ender had, from a very young age, almost invariably been forced to utilize his empathy in hostile situations (e.g. his fights with Stilson and Bonzo), it is really no surprise that he was able to use it so effectively in combat situations later in life. Until the end of the novel, then, it unfortunately seems that would only have the chance to apply his empathic gift to winning fights, be they against a petty childhood bully, or a race of misunderstood aliens. However, in by far the most fulfilling part of the novel, Ender at last gets the chance to use his empathic abilities in a pleasant and peaceful way at the very end. In a dramatic scene where his abilities transcend empathy, and become almost psychic, Ender comes to a place set up for him by the buggers, just before their annihilation. There, Ender is presented with an egg of a bugger queen, and sees things through the perspective of the buggers. He explains, "They found me through the ansible, followed it and dwelt in my mind. In the agony of my tortured dreams they came to know me, even as I spent my days destroying them…In the few they had, they built this place for me…I am the only one they know, and so they can only talk to me…We are like you…we did not mean to murder, and when we understood, we never came again…He [Ender] reached into the cavity and took out the cocoon. It was astonishingly light, to hold all the hope and future of a great race within it." Indeed, after telling the reader about Ender's writing a book telling things from the perspective of the buggers, which was read widely and exalted almost as holy scripture back on earth, Card leaves a bright message that Ender's empathic abilities would continue to be put to peaceful use in the future, "So they boarded a starship and went from world to world. Wherever they stopped, he was always Andrew Wiggin, itinerant speaker for the dead…And always Ender carried with him a dry white cocoon, looking for the world where the hive-queen could awaken and thrive in peace. He looked a long time." By concluding the novel in this fashion, possibly, Card is relating to the reader that, even though it is often harder to put your gift to good use than to bad (…'he looked a long time'), it is important at least to strive for goodness, and never think that, just because you have used your gift in a destructive manner in the past, you cannot change.
Recent Board Topics
Please drop by and sign up.
[
Submit Essay
] - [
Privacy
] - [
Disclaimer
] - [
Email Us
]
Copyright 2003 EssayFarm.com