essay themes for enders game

Ender's Game

77 pages • 2 hours read

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-15

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Peter and Valentine Wiggin adopt online political personas—respectively, Locke and Demosthenes, who are based on historical figures. How do Locke and Demosthenes’s real-life counterparts compare and contrast with their views as described in the novel?

Ender’s Game was a major influence on the Science Fiction genre in its themes and tropes. What influences permeate the genre? Describe how these elements contribute to the genre’s purpose.

Peter and Valentine were close to taking on Ender’s role in Battle School. Using knowledge of their respective personalities and leadership styles, describe how Peter and/or Valentine would have handled Battle School differently from Ender.

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Ender's Game: Important Themes and Motifs

• Haley Drucker
• Categories : Literature study guides and chapter summaries
• Tags : Homework help & study guides

Shades of Grey

Ender’s Game is not a message book, meant first and foremost to portray a particular theme. It is instead a plot-driven novel, focusing on story and characterization. At the same time, however, Orson Scott Card has woven many different themes and motifs through the novel, never preaching but instead asking us to think carefully about the choices made by various characters. Instead of making it obvious who is right and who is wrong, Ender’s Game is a novel with shades of grey, that gives subtle treatment to deep and important concepts. It is impossible to discuss every theme in the novel in one article. Instead, this article describes and discusses some of the most central concepts, those the story returns to again and again.

Note: This discussion draws examples from all parts of the novel, and so contains spoilers for those who haven’t read the book.

Children and Adults

There are not many teenagers in Ender’s world. Instead, there is a sharp distinction drawn between children and adults, who are often set at odds. Adults attempt to manipulate and control children, who they often see as tools they can use to win their own battles. Children, or at least the smart ones, mistrust adults and often see them as the enemy, and are portrayed in many ways as more intelligent and compassionate. Children are also shown having a very real impact on the world: one such example is Valentine and Peter’s manipulation of world events in the middle of the novel.

At the same time, there are adults in the novel who are compassionate and intelligent (such as Graff) and children who are brutal and manipulative (Stilson, Bonzo, Peter), and each group has strong influences on the other. Though many children in the novel, especially Ender, have a tendency to see adults as the enemy, in the end it seems Card is telling us there are really very few differences between children and adults. Children are smaller, but are just as intelligent in their own ways and must be taken seriously because of the influence they can have on the world.

Games and Reality

As is apparent from the novel’s title, Ender’s Game includes many types of games. When Ender is a young child he is often forced to play “buggers and astronauts” with his brother Peter, a game that seems harmless and childish but is really a way for Peter to terrorize and exert influence over Ender. In Battle School life revolves around two games: the fantasy game and the mock combats fought in the battle room. There are also video games of various types in Battle School. When Ender reaches Command School his life is again oriented around a game, this time a space battle simulation that is more real than Ender knows.

When we think of games, we often think of harmless pastimes that don’t mean much. Yet, Ender’s Game suggests we should take games more seriously. Every game in the novel has real-world ramifications, testing and revealing things about its players psychologically, physically, and socially. Games are used as a way to work through and prepare for real-world problems, and are taken just as seriously as reality. In Ender’s final series of games, it becomes clear that the line between games and reality is not always clear, and what we think is only a game can actually be much more.

Good and Evil, Friends and Enemies

There are few if any true ‘good guys’ or ‘bad guys’ in Ender’s Game , nor is it always clear who is a friend and who is an enemy. Peter is set up as Ender’s enemy for much of the novel, but we quickly see there is more to Peter than his ruthlessness. The Buggers are of course the novel’s main enemy, but by the end are revealed to be more complex than the typical ‘bad guy’: in fact, it’s not certain they were ever truly enemies. And it is just as difficult to tell who your friends are in this world. We know, for example, that Graff is in many ways Ender’s truest friend, but Ender does not see the Colonel this way. Ender makes several friends throughout his stay in Battle School, but is never really sure who he can trust and is always alienated from those he wishes to be closest to (especially Valentine).

The clearest representation of this fuzzy line between good and evil, friend and foe is in Ender’s relationships with his siblings. At first, they are set up as polar opposites, with Valentine as all good and Peter as all bad. But Ender embodies aspects of both, and throughout his journey finds Peter’s determination and ruthlessness as valuable as Valentine’s compassion and calm. What Card appears to be telling us here is simply that such distinctions are not easily made. Though in many stories good is clearly different from evil, in the real world this is not always the case. Ender’s task is not only to separate the good parts of his world from the bad parts, but to reconcile the two and realize how they work together and are often found in the same person. In the end, he realizes that he is both his greatest friend and his worst enemy.

The Ends and the Means

There are many ethical considerations in this novel, and several deal with the concepts of ruthlessness and power. Card asks us if the ends justify the means: is it alright to do anything, even kill and destroy others, to reach a worthy goal? Ender at times commits violent acts, killing a fellow child at least twice. He feels guilt over his actions, but because they were done in self defense he eventually decides they were necessary. He is never fully at peace with himself, though, and must deal with the consequences of what he has done.

