Comparing Ender's Game and Fahrenheit 451

Ender's Game and Fahrenheit 451

The novels Ender's Game and Fahrenheit 451 take place in the future; the futures that the authors' have created are troubled and the world is approaching a disastrous end. Initially, Colonel Graff invites Ender to Battle School and tells him how important it is that he participates in the war. " 'The buggers may seem like a game to you now, Ender, but they damn near wiped us out last time. They had us cold, outnumbered and outweaponed. The only thing that saved us was that we had the most brilliant military commander we ever found. Call it fate, call it God, call it damnfool luck, we had Mazer Rackham.' " (p. 25) The future seems dark because the humans are trailing in bugger war. If the military could get another commander like Mazer Rackham, then the future would be brighter; Ender Wiggins trains to be the next Mazer Rackham. In Fahrenheit 451, people wanting to be entertained all the time causes the future to be mind numbing, bleak, and burnt. "The sun burnt every day. It burnt Time. The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis and time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt things with the firemen and the sun burnt Time, that meant that everything burnt!" (p. 141)

The futuristic setting is the author's way of saying that the future will be depressing if humans fail to recognize and appreciate literature. The world is doomed because all these people want to do is sit in front of wall televisions and be entertained. Another example, Ender and Peter play buggers and astronauts, which simulates the real war that is taking place. "When kids played in the corridors, whole troops of them, the buggers never won, and sometimes the games got mean." (p. 11) When Peter and Ender simulate the war, they are telling the reader that even children are aware of the terrible war. The author shows his message of a terrible future here through the everyday activities of children being affected by the events that are far from home. Lastly, Montag's wife tries to kill herself by taking an entire bottle of sleeping pills and some emergency workers come; they just go about their business like her suicidal tendencies are nothing.