Use Of Euphemism In Ender's Game By Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card repeatedly exhibits the harmful outcomes of euphemism. Coincidentally, the title, “Ender’s Game”, is a euphemism. A person who never read “Ender’s Game” is lead to believe the book is about a game. But, people who read the book know that it is really a war Ender is involved in, not a game. Orson Scott Card does this to show euphemism is everywhere, you may not even know it. Advertisements, food packages, and even adults use euphemism and you may not realize it. This connects back to Nazi Germany, when the Nazis used euphemism in order for Jews to perform certain tasks, like dying. Orson Scott Card demonstrates the use of euphemism through the government not telling Ender the whole truth, which can also be seen in Nazi Germany.

The Nazis used tons of euphemism through their actions so people would not know how harsh they treated the Jews. For example, Heinrich Himmler, who was part of Nazi Germany, “order[ed] the ‘resettlement’-a euphemism for deportation and murder”(Sobibor: Chronology). Heinrich Himmler using the word resettlement can lead non-Jewish people into being ignorant to the fact that Jews are getting sent to concentration camps where they are treated harshly and are going to die. Himmler was not a well known person, but he “[was responsible for] the creation of multiple concentration camps and the extermination of Slav[e]s, Jews and many others”(Anderson). Concentration camps were the locations that the Jews were sent to, but the camps should really be named Death Camps. In these camps, there were gas chambers, where the Nazis killed the Jews. The Nazis told the Jews that they were going to the shower. “[The Jews] believed they were going to the showers to be ‘disinfected’”('Schindler's List'). Therefore, the Jews accepted to go into the shower. Vaillant-Couturier, an eyewitness of the Auschwitz concentration camp, stated, “Once the people were undressed they took them into a room which was somewhat like a shower room, and gas capsules were thrown through an opening in the ceiling.

In “Ender’s Game”, Ender was manipulated by the government into believing he was playing games to prepare him for the war against the buggers, but he was actually fighting against the buggers. This has a huge impact on Ender because he dislikes killing and he is now known as a killer across the world. Orson Scott Card also shows that if you give in to commands in the beginning, you will soon have no power, leading you to believe everything the commander says. The information the commander will later tell you will be euphemisms to the actual truth, but you would not know. Dink, one of Ender’s friends, lectured Ender that, "commanders have just as much authority as you let them have. The more you obey them, the more power they have over you"(Card 102). This shows that because Ender blindly obeyed the government, he has no power, and therefore it was effortless for the government to control and fool him. This connects to Nazi Germany because the Jews were getting beaten and the Jews could not do anything back, so the Jews became easy for the Nazis to control and fool. Then, Nazis used euphemisms to lead the Jews into entering death situations. The tragic effect of euphemisms on Jews were about six million deaths(Sobibor: Chronology). That is a gigantic amount of