“There is no teacher but the enemy.” Mazer Rackham, a character in Orson Scott Card’s novel, Ender’s Game, teaches this lesson to the main character of the story, Andrew (Ender) Wiggin. His statement has a prominent significance to the theme of the novel and it can be applied to several vexatious situations throughout Ender’s life. In Ender’s Game, Ender has several adversaries that he learns from, and each one teaches him something new. One of these enemies was his own brother, Peter Wiggin. As children, Peter tormented Ender in their home, but Ender never allowed his anguish to be notable to their parents. During one of the first nights Ender spends in Battle School, Ender longs for his old home, but unlike the other boys, Ender is able
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For dry eyes and silent weeping. You taught me how to hide anything I felt” (Card 45). If not for Peter’s mistreatment of Ender, Ender would have sobbed loudly that night and shown weakness just like the rest of his launch group had done. A second antagonist in Ender’s Game is Stilson. Stilson mocks Ender for being a Third, especially a Third who lost his monitor: “Hey, Third, hey, turd, you flunked out, huh? Thought you were better than us, but you lost your little birdie, Thirdie, got a bandaid on your neck” (Card 6). Ender learns quickly during a fight with Stilson that in order to truly defeat an opponent, one must win that battle plus all of the battles that may follow. We know that Ender understands this because when Colonel Hyrum Graff asked Ender to “tell [him] why [he] kept on kicking him. [He] had already won”, Ender answered by saying: “Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win …show more content…
His monologue sends a straightforward message to Card’s audience: “Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what he can do to you” (Card 263). People learn as they read Ender’s Game that as a result of having enemies they become wiser: every enemy reveals a new shortcoming that they may have never noticed about him or herself. After the readers realize this, they may begin to change their outlook on having enemies: rather than despising their rivals and the hardships that they are put through because of them, they will appreciate what lessons they will take from the confrontation and possibly even pursue teaching the other something
For dry eyes and silent weeping. You taught me how to hide anything I felt” (Card 45). If not for Peter’s mistreatment of Ender, Ender would have sobbed loudly that night and shown weakness just like the rest of his launch group had done. A second antagonist in Ender’s Game is Stilson. Stilson mocks Ender for being a Third, especially a Third who lost his monitor: “Hey, Third, hey, turd, you flunked out, huh? Thought you were better than us, but you lost your little birdie, Thirdie, got a bandaid on your neck” (Card 6). Ender learns quickly during a fight with Stilson that in order to truly defeat an opponent, one must win that battle plus all of the battles that may follow. We know that Ender understands this because when Colonel Hyrum Graff asked Ender to “tell [him] why [he] kept on kicking him. [He] had already won”, Ender answered by saying: “Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win …show more content…
His monologue sends a straightforward message to Card’s audience: “Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what he can do to you” (Card 263). People learn as they read Ender’s Game that as a result of having enemies they become wiser: every enemy reveals a new shortcoming that they may have never noticed about him or herself. After the readers realize this, they may begin to change their outlook on having enemies: rather than despising their rivals and the hardships that they are put through because of them, they will appreciate what lessons they will take from the confrontation and possibly even pursue teaching the other something