Post #12

Cooper Feltes

pg. 548-599
Speaker for the Dead

                 On these pages, Ender is still the household of Novihna. Novihna hears an unfamiliar sound, the sound of her son, Miro, laughing. Having grown up in such a hostile, unfriendly household this one has turned out to be, Novihna is appalled that he is laughing with such "scum" as the Speaker. She repeatedly asks him to leave, and he eventually does. Before leaving, has a few more unfamiliar laughs with the children, just to be kicked out of the house by Novihna. Novihna had called for Ender upon the death of Pipo, her father figure. She aborted the request, which is not doable after the Speaker had left, which he had. We find out though, that Ela, Novihna's daughter, had called for him only, coincidentally, two weeks before he arrived to speak Marcao's, Novihna's cruel husband's, death. The kids of the family are accepting of Ender, but Novihna thinks very differently, for she hates him, and would rather see him dead than to have to talk to him again.   

post #10

Cooper Feltes
Pages 496-548

In these pages, Novihna finally returned home to her house. She is told of the arrival of the Speaker by her children. For some reason which the reader has not yet discovered, Novihna cancelled her call for a Speaker many years ago. She was not happy to see that he had arrived so soon. Ender was speaking, all the while, to one of the children in the back room, but comes out to greet the reluctant Novihna. Novihna believes that he should leave and not come back, to the children's utter dismay, having known him for only a few hours, yet has gotten to "know them more than [Novihna does]." Novihna is then told of the story that the family just experienced, and, though she doesn't believe in the power of the Speaker, is moved by his ability to learn more of her family in a few hours, than she had in years.

Post #9

Cooper Feltes
pgs. 448-495

In these pages, The scene switches to Novihna's laboratory. This is her place of buisness- a place where she can get away from her awful children, now enlightened, and a place where she can do what she was born to do. Card puts a lot of emphasis on the genetically engineered plants she was growing(potatoes that would grow in Lusitania's tough soil). Her children are misfits, and she doesn't consider them children anymore. She is so obsessed with her plants, they are now her children. At the end of the chapter, we see Novihna sitting on a chair in her lab, pondering whether to go home or not. She doesn't know it, but her children need her now more than ever.

post #8

p400-447

This, I think, is one of the best and most interesting chapters of any book I have ever read. In these few chapters, Ender(Andrew) is led to the household of Novihna, greeted by a young boy(one of the six or seven children in the family), who grabs a knife from his pants, and lunges at Ender! Ender evades his attack, and grabs him by the arms and legs(Grego being small enough to fit all limbs in one hand). When Ender proceeds to enter, he is welcomed by a "blank and white" household filled with loveless people. Novihna isn't there, but that doesn't mean he can't help the family. After some persuasion, all the while with Grego in his hand, he gets the family to sit down. The only one to really warm up to Ender was Ela-a girl who seemed to be acting as the mother of the family. The father of the family seemed to have died three weeks beforehand, and the family is still grieving. Quim, another child of the family, who hates the fact that the other children have been sharing so much with Ender, ignores him and goes to plug in his bionic eye I mentioned earlier into some machine. Jane dumps, somehow, his memory onto a hologram onto the floor. We then see Miro, the father, beating Novihna. Quim then can't take seeing his horrible memories displayed in front of him, and yells that he killed his father, and doesn't regret it, understandably. He had a fatal skin dissease, but to see a man, "playing it by ear," lead a family intervention. To top it off, Ender discovers that Grego has just been trying to be like his dad, innocently, though it has gotten him in trouble. Ender seems to be really good at what he does.