Globalization, Postmodernity, and the Bildungsroman: Tracing Narratives of Development in Three Versions of Orson Scott Cards Enders Game Story

• Main Author: Korsnack, Kylie Jo
• Other Authors: Scott Juengel
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: VANDERBILT 2015
• Subjects: English
• Online Access: http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-11202015-130325/

This thesis traces the history of Orson Scott Cards Enders Game story across three iterations and three decades of world developmentthe Enders Game novella (1977), the Enders Game novel (1985) and the subsequent parallax version, Enders Shadow (1999)to consider what happens to the form after modernisms dissipation and question whether or not the contemporary Bildungsroman still serves the historico-philsophical function of its 19th-mid-20th century precursors. By analyzing of three parallel narratives of development through Cards literary workthat of Ender Wiggin, that of the Enders Game narrative, and that of the Bildungsroman genrethis essay extends and modifies the work of Franco Moretti and Jed Esty by demonstrating how the Bildungsroman reacts as the global economy transitions from monopoly capitalism to multinationalism. Taken together, Cards three narratives tell the developmental story of the genre itself and culminate with Enders Shadow, a newly figured Bildungsroman that appears within the realm of science fiction and emerges as a formal response to the Young Adult novel of the postmodern era. As such, Enders Shadow exposes the negative effects of late capitalism while at the same time offering a narrative of alterity.