Keola's Teach This 2

Teaching Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (1985)

            Ender’s Game is a well-crafted story set in the future about six-year-old Andrew Wiggin (Ender) who is selected for Battle School where he will spend the next few years of his life becoming a young commander through playing video games and a form of laser tag. Most of the plot entails battle training of young boys for the preparation of the Third Invasion where humanity will battle an alien species – the Buggers – in a second response to their initial invasion of Earth. Precipitously, Ender is promoted to the final commander school on Eros, and the video game becomes a bit different simulating battles directed from the safety of his control panel. Through all of these “simulated” battles, however, believing it was still a game, Ender commits genocide of the Buggers by the time he is eleven.

            This science fiction novel is a thorough examination into soldier training, a commentary on political strategy, and an analysis of the personal growth and development of young boys. As with The Hunger Games (Collins 2008) series, in using the recruitment of such young individuals in the future, Card shocks his reader into examining the psychological manipulation of soldier training and the political motivations for power, war, fear, and hatred. Bucher and Hinton claim, “As readers begin to consider the future of the world presented in the novel they are reading, they also begin to consider the world they live in” (Bucher & Hinton, 190). Ender’s Game invites its readers to examine the human and political motivations behind power, war, and violence so prevalent in today’s society. Although Ender’s Game ties itself to certain historical political events, the themes and issues raised by Card are as important and relevant today as they were decades ago. Ender’s Game is well-written and would succeed in grabbing the attention and interest in young adults, and it is rich enough for several middle-school classroom discussions on text complexity and for examination of human nature and society.

            In one lesson plan, I would address certain peripheral but important issues with the text. The gender and race issues, as well as the historical context, are all worth discussing in the analysis of the text and crucial in teaching students how to start thinking critically about these ideas. I would begin my lesson plan by addressing these issues in lecture format, with maybe a quiz or short essay due for learning assessment. Historical context: This is a post-WWII text situated during the Cold War: the political backdrop on Earth in the novel is the Russian Warsaw Pact and the Hegemony as an alliance between America and other unnamed “Western” countries. This is informative, not central to the ideas of the text, but could be paired with a lesson plan in a history class on mid-twentieth century American politics. Race: The race issues in the text are with the names of the other important boy characters in the Battle School. The best example is when the commander of Rat Army introduces himself to Ender: “I Rose de Nose, Jewboy extraordinaire” (99) The narrator explains the importance of this character’s Jewish identity:

Since the I.F. was formed, the Strategos of the military forces had always been a Jew. There was a myth that Jewish generals didn’t lose wars. And so far it was still true. It made any Jew in the Battle School dream of being Strategos, and conferred prestige on him from the start. It also caused resentment. Rat Army was often called the Kike Force, half in praise, half in parody of Mazer Rackham’s Strike Force. There were many who liked to remember that during the Second Invasion, even though an American Jew, as President, was Hegemon of the alliance, an Israeli Jew was Strategos in overall command of I.F. defense, and a Russian Jew was Polemarch of the fleet, it was Mazer Rackham, a little-known, twice-court-martialled [sic], half-Maori, New Zealander whose Strike Force broke up and finally destroyed the Bugger fleet in the action around Saturn (99-100).

There is a lot going on with this excerpt and Jewish identity. This passage presents a good example of derogatory racial slurs—kike—and also it raises questions around how a narrative and the text treat the issue of race identity. For example, just looking at the slur “kike” we question how this text suggests that the nickname for the Army comes with “half-praise” and “half parody”: the use as nickname for Rat Army is praise-worthy, but is it? Is it kin to when blacks use the word “nigger” or “nigga”? Is this really a reclamation of a racial slur? Or is this use of “kike” still loaded with latent racism? Also, what is this passage saying about Jewish pride? Finally, is the narration subtly racist? Gender: There is a lack of female characters in this novel, but the two foremost (the only two besides Ender’s mom) are really good characters. However, each of the female characters has a scene where a boy treats them in a misogynistic way – condescending, stereotyping, and one girl gets slapped. These are important gender issues to examine in the classroom. Also, we find out at the end of the novel that the Buggers are organized much like a hive with a Queen Bee and her subordinates. Finally, Major Anderson, this character is male in the novel but female in the movie Ender’s Game (2013). This is one of several little details the movie changed, and certainly the movie itself is a great way to bring a visual and multi-media chapter to a lesson plan on this novel. Historical context, race, and gender issues are all very important questions for valuable classroom discussion for middle-school students to start examining these issues in literature and in society.

