Ender Wiggin Character Analysis

Ender Wiggin is the third and final Wiggin child, only six-years-old at the beginning of the novel (and only eleven at the end of it). He is incredibly gifted, but extremely conflicted, and he represents the ego in this metaphor. “The ego develops from perceiving instincts to controlling them, from obeying instincts to inhibiting them” (Freud 32). The ego, in psychology, serves to bring the id’s desires into the physical world. In the context of personification, the ego is a combination of the id and the super-ego, attempting to maintain the values of each in a way that is most conducive to living in society, a balance of pleasure-seeking, morality, and reality.
“Well, Peter isn’t all bad, you know. He was the best we’d seen in a long time.

He was designed (most likely literally, if one takes note of several references to genetic engineering) to be the average of his older siblings. Ender wants to do good things, like Valentine – and sometimes he does – but he also constantly finds himself in situations where he must do what Peter would – though sometimes he still chooses not to. Valentine is essentially the one thing Ender loves in the world, and he strongly desires to protect her. Meanwhile, Ender is torn by a burning desire to be nothing like Peter (and a fear that he is entirely like Peter anyway). However, “the ego is not sharply separated from the id” (Freud 10). Doubtless, Ender does share qualities with Peter. “I’m doing it again, thought Ender. I’m hurting people again, just to save myself” (Card 144). While Ender does not cause pain just for the fun of it, he will hurt people if he must. His actions are motivated by a recognition that something bad is going to happen, and a desire to “not be the unhappiest at the end” (Card 36). His willingness to commit acts that he finds atrocious shows a merging of Peter’s aggressive nature and Valentine’s moral opposition to