Ender faces the same dilemma again with the Buggers. If an alien race is possibly trying to destroy your world, is it justified to destroy them first? In many ways the adults who created Battle School have made this decision for Ender, believing that as long as humanity survives anything they do is all right. But this is never so easy for Ender to accept, and the end of the novel deals with his guilt and eventual acceptance of his role in the genocide. Card himself makes no judgments; he only asks us to consider just how far this kind of justification can be taken. It is up to us to decide if the ends in the novel—self preservation, saving the human race—justified the means taken to achieve them.

This post is part of the series: Study Guides for Ender’s Game

Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, is a psychological science fiction novel used in classrooms to illustrate a variety of themes and concepts. The series presents guides to help high school students in understanding the novel’s main themes and characters.

• Studying Ender’s Game and the Hero’s Journey
• Studying Themes and Motifs in Ender’s Game

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Ender’s Game

Orson scott card.

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

It’s no surprise that Ender’s Game deals extensively with the theme of a leadership. Almost all of the characters are in the military, so their very existence depends upon leading and following orders.

Early on, Card makes it clear that leadership can only be gained over time. When Ender arrives at Battle School, he has a hard time gaining his peers’ attention, let alone their loyalty—on the contrary, he’s bullied for his youth and because Colonel Hyrum Graff singles him out. It’s only over the course of the coming months, when Ender figures out who to befriend and how to undermine those who stand in his way, that he starts to gain respect.

It takes Ender years of study and practice before he’s fully ready to be a leader; that is, to command an army of his own. This implies another important thesis about leadership: leadership is a balance between tyranny and anarchy. During his early days in Battle School, Ender is traded from army to army, where he observes many commanders and learns from their mistakes. On one side of the “leadership spectrum” is Bonzo Madrid , the brutal, tyrannical, rigid commander who beats any soldiers who disobey him—even when their disobedience wins a battle. On the other side of the spectrum is Rose , the lazy, undisciplined commander of the Rat Army, who can barely convince Ender to obey any orders at all. From Bonzo and Rose, Ender learns what to do and what not to do. By the time he’s commanding Dragon, Ender knows that he has to be strict but not too strict, and to allow his troops to be independent, but not too independent.

A further consequence of Ender’s lessons in leadership is that he becomes isolated from his troops, and even his former friends. Ender knows that he’s not strong enough to win a battle all by himself, so he needs to train his “toon” leaders to think for themselves. Furthermore, he needs to build loyalty between toon leaders and their own soldiers. For this reason, Ender is severe and strict when he commands his entire army—he lets toon leaders deliver good news, and refuses to commiserate with his soldiers, even when he feels like doing so. In this way, Ender creates a balanced, well-organized army, in which everyone respects and admires Ender, but not to the point where they can’t think for themselves or obey other leaders in the middle of battle. One sad result of this is that Ender becomes enormously lonely: to be the best leader possible, he has to cut himself off from his old friends.

Ender’s genius as a leader is that he’s not dogmatic in his thinking—he’s willing to change his strategies when he’s wrong, always valuing his soldiers for their good work. Even so, the tragedy of being a leader, and the ultimate tragedy of the book, is that leaders (unlike their subordinates) bear the full responsibility of the destruction they’ve caused. In his final battles with the Buggers, Ender takes up a punishing, sleepless schedule so that he can study and monitor his enemies at all times. As a result, every military decision he makes is his alone. Even after Graff and Rackham insist that they, not Ender, bear the real responsibility for exterminating the Buggers—Ender thought he was fighting computer simulations, after all—Ender can’t help but continue to blame himself. The best leaders—like Ender—know how to pass on praise to their troops, but in the end they also accept all responsibility, both good and bad, for their followers’ actions.

Leadership ThemeTracker

Leadership Quotes in Ender’s Game

“So what do we do? Surround him with enemies all the time?” “If we have to.” “I thought you said you liked this kid.” “If the Buggers get him, they’ll make me look like his favorite uncle.” “All right. We’re saving the world, after all. Take him.”

“I won’t lie now,” said Graff. “My job isn’t to be friends. My job is to produce the best soldiers in the world. In the whole history of the world. We need a Napoleon. An Alexander.”

“Listen, Wiggin, I don’t want you, I’m trying to get rid of you, but don’t give me any problems, or I’ll paste you to the wall.” A good commander, thought Ender, doesn’t have to make stupid threats.

“You disobeyed me,” Bonzo said. Loudly, for all to hear. “No good soldier ever disobeys.” Even as he cried from the pain, Ender could not help but take vengeful pleasure in the murmurs he heard rising through the barracks. You fool, Bonzo. You aren’t enforcing discipline, you’re destroying it. They know I turned defeat into a draw. And now they see how you repay me. You made yourself look stupid in front of everybody.

