Genre

Young Adult, Dystopian

Setting and Context

Dystopian Chicago, many years in the future

Narrator and Point of View

Divergent is narrated in the first-person present tense. The point of view is that of the novel’s
protagonist, Beatrice "Tris" Prior, a 16-year-old girl.

Tone and Mood

The dominant tone of Divergent is 'anticipatory'. When the story begins, the Faction world has
seen years of peace. On the surface all seems to be well, but the feeling is uneasy. There is
nothing explicit to suggest change or danger is approaching, but the atmosphere is neither light
nor relaxed. Roth takes on an anxious tone that keep

the reader anticipating for disaster to strike, for the next shoe to drop. This results in the novel’s
mood being anxiety-filled and mysterious. As readers, we are meant to feel anxious and confused
about what happens next.

Protagonist and Antagonist

The protagonist of Divergent is Tris Prior. There are many antagonists of differing levels of
importance and power. For example, Peter, a Dauntless initiate who transferred from Candor, is
one of the novel’s minor antagonists. He terrorizes Beatrice and her friends, stabbing one boy in
the eye and arranging an attempted murder of Beatrice. However, his antagonism pales in
comparison to the evilness, power, and influence of Jeanine Matthews, head of Erudite and the
orchestrator of the attacks on Abnegation. She is the novel’s major antagonist.

Major Conflict
The major conflict in Divergent is difficult to recognize and identify because it is obscured by
secrets, mystery, and other minor conflicts. For example, early in the novel it seems as if the
major conflict is

Tris’s acceptance and assimilation into Dauntless. Will she be able to successfully pass through
Dauntless initiation while keeping her Divergence a secret? At first, that is the novel’s pressing
problem. After a time, however, we begin to realize that the major conflict goes beyond Tris and
her personal affairs. There is a larger issue in the form of Erudite’s revolution and their vendetta
against Abnegation, which ultimately takes center stage. Furthermore, as more secrets come to
light we realize that Tris’s Divergence isn’t unique to her, and that there is a Faction-wide
conspiracy to suppress and eradicate Divergence. Thus, Divergent’s major conflict is only
revealed to the reader as it is revealed to Tris.

Climax
The climax of Divergent begins when Eric is about to kill Four and Tris stops pretending to be
brainwashed like the other Dauntless members in order to save him. At this point “the jig is up”
and Tris and Four must fight for their lives. The climax continues as the serum is successfully
administered to Four, and Tris’s mom saves Tris—but dies in the process. The climax ends when
Four fights off the effects

of the serum and he and Tris escape Dauntless headquarters.

Foreshadowing
Shortly after Beatrice and Caleb return from their aptitude tests a moment happens between the
siblings that foreshadows future events. Caleb tells Beatrice that, at the Choosing Ceremony,
they must think of their families and of themselves. Shocked by this advice, Beatrice says, “The
tests don’t have to change our choices,” to which Caleb replies, “Don’t they, though?” (Roth 66).
This rhetorical question foreshadows Caleb’s decision to leave Abnegation and join Erudite.
Although on the outside he seems like the poster child for Abnegation, selfless to a point that
annoys Beatrice, the aptitude test revealed his true inner nature to him. His test results give him
the courage and fortitude he needs to leave his family behind in exchange for living in the faction
best suited to him.

Understatement
When Four confronts Peter about his attack on Tris, he says, “I understand why you’re worried,
Peter. The events of last night certainly proved that you are a miserable coward” (Roth 482).
This sentence understates Peter’s fear about his chances of successfully entering Dauntless. He is
so warped by his fear of failure that he

stabs another initiate in the eye and arranges for Tris to be murdered in an effort to cement his
path to success. Saying that Peter is worried is an understatement and does not convey the all-
encompassing anxiety he has about his future in Dauntless.

