Abstract
Alice Miller’s work provides a theoretical framework to assess the effects of child abuse and its relationship to the development of creativity, hatred, and violence in the novel Ender’s Game. Analysis focuses on the extent to which children are manipulated in order to meet the needs of adults, the presence of behaviors such as the repression of feelings and memories, the idealization of perpetrators, blind obedience to authority, and the expression of repressed feelings in destructive acts, and identification of a helping witness as predictors for the actions and outcomes in this story.
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Notes
The story of Ender’s life is continued in three novels that tell of his development as an adult and in four shadow novels that further explicate events in Ender’s Game and the further development of the character Peter Wiggin. Full citations for these works are provided in the Reference list.
See the sequels Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide for more details on this.
References
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Gross, M. Prisoners of Childhood? Child Abuse and the Development of Heroes and Monsters in Ender’s Game . Child Lit Educ 38, 115–126 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-006-9006-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-006-9006-4