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The Book Thief Theme Analysis

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The influence of Fear Imagine driving a car up on the mountains exceeding the speed limit without wearing the seat belt. Imagine for a moment how it would feel when death is a few meters away from you. How about your children who are waiting for you to take them home? Exactly, it is a mix of different feelings for losing the most precious things you have on earth. Children, parents, and family are those valuable parts in our lives that we always struggle to save them. The mix of feelings you will have is fear itself. Fear is the combination of different feelings that reminds you why you are living. When you are about to die and lose your children or parents, you will do your best just to stay alive. Imagine what you will do to stay alive …show more content…

Love and empathy has a great impact on Ender’s fear. “Maybe humanity needs me to find out what you are good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender, but if humankind survives then we were good tools,” Graff says (Scott Card, 35). Graff uses emotion to make Ender more empathetic toward humanity and their future, especially Valentine’s future, the one Ender adores, so that he will jeopardize his life for the sake of everyone he loves on earth. Graff gives a rise to Ender’s fear about his family so that he will get encouraged to save them all from the buggers, which is true. He could manipulate his mind to go with him to the battle school by telling him how serious and dangerous the situation is. So again, fear was the reason behind Ender’s decision. Valentine was a special case for Ender. “I was afraid that I would still love you,” Ender told Valentine (Scott Card, 237). Ender is telling Valentine that he would be in danger if he still loved her, but he is saying that he doesn’t have this feeling anymore that’s why he is back on earth, and he will no longer kill others to save those he loves on earth like Valentine. He says he doesn’t have the same feeling anymore because he is afraid of going back to the battle school and fight them. So, from that we conclude Valentine was a reason why Ender went to the battle school and decided to destroy an entire species to save her. His fear of losing her made him go back to the battle school again and defeat the buggers to protect

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Before they even reach the school, Ender is forced to break the arm of Bernard, one of his tormentors.   At every turn Ender faces hostility, scorn, and even physical assault. The result is an escalating series of challenges and violent responses by Ender.” . Sympathy is defined by Oxford Dictionary as feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune. Card displaying the great deal of misfortune that Ender faces throughout the book almost guarantees the reader will feel some sense of sorrow for him.

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961 Words | 4 Pages

Ender and Valentine are at his cabin talking about whether or not Ender should save humanity. Valentine simply tells Ender, “If you don’t try and we lose, then it’s all your fault. You killed us all” (282). With pressure on Ender to protect Earth from the buggers coming from all directions the last person he wanted to hear that from was Valentine. Her words provided Ender help in making a decision, but also put him in the position to access more power because of the role he is about to take on.

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802 Words | 4 Pages

Card works hard to generate copious amounts of pity and empathy for Ender throughout the beginning of the book, and then proceeds to reveal what Ender has actually been doing throughout the story. That’s okay though, because Ender is actually innocent and the victim. The entire plot consists of Ender is unknowingly committing murder, abuse, and

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402 Words | 2 Pages

Both characters were influenced to change their values; to kill others in order to protect themselves and survive. In Ender’s case, he had killed Stilson and Bonzo just as Katniss had done to the other tributes during the Games. Each had killed to protect

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612 Words | 3 Pages

In Orson Scott Card’s book Ender’s Game, Ender is continually set up against impossible odds by the International Fleet, which is part of a plan to train Ender to fight in the Third Invasion and end the bugger wars forever. Ender’s trials are portrayed more convincingly in the book, as the book shows him struggling with the expectations placed upon him more so than in the movie. An important theme in Ender’s Game is that Ender is continually kept in the dark about the events happening around him. This theme is prevalent throughout the book, and sets the stage for the book’s climax, the Third Invasion.