Allusions
Because the world of Divergent is set in a dystopian Chicago sometime in the future, the novel
has many allusions to the present-day United States. An important example of this is Marcus’s
speech at the Choosing Ceremony. When he gives an account of how the Faction system came to
be, he alludes to many of the issues plaguing our world today—wars about race and religion,
economic crises, rampant nationalism, etc. By including aspects of our own societies in the
world-building of Divergent, Veronica Roth makes the story of Tris and her friends more
relevant to modern readers.

Parallelism
The vastly different but parallel lives the different factions lead are the major source of
parallelism in Divergent. Each person born into the system follows the same life trajectory. They
are raised in the ways of their birth faction until they turn 16. At that point, everyone takes the
aptitude test and chooses the Faction in which they will remain. Once they enter into their
faction, everyone goes through an initiation process. This process ranges wildly from faction to
faction. For example, in Dauntless initiation, not everyone is guaranteed to pass, whereas in
Abnegation acceptance is assured. Still, although the end results may be different, the overall
structure and life path remains constant across the different Factions.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

The names of the factions are an example of metonymy. Metonymy describes when a word
refers to something else that it's closely associated with. When characters in Divergent say things
like, “Those who blamed aggression formed Amity” or “My brother, born for Abnegation,
Erudite?” they are not referring to the adjectives “amity” or “abnegation” or “erudite”. Rather,
they are talking about the

people who compose the faction or group that each adjective stands for.

Personification
In Divergent, nonhuman entities are not so much personified as they are anthropomorphized. For
example, during her zip-line ride Tris describes the wind as wrapping around her fingers and
pushing her arms back. In her description Tris gives the wind human-like qualities. When
deciding between personification and anthropomorphism, the type of human quality matters.
Personification involves ascribing thoughts, feelings, and personalities to inhuman entities,
whereas anthropomorphism is the attribution of physical human abilities. The way the wind
wraps around Tris and pushes her around is mostly physical, and so it is an example of
anthropomorphism.

Tris from 'Divergent' as an Archetypal Hero Anonymous 9th Grade

In the novel “Divergent” by Veronica Roth, the protagonist, Tris, learns that she must change the
way the world works. In the world of Divergent people are separated into 4 different factions,
and these factions are more important then their own family. Tris herself decided to leave behind
her family in order to choose a different faction, Dauntless, which is meant for the brave. As
people look down on other factions, the conflict between them is endless and they constantly
fight for power. Tris decides that the conflict between the factions has gone on long enough and
that to get through these hard times she must stand up and make a change. In this way, Tris is
clearly an archetypal hero.

One instance in which Tris is a hero is when she always emerges victorious in the end. When
Tris goes up against the people that disliked her for choosing Dauntless over the faction she was
born into she made others understand that there was nothing wrong with her decision. In front off
a huge audience she declares: “Is it wrong to feel different? I felt that I did not belong with them.
I felt that I did not fit in. Is that not a valid reason?” (Roth 89). Here we see Tris standing up
against the norm. She wants to fight for the people who...

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Divergent is the debut novel of American novelist Veronica Roth, published by Harper Collins
Children's Books in 2011. The novel is the first of the Divergent trilogy, a series of young adult
dystopian novels set in a Divergent Universe.[1] The novel Divergent features a post-apocalyptic
version of Chicago and follows Beatrice "Tris" Prior as she explores her identity within a society
that defines its citizens by their social and personality-related affiliation with five factions, which
removes the threat of anyone exercising independent will and re-threatening the population's
safety. Underlying the action and dystopian focused main plot is a romantic subplot between Tris
and one of her instructors in the Dauntless faction, nicknamed Four.

The novel has been compared to other young adult books such as The Hunger Games and The
Maze Runner because of its similar themes and target audience. In particular, the novel explores
the themes common to young adult fiction, such as adult authority and the transition from
childhood to maturity, as well as such broader motifs as the place of violence and social
structures within a post-apocalyptic society. Its major plot device, the division of society into
personality types, is one used in other science fiction works. Beyond its literary context, Roth's
open declaration of her religion as a Christian has brought commentary from Christian
communities both endorsing and challenging the novel.

