Ender's Game

“Andrew could not remember how to speak.”

Ender doesn’t like his full name, Andrew. After the nurse asks “Andrew” if he’s okay, the narrator responds with this unspoken line, demonstrating the protagonist’s confusion through this response. This line also establishes a rare third-person omniscient perspective in which the narrator expresses the characters’ feeling as though he is the character, rather than simply knowing about it.

“Ender leaned his head against the wall of the corridor and cried until the bus came. I am just like Peter. Take the monitor away, and I am just like Peter.”

Though Ender hates everything Peter represents, Ender starts recognizing similarities between him and his brother early in the story. The monitor is extremely invasive, but it offered him security against bullies, and without a supervisor’s protection Ender becomes a target. Ender finds that when bullies force him to fight, he responds just like Peter: mercilessly.

“Ender hadn’t cracked the teachers’ security system yet, so he couldn’t pretend to be a teacher. But he was able to set up a file for a nonexistent student, whom he whimsically named God.”

In a rare humorous moment, this passage ties Ender’s sense of humor to his intelligence. Card juxtaposes dry narrative humor and the word “whimsically” to create irony. Though it is meant to be humorous, Ender is manipulating someone’s future by adjusting everyone’s perspective, which reveals the intention to not be very whimsical underneath the playful surface.