Thematic Elements In Ender's Game

Superior Essays
In Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card uses the idea of “games” and what an actual “game” is as thematic elements to help construct the novel. There are many games in the novel, all with different meanings pertaining to the main character, Ender Wiggin, a child genius that wins all the games. Ender’s Game is a novel that tells us the story of military genius Ender Wiggin and his journey through battle school and command school to prepare for the big war against the buggers. Majority of the plot takes place at battle school which consist of different games such as the fantasy game, the game room (which resembles an arcade), and the battle room, where war games are played in zero gravity. While at school Ender faces many challenges with the other …show more content…
These games are called war games that take place in the battle rooms at the battle school. The main purpose of the war games played in the battle room were to prepare the boy for battle in space, so the rooms had zero-gravity. The battle room is the main area of the novel, and its where the audience really gets to see ender grow and mature the most. Ender goes from being scared of the battle room and not being able to control his movements to being able to shoot straight, move his body around correctly, and begins to command other soldiers toward success. One thing that Ender learns from being in the battle room, so much is that he has complete control of himself and what goes on while being inside of the battle room. After discovering this Ender begins to look at the battle rooms from another perspective and begins to see it as a prison because he feels that this is just a part of him being manipulated by his teachers. At this point Ender questions his purpose for training and if the games are even real. During a conversation with one of Enders peers Ender states, “It’s important that you know that, Bean because most boys in the 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.”

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