Roth wrote Divergent while working on a Creative Writing degree at Northwestern University,
and it was quickly purchased for publication alongside the subsequent books in the trilogy
(completed in October 2013).[1] Summit Entertainment purchased the media rights to the book
in 2011 and subsequently produced a film adaptation titled Divergent which was released March
21, 2014. The film, a success amongst audiences, generated $288,747,895 at the box office
despite mixed reviews from critics.

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Next SectionBackground and setting

Background and setting
The novel is Roth's debut novel and was published a little over a year after Roth graduated with a
bachelor's degree from the Creative Writing program at Northwestern University.[3] Roth wrote
the novel during her senior year winter break[4] and sold movie rights to the novel before she
had graduated.[3][5] She had been working on the series from Four's point of view but decided
that he was not the character she wanted for her series. Four years later, she decided to pick up
the novel from a different point of view. Roth wrote the series from Beatrice's point of view.

The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic Chicago. Roth indicated that she did not originally intend
to use Chicago as the setting:

Plot
In post-apocalyptic Chicago, survivors are divided into five factions: Abnegation, the selfless;
Amity, the peaceful; Candor, the honest; Dauntless, the brave; and Erudite, the intelligent. All
16-year-olds are tested to determine the faction that suits them best, but they select their own
faction at the Choosing Ceremony. Those who do not complete initiation become "Factionless"
and live on the streets as outcasts.

The main character, 16-year-old Beatrice Prior, cannot choose before she takes the test. Her
inconclusive test results (Abnegation, Dauntless, and Erudite) mark her as "Divergent," and the
test administrator, Tori, warns her never to tell anyone. Agonizing over her future, Beatrice
decides to leave Abnegation, her blood, and to join Dauntless. Her brother Caleb chooses
Erudite.

The new Dauntless initiates jump onto a moving train to Dauntless headquarters and are
instructed to jump onto the roof. Most make it, but one initiate falls to her death, and another is
too afraid to jump. When they are later ordered to jump into the compound entrance, Beatrice
jumps first. Reaching the bottom, she tells the instructor, Four, that her name is Tris.

Four explains that unlike the other factions, which accept all successful initiates, only the top ten
Dauntless initiates will stay, and the rest become Factionless. Tris befriends several fellow
initiates like Christina, Will, and Al but comes into conflict with others like Peter, Drew, and
Molly.

In the first stage of initiation, they are trained in guns, knives, and hand-to-hand combat. Despite
her lack of physical strength, Tris finishes in sixth place. A relationship emerges between Tris
and Four, and Tris is pummeled by Peter in a fight. After the first-stage rankings are announced,
the second-place Peter stabs the first-place Edward in the eye. Edward leaves to become
Factionless, followed by his girlfriend Myra, which allows Peter to take Edward's place as the
first-place initiate.

On Visiting Day, Tris's mother tells Tris to stay strong but not to bring too much attention to
herself during training.
Erudite stirs dissent against the city's Abnegation leadership and accuses its leader, Marcus, of
abusing his son. The rumors are fueled by the fact that Marcus's son, as well as Tris and Caleb,
have all left Abnegation, which is also alleged to be hoarding supplies.

The initiates enter the second stage and face hallucinations based on their deepest fears. Tris's
Divergent abilities give her an advantage and earn her the top rank. Peter, Drew, and Al attack
Tris; threaten sexual assault; and nearly throw her to her death, but Four intervenes. Al begs
Tris's forgiveness, but she rejects him, and he later dies by suicide.

The final stage gathers the initiates' fears into a simulated "fear landscape" to test their acquired
skills. Tris and Four grow closer, and he lets her into his own fear landscape. She discovers that
he has only four fears, hence his nickname. In Four's final fear, Tris also learns that he is
Marcus's son Tobias and that the claims of abuse were true. Four uncovers Erudite's plans to use
Dauntless to stage an attack on Abnegation.

Tris overcomes her fear landscape, and the Dauntless initiates are injected with a "tracking"
serum. Tris shares her feelings for Tobias and is later ranked first at the initiation ceremony.