“When the Bugger wars are over, all that power will vanish, because it’s all built on fear of the Buggers. And suddenly we’ll look around and discover that all the old alliances are gone, dead and gone, except one, the Warsaw Pact. And it’ll be the dollar against five million lasers.”

That’s how they think of me, too. Teacher. Legendary soldier. Not one of them. Not someone that you embrace and whisper Salaam in his ear. That only lasted while Ender seemed a victim. Still seemed vulnerable. Now he was the master soldier, and he was completely, utterly alone.

Ender wanted to undo his taunting of the boy, wanted to tell the others that the little one needed their help and friendship more than anyone else. But of course Ender couldn’t do that. Not on the first day. On the first day even his mistakes had to look like part of a brilliant plan.

I made sure they all noticed you today. They’ll be watching every move you make. All you have to do to earn their respect now is be perfect.

“They need us, that’s why.” Bean sat down on the floor and stared at Ender’s feet. “Because they need somebody to beat the Buggers. That’s the only thing they care about.” “It’s important that you know that, Bean. Because most boys in this school think the game is important for itself—but it isn’t. It’s only important because it helps them find kids who might grow up to be real commanders, in the real war. But as for the game, screw that.”

Only then did it occur to William Bee that not only had Dragon Army ended the game, it was possible that, under the rules, they had won it. After all, no matter what happened, you were not certified as the winner unless you had enough unfrozen soldiers to touch the corners of the gate and pass someone through into the enemy’s corridor.

Forget it, Mazer. I don’t care if I pass your test, I don’t care if I follow your rules, if you can cheat, so can I. I won’t let you beat me unfairly—I’ll beat you unfairly first. In that final battle in Battle School, he had won by ignoring the enemy, ignoring his own losses; he had moved against the enemy’s gate. And the enemy’s gate was down.

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Ender's Game

By orson scott card, ender's game essay questions.

Does Ender have more of Valentine's personality or Peter's? What characteristics are more characteristic of Valentine or Peter? What are Ender's unique qualities?

Mazer suggests that one's best teacher is one's enemy. Who are the most effective teachers in the novel, and why?

How innocent or guilty are the buggers for killing innocent humans, presuming they did not know that the humans were intelligent beings rather than, say, bugs?

Put yourself in the position of world leader. Given what your civilization knows about the buggers and their invasions, what would you do? What information from the novel would lead to different courses of action? Which information did world leaders have when they decided to send a fleet towards the bugger worlds? Was there any opportunity for peace, or was a surprise attack the only realistic option?

Consider the abilities of the young children--most of all, Ender and his siblings, and Bean. Does the educational system of the future push children to meet their full potential--and does Card seem to indict today's educational system for making school too easy? Compare, for example, Plato's ideas for educating the most able children to become leaders in the Republic , and what you know about the Spartan educational system. Is it true, as Plato and others suggest, that in becoming a tool of society, one sacrifices one's personal goals?

Was it the right strategy for the adults to trick Ender into fighting the buggers?

Ender is a great leader, yet he is alone. What is it that makes a leader in some way inevitably unable to be a friend of his followers?

What do you think of Ender's observation that "Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth"?

As the bugger war ends, suppressed conflicts break out on Earth. In the novel, what is the unifying effect of having a common enemy?

In the beginning of the novel, Graff tells Ender, "Human beings are free except when humanity needs them." Do you think that Graff was right in his assessment of this aspect of the human condition? Can anyone become fully free of responsibility to humanity, even if he seems to have no skills that are of use? In what ways is Ender free?

Does anyone represent "good" or "evil" unambiguously in the novel? Are there any values that the novel suggests are universal, as suggested by a common value shared by the humans and the buggers?

Ender’s Game Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Ender’s Game is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

What does Ender mean when he says he wants to keep practicing with the Launchies because “From you I can learn what nobody knows”?

For Ender, some of the other students do seem to be the enemy. Some commanders suggest that Launchies who practice with Ender will be blackballed, and those who do practice with him get bullied. Ender is a unique boy who learns from the people he...

How does Ender inspire confidence and loyalty in the soldiers in his army?

Ender devises a whole new way to play the game. Instead of the same old uniformity and top down power structure, Ender gives Dragon team their own responsibilities. The team is split up into five toons that work independently yet are aware of each...

how does ender defeat Bonzo's army?

Study Guide for Ender’s Game

Ender's Game study guide contains a biography of Orson Scott Card, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Ender's Game
• Ender's Game Summary
• Character List

Essays for Ender’s Game

Ender's Game literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Ender's Game.

• Homophobia in Ender’s Game
• The Mark of Isolation in Adolescence
• Maturity in Ender's Game: A State of Mind, Not a Physical Quality
• How Manipulation Functions in Ender's Game
• Empathy for the Buggers: The Change in Ender Wiggins’ Morality

Lesson Plan for Ender’s Game

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Ender's Game
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Ender's Game Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Ender’s Game

• Introduction