Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Individual
Group Discount
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews October 2, 2023 September 25, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan - Group Discount
Qty: 00
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
Ender smiled. He was the one who had figured out how to send messages and make them march—even as his secret enemy called him names, the method of delivery praised him.
As Ender sits at his desk in school, another student taunts him by sending a message that says “Third,” teasing Ender for being an unwanted child. The insult barely registers with Ender as he only feels pride that he was able to figure out how to send messages in this way. Right from the beginning, readers can see both Ender’s intellect and immunity to suffering.
He felt good. He had won something, and against older boys. Probably not the best of the older boys, but he no longer had the panicked feeling that he might be out of his depth, that Battle School might be too much for him.
The narrator explains how, after Ender beats the older boys at a computer game, he begins to feel more confident in himself and his abilities at Battle School. On the way to Battle School, Ender began to doubt himself, so proving to himself and others that he possesses the ability to be an outstanding commander makes him feel more hopeful. Unlike the other boys, Ender’s confidence comes from his actual abilities and not a blind sense of competition.
I’m doing it again, thought Ender. I’m hurting people again, just to save myself. Why don’t they leave me alone, so I don’t have to hurt them?
After Ender accidentally hurts another child in the Battle Room, he wonders why he can’t seem to stop hurting people. Although Ender feels too much compassion to want to hurt others, he does have a ruthlessness similar to Peter’s when needed. He doesn’t hesitate hurting others in order to defend himself, but immediately wonders how he can stop himself.
In the corridors leading to the battleroom, Ender made them run back and forth in the halls, fast, so they were sweating a little, while the naked ones got dressed.
The narrator describes how, on Ender’s first day as commander, he proves himself to be just as strict as other commanders at Battle School. He forces his army to run to the Battle Room even if they have not gotten dressed yet, humiliating them and then making them sweat before practice. Even though Ender seemed to detest the humiliation he experienced at the hands of his other commanders, he knows that such practices will make his soldiers better.
Ender despised them—but secretly, so secretly that he didn’t even know it himself, he feared them. It was just such little torments that Peter had always used, and Ender was beginning to feel far too much at home.
Here, the narrator explains how Ender feels about the other armies at the school. As Ender’s army remains undefeated, others become jealous of him and begin to perform small pranks on him to get revenge. Despite being the most celebrated soldier and commander in the school, Ender fears the other students because they remind him of his former tormenter, Peter. Ender may be a great commander, but he remains a child at heart.
“I didn’t want to hurt him!” Ender cried. “Why didn’t he just leave me alone!”
After Ender unknowingly kills Bonzo, he laments again the fact that he keeps hurting people although he does not want to. Even though Dink acknowledges that Bonzo would have killed Ender, Ender can’t help but feel compassion for his former commander and guilt that he hurt him.
Please wait while we process your payment