Ender’s Game: A Simulation to Justify All Means
Ender’s Game: A Simulation to Justify All Means
Ender's Game is author Orson Scott Card's best-known work. The novel has sold over one million copies and is published worldwide (Whyte). The novel won the Hugo and Nebula award in 1986; science fiction’s most prestigious writing awards (University of Utah). In summary, the plot of the novel is a story about a young child, Ender Wiggin, taken away from his family by the International Fleet (a world order devoted to protecting the planet from space invaders) in order to train him to be a military genius to defend the human race from an alien species (Buggers) that has already attacked Earth twice. At the end of the novel Ender kills the entire bugger race but does not know it until after the defeat because he believes he is participating in a simulation (Card 296). Since its first publication in 1985 the book has been considered a science fiction classic (Kessel 1). Card, who has a master's degree in literature from the University of Utah, has continued to write at a rapid pace producing five other parts to the Ender series in addition to creating several new series, short stories, and a handful of other novels (Whyte). The sequel to Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, won the Hugo and Nebula awards in 1987. (Whyte). In considering the novel’s prestige and circulation, an academic discussion should be taken seriously in uncovering and drawing out ideologies within the novel. It is important to compare and contrast these ideologies back to our current culture’s ideologies; because through this analysis a synthesis will develop in understanding if this novel reinforces our culture’s current ideologies or challenges them or both. Lastly the discussion will be able highlight why this does or does not matter when considering positive and negative outcomes of either reinforcing culture or defying it.
The content and storyline within the novel is driven by the ideology and concept of child soldiers. In today’s culture
Ender's Game is author Orson Scott Card's best-known work. The novel has sold over one million copies and is published worldwide (Whyte). The novel won the Hugo and Nebula award in 1986; science fiction’s most prestigious writing awards (University of Utah). In summary, the plot of the novel is a story about a young child, Ender Wiggin, taken away from his family by the International Fleet (a world order devoted to protecting the planet from space invaders) in order to train him to be a military genius to defend the human race from an alien species (Buggers) that has already attacked Earth twice. At the end of the novel Ender kills the entire bugger race but does not know it until after the defeat because he believes he is participating in a simulation (Card 296). Since its first publication in 1985 the book has been considered a science fiction classic (Kessel 1). Card, who has a master's degree in literature from the University of Utah, has continued to write at a rapid pace producing five other parts to the Ender series in addition to creating several new series, short stories, and a handful of other novels (Whyte). The sequel to Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, won the Hugo and Nebula awards in 1987. (Whyte). In considering the novel’s prestige and circulation, an academic discussion should be taken seriously in uncovering and drawing out ideologies within the novel. It is important to compare and contrast these ideologies back to our current culture’s ideologies; because through this analysis a synthesis will develop in understanding if this novel reinforces our culture’s current ideologies or challenges them or both. Lastly the discussion will be able highlight why this does or does not matter when considering positive and negative outcomes of either reinforcing culture or defying it.
The content and storyline within the novel is driven by the ideology and concept of child soldiers. In today’s culture
Cited: Althusser, Louis. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation). La Pensée, France: Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays Monthly Review Press, 1971. Print. Baudrillard, Laura. Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Print. Blackmore, Tim. Ender 's Beginning: Battling the Military in Orson Scott Card 's Ender 's Game. Detroit, MI: Extrapolation 32.2 Summer 1991: p124-142. Print Card, Orson. Ender’s Game. 1985. New York, NY: Tom Doherty Associations, LLC, 1991. Print. Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. 1977. New York, NY: Zone, 1994. Print. Kessel, John. Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender’s Game, Intention and Morality. Essex, UK: Foundation, the International Review of Science Fiction, Vol. 33 Number 90 Spring 2004. Print. "Orson Scott Card." College of Humanities. The University of Utah, n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2013. United States. Cong. Senate. Anti-terrorism Act, S.C. 2001, c 41. 107TH Congress 1st Session. Washington: GPO, 2001. Print. Whyte, Nicholas. "Ender 's Game by Orson Scott Card." Ender 's Game. N.p., 27 Dec. 2001. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.