Ender’s Game: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

We had already sensed that Ender was very special, even by the standards of Battle School—that’s why the government wanted Ender’s parents to have another child. But in order for Ender to become the ultimate commander that Graff and the government want, he’ll need to be willing to use violence without hesitation—and this will require a brutal training program in Battle School.

So far, the story has been told entirely from Ender’s perspective, or from the perspective of X and Y (one of whom is Graff). In this quick aside, though, the narrator tells us that, unbeknownst to Ender, the footage of children going to Battle School is carefully censored. We begin to realize just how repressive and tyrannical the governments of the future really are: they manipulate their citizens through lies and propaganda—just as Graff lies to and manipulates Ender.

We get a sense for why Ender’s calmness and quietness might be assets to him in Battle School. While the other children laugh and talk, Ender thinks about the space he’s in—he reorients himself, refusing to think in terms of up and down, as someone on Earth naturally would. It’s sad to see that Ender thinks of Graff as his friend, as we already know that Graff is nothing of the sort.

Ender continues exploring the possibilities of zero gravity. There are long sections of the novel which consist entirely of Card’s descriptions of Ender’s thoughts—but these are interesting and even exciting to read, because of Ender’s portrayal as a genius. Ender is always separate from the rest of the children—this is because he is smarter and more resourceful, but it also means that he lives in perpetual isolation, and without any real friends or experience of fun.

It seems that Graff has already begun his harsh “tests” for Ender by singling Ender out, and then leaving him alone in a shuttle with the resentful other boys. In a way, Graff has been doing this for as long as Ender has been alive: by equipping him with a monitor and isolating him from Peter and his classmates.

For the second time in the novel, we see Ender fighting defensively—but then going beyond merely defending himself, and severely hurting his opponent when it seems expedient. This tension between self-defense and preemptive attack is essentially a symbol for the larger conflict in the war between the humans and Buggers. As we will learn, the Buggers have made no moves to attack Earth again since their defeat 70 years ago, but commanders like Graff still feel that the best way to ensure there are no more attacks is by preemptively striking out at and destroying the Buggers—just as Ender hurt Stilson excessively to not only defend himself, but also to prevent “all future fights.”

Graff is an interesting character because he is essentially an embodiment of the conflict between morality and survival—the question of when a preemptive attack is justified, or when the ends justify the means. Graff truly believes he is doing the right thing and saving millions of human lives, but to do this he must endanger and psychologically damage a child, as well as destroy an entire species that might not even be a real threat.

Card closes the chapter with a conversation, consisting entirely of dialogue, between Graff and Anderson. This echoes the openings of previous chapters, and seems like a confirmation that X and Y are Anderson and Graff: Graff the eager (even gleeful) manipulator, and Anderson his reluctant accomplice.