The Effect of Context on Characters' Perseverance and Determination: Comparing 'Ender's Game' and 'Gattaca' Jasmine Lee 11th Grade

The true power behind the intrinsic relationship between a text and its context lies in its ability to evoke different responses form composers to the same universal message, as a result of the concerns in their respective social and political atmospheres. That is, a composer’s context is inherently linked to the representation of the characters’ personal determination to achieve beyond their society’s values of individualism and morality (or lack thereof). This is heavily explored in Andrew Niccol’s 1997 film, Gattaca, and Orson Scott Card’s 1985 novel, Ender’s Game, in which their dystopic societies offer a canvas to which characters can strive despite. This, however, is also altered between the two texts due to their contexts. While Gattaca alludes to the rising dependence on genetic manipulation and enhancement that compromises individualism and morality, Ender’s Game explores the same concepts differently through the lens of the Cold War. Thus, the character’s personal determination and resilience is illustrated differently as a result of their composer’s contexts.

Individualism is a highly distinguishable trait of any given character’s sense of resilience. That is, to be an individual in the face of a greater and...