Analysis of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game

The buggers from Orson Scott Cards Enders game and subsequent novels, at first appear to be bug eyed monsters, a science fiction cliché. However as the story develops it becomes apparent that the buggers are much more than just a cliché, they develop as a sentient species, they undergo a transformation from varelse, “the true alien” (speaker 34) into raman “the stranger that we recognise as human but of another species”. (34) As this transformation occurs Ender learns a great deal from the buggers, in this manner card illustrates that there is much one can learn from the transformation of varelse to raman.

The first reference to the buggers is when Graff says that “If the buggers get him, they’ll make me look like his favourite uncle” (Game 1) an irony that serves to remind us that even as Graff tortures Ender emotionally, no matter what pain ender is enduring, it is believed to be the lesser of two evils. In this case the lesser of two evils seems to be quite evil, and Graff knows it, in response to being called a monster Graff replies “Thanks. Does this mean I get a raise” (28), showing that Graff knows that the ability to be cruel is considered an asset among the military. Even though “in Enders case, both the pain and injustice are sever” (Blackmore 125) the readers mind is called back to the accepted view that the buggers are worse especial during the first reading.

The earth at the time of the Xenocide (the term card places on the apparent eradication of the buggers in speaker for the dead) is defined by a fear of the Buggers. The I.F. is the military complex charged with defending earths human populous against the buggers and as such they are the ones “wearing the only military uniform that meant anything anymore” (game ...

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...ring the hive queen as a raman is how ender discovers who he is, and since “we are the enders of today” (game xxi) then it logically follows that by accepting the buggers as raman, as fictional as they may be, people can learn allot about who they are on the deepest of levels.

Works cited

Blackmore, Tim.”Enders beginning.” Extrapolation: a journal of science fiction and fantasy 32.2 (1992): 124-42.

Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game. NY: Tom Doherty Associates, 1994.

---. Speaker for the Dead. NY: Tom Doherty Associates, 1994.

Wheat, David L. Jr. “the alien enemy within.” The new York review of science fiction 19.1

(2006)

Works consulted

Morgan, Carl. “the language of science fiction.” Extrapolation: a journal of science fiction and

fantasy (1993)

Hantke, Steffen. “Surgical strikes and prosthetic Warriors.” Science fiction studies 25.3 (1998):

` 495-509