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999 Words | 4 Pages

During Ender's conversation with Alai, right after he got past the giant in the mind game, Card states "Ender was so angry at the unfairness of the transfer that tears were coming to his eyes" (69). Card clearly displays a culture where if someone is ordered to do something they have to do it even if they don't like it. Just when Ender starts getting everything under control and making friends he is transferred to a new "life". He doesn't want to do it but he has to and it makes him angry and sad because he can't-do anything about it. After Ender's conversation with Mick about being the outcast in the group, the author states "He could feel his family...

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831 Words | 4 Pages

On Earth there was a bully named, Stilson. Ender found himself getting physically abused by him daily and when he finally got his opportunity, he made sure he was never bullied again. In battle school, there was a commander named, Bonzo that threatened to kill him; then, in the same scenario Ender decided to make sure that he would win the war and erase all future battles. In argument with Major Anderson, Graff states, “Ender’s not a killer. He just wins--thoroughly” (226).

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1098 Words | 5 Pages

Valentine is younger than Peter but older than Ender. She is caring and tries her hardest to protect Ender from her older brother. 3. Ender knows that he is looked down upon in his society because he is a third and is more intelligent than other children, but he also knows that he an important piece for the government because he lives as a third. Ender’s internal conflicts were deciding whether or not to go to Battle School with Graff and his external conflicts were fighting Stilton in addition to being afraid of Peter.

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538 Words | 3 Pages

According to Valentine, “Whatever they did to Ender in Battle School, they had spent his ambition. ”(Card,

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1498 Words | 6 Pages

Also, Enders fear of his actions, causes him to repay for them. Ender takes the position of fleet commander for humans against the Bugger army. Ender kills all the Buggers and the planet. Ender did not kill them intentionally; the simulations were actual fighters in real battles. Because of this, Enders emotions flood him and he feels regret and deep sadness.

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852 Words | 4 Pages

Though Valentine’s actual motive for attempting to make contact with his ticklish knee was to console him, Ender considered it an act of peril, judging Valentine’s intention as harm to him. As an unintended consequence, Valentine’s perception of Ender has significantly modified for the worse. “A very small, fragile boy who needed her protection. Not this cold-eyed, dark-skinned manling who kills wasps with his fingers.” Ender’s colossal character change essentially reveals what Card inevitably understood he would become: a clone of Peter’s daunting characteristics.

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754 Words | 4 Pages

Calculating Judgments For someone so young, Ender is exceptionally calculating. In almost the very beginning of the novel, the author shows Ender being bullied by Stilson and his gang. Ender realizes that he must thoroughly beat Stilson so the rest of the gang wouldn’t pick on Ender ever

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1492 Words | 6 Pages

This is shown most importantly, once Ender realizes that he has been lied to, and manipulated into killing off an entire alien species, without even knowing what he has done. It is after this very traumatic childhood experience that Card illustrates how Ender decides to be the better person, by deciding that he will tell nothing but the truth, and becoming the Speaker for the Dead. This interpretation is most important because it tells the reader that not all bad, and traumatic things have to end up so horrible as everyone tends to think; oneself would only have to try to make the best of the particular situation to change themselves for the better. Now it will be explained how Ender decides to tell nothing but the truth. First, Card illustrates how traumatic events can affect a person for the better when Ender

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592 Words | 3 Pages

In the beginning, before Ender left Earth, Ender used to get bullied in school by another kid named Stilson. It came to a point when Ender had to defend for himself. Stilson and his friends bullied Ender, so in order for them to leave Ender alone, he shows his aggression by constantly kicking Stilson while he was down. Ender did that to prevent Stilson or his friends from hurting him again. After leaving the room, he feels terrible because of the fact that he’s passionate and he didn’t want to hurt Stilson.

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1186 Words | 5 Pages

Did you know that Pavel Friedman, the author of the book The Butterfly wrote “A total of around 15,000 children under the age of fifteen passed through [the concentration camp] Terezin. Of these, around 100 came back”. This is a completely, absolutely horrid statistic, and yet it is true. Speculate about being a child back in Nazi Germany. Not all of these kids were Jews.

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