            A more central theme of Ender’s Game, and certainly relevant to today’s society and youth, is the video games and how they are situated in reality. Are video games simply an escape from reality? Ender uses one of his games as an escape from the Battle School. The Giant game is set up as an open-world, puzzle RPG game, so common and popular in today’s society, but interestingly enough not prevalent in the early 80s when this novel was written. Later in Command School, Ender plays a battle simulation game, which we find out is not a game but reality. Battle games were introduced in the early 80s – Centipede and Galactica – but certainly not as complex as the ones today – Destiny – whose youth plays them almost exactly like the battle simulation game Ender plays, which by-the-way is not named. To Ender it’s just a game.  It’s just another game. Today’s youth can get online and play Destiny with their friends who are physically located elsewhere, just as Ender did when he puts on the headphones and all his friends from Battle School are there in the game with him. This gaming aspect truly starts to blur the line between fiction and reality when the other characters in the game are real life people you know. It would be a fun and relevant activity to have students present these different MMO – Massively Multiplayer Online – games to the class as a presentation/project where they would provide descriptions, visual aids, and possibly a demonstration in the classroom. They would need to discuss why this game is important to them, and what they believe they get out of it. Also, I would ask them to honestly disclose how much time they actually spend on this game and question its effect on their reality.  If they’re not allowed to play video games, an alternative would be for them to create visual details of the game Ender plays and name it. Another alternative would be to do a report on the cutting edge technology in video game playing, specifically simulations. These would certainly be good alternatives to the traditional book report and also generate deep association with Ender’s video game playing.

Finally, as a lesson plan on critical analysis of text – for which Ender’s Game presents plenty of material – I would examine the complexity of Ender as character. There is so much material in the text, but for this Teach This essay I’ll just look at one aspect: his violence. In the introductory scene we see Ender bullied by an older and bigger boy Stilson. He knew a confrontation was coming because he just lost his monitor implant; now he was all alone and vulnerable. He also knows that he must win this fight to the point that he will not have to fight again: he must prove himself. He takes Stilson by surprise with a kick to the chest that throws him on the ground. At this point Ender thinks to himself:

I have to win this now, and for all time, or I’ll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse. 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 and animal would do that. So Ender walked to Stilson’s supine body and kicked him again, viciously in the ribs. […] Ender walked around him and kicked him again in the crotch. […] He kicked Stilson in the face. He turned and walked away. […] Ender leaned 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. (7-8)

Peter is Ender’s monster of an older brother full of hate and violence. Ender struggles with this part of his personality. Ender, unlike the reader, does not find out that he kills Stilson in this fight. Later, he repeats this fight with another boy from the Battle School, whom he also kills. And in the end, even though he does not yet know he killed those two boys, when he fights the Buggers and kills them all (again not knowing he is doing this) he goes through the same psychological torment of how to succeed and how he hates himself for winning the fight. This thread through the plot of Ender’s childhood points to the internal struggles with his identity as a male and as a soldier. Furthermore, this examination of violence is pertinent to a discussion on warfare and humanity that this book raises within itself and also points towards society and humanity in real life. After lecturing on this theme and character analysis, I would suggest having students write about what bullying means to them (as perpetrator or victim). This reflective assignment could be beneficial for students to examine their own anger, and reading their assignments could help teachers understand more about each of their students and what goes on outside of the classroom or at home. Or, as an alternative, I would give them the option to write about warfare in our society in a topic they choose to research to objectify this experience.

            Ender’s Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both are winners of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award. Both present a complex story, with complex characters that examine some difficult issues regarding warfare and genocide that have always been a part of humanity. These novels are excellently written for adolescents and adults, and they lend themselves to critical analysis on various levels. Even though they are a little dated, I still believe that they are important novels to keep in discussion in the classroom, and for this reason I would not hesitate to teach either Ender’s Game or Speaker for the Dead.

Works Cited and References

Bucher, K. & Hinton, K. Young Adult Literature: Exploration Evaluation, and Appreciation. 3^rd Edition. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game. New York: Tor, 1991. Print.

Card, Orson Scott. Speaker for the Dead. New York: Tor, 1991. Print.

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Press, 2008. Print.