Bean as Our Future: How Ender's Shadow Disputes the 1997 Backlash Against Human Cloning
Seth Temple · Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal · 2017
In 1997, Dr. Ian Wilmut and colleagues at the Roslin Institute performed a successful somatic cell nuclear transfer on a female sheep named Dolly.Fear-mongering media coverage of Dolly immediately postulated concerns surrounding potential human cloning.In 1999, Orson Scott Card reimagined the Enderverse with the genetically enhanced clone Bean as the protagonist for Ender's Shadow.Bean exists as Card's counterexample to the aforementioned speculation.Card's portrayal of Bean posits a world in which cloning technologies maintain human dignity, respect individuality, and benefit mankind's pursuits.This paper demonstrates the historical concerns surrounding cloning as inadequately corroborated through analyses of Bean and Ender as literary foils, of Bean and Nikolai as unique personalities despite being genetic copies, and of Bean as a helpful wholesome clone due to the Christian education Sister Carlotta provides him.By presenting a contradiction to dispute the media's fallacious and unfounded claims, Card requests more discourse over the cloning debate and pleads for an understanding of various perspectives.The runt in Ender's Game turned savant-hero in Ender's Shadow: enter Bean.A product of somatic cell nuclear transfer 1 and gene therapy 2 , Bean is the hyper-rational strategist and creative genius behind Ender's venerated accomplishments.Described as the "children in space" franchise, Orson Scott Card's so-called Enderverse 3 imagines interplanetary warfare between mankind and the Formics (an alien invader race) in which gifted juveniles undergo battle training and command space fleets.In Card's inaugural novel Ender's Game (1985), Card elevates Andrew "Ender" Wiggin as the emotionally-intelligent born-commander to defeat the Formics, independent of outside help.This paper investigates why, fourteen years later, Card revisits his seminal work.In particular, this paper analyzes Bean's status as a genetically enhanced clone and places Ender's Shadow (1999) in the historical context of the 1990s cloning debate.Following the aftermath of the Dolly the sheep announcement, media and political institutions determined human cloning to be taboo and postulated concerns surrounding its practice.I see Bean in Ender's Shadow as Card's model supposition to contradict the non-sequiturs and slippery slopes broadcasted to the public concerning human cloning.By comparing Bean and Ender as literary foils, recognizing Bean and his twin Nikolai as unique personalities despite being genetic copies, and highlighting Bean as a helpful wholesome clone due to the Christian education Sister Carlotta provides him, I show the contemporary concerns regarding cloning technology as inadequate, and I suggest that Card calls for more perspective and discourse on the cloning debate in his novel Ender's Shadow.