The serum transforms the Dauntless into hypnotized soldiers to attack Abnegation. Tris and
Tobias's Divergent abilities allow them to remain unaffected by the serum and escape to the
Abnegation compound. Tris is shot, and they are captured. The Erudite leader Jeanine Matthews,
the mastermind of the attack, injects Tobias with an experimental serum that overrides his
Divergence. Under Jeanine's control, Tobias oversees the attack from the Dauntless control
room. Tris is almost drowned in a tank but is rescued by her mother, who reveals that she is also
Divergent before she is killed while she helps Tris escape. Tris is forced to kill Will, who attacks
her under the influence of the simulation.

She finds her and Tobias's fathers and explains the truth behind the attack. They fight their way
to Dauntless headquarters, where Tris's father sacrifices himself. Tris is attacked by the mind-
controlled Tobias. Unable to kill him, Tris surrenders, which causes Tobias to break free of the
serum's control. They shut down the Erudite simulation and free the Dauntless. They rejoin the
initiates and board a train to the Amity sector to find the Abnegation survivors.

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Next SectionStyle Previous SectionBackground and setting

Many reviewers stated that the novel's writing style offers a distinctive, terse prose that creates a fast-
paced reading experience. Susan Dominus, writing in The New York Times, described the style as "brisk
pacing, lavish flights of imagination and writing that occasionally startles with fine detail."[3] Abby
Nolan, from The American Prospect, noted that Divergent follows the structural and stylistic patterns of
The Hunger Games and Blood Red Road.[7]
Themes
Identity that Beatrice like

As in other children's and young adult fiction, the novel probes placement of authority and
identity within the youths' relationship to parents and other social forces. The critic Antero
Garcia describes the thematic similarity between the dystopian novels as an interest in the "grasp
of power between youth and adult authority" and compared the novel to Unwind by Neal
Shusterman.[8] In The New York Times, Susan Dominus stated that Divergent "explores a more
common adolescent anxiety--the painful realization that coming into one's own sometimes means
leaving family behind ideologically and physically."[3] The Voice of Youth Advocates agreed and
wrote that Divergent shows the pressure of "having to choose between following in your parents'
footsteps or doing something new."[9] The critic Antero Garcia compared the thematic interest
in the characters being "forced into limiting constraints of identity and labor associated with their
identity" to similar interest in forced identities and labor in the dystopian children's novels
Matched by Allyson Braithwaite Condie and The Maze Runner by James Dashner.[8]

Social structure and knowledge

The government division of a population into fragmented communities is a frequent device in

young adult and children's fiction. YA classics such as Lois Lowry's The Giver, Monica
Hughes’s The Dream Catcher, and Zilpha Snyder’s Green Sky Trilogy use that device to
different ends.[10] In her masters' thesis, Ashley Ann Haynes describes fractioning of societies
in Divergent as a supporting comparison with Hunger Games.[10] Unlike the latter, however, all
can choose which faction to join if they follow the rules and pass the tests. Divergent adds a new
layer of complexity with its creation of an illusion of democracy for participants in its fractioned
society, with the factions controlled by outside forces.[10]

The basis of the social structure in Divergent is that each faction fulfils a role in society. Those
who cannot contribute to society are cast aside to become "factionless" and are deprived of
access to an identity and resources. In a journal article, Andrea Burgos-Mascarell compared the
factionless to illegal immigrants, who do not have access to certain public services either. Both
are marginalised from society because they are unable to contribute to it.[11]

Some reviews criticized the lack of depth and realism of the social structures in the novel. Kirkus
Reviews called the social structure a "preposterous premise."[12] Booklist called the structure a
"simplistic, color-coded world [that] stretches credibility on occasion."[13] In a review for the
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater's student newspaper Royal Purple News, Abrielle Backhaus
notes how the "entire system seems insubstantial" and asks rhetorically, "How could it be
possible for any individual, with his or her infinite emotions and experiences, to be condensed to
one single quality to tolerate for the rest of their lives and to choose at the mere age of 16?"[14]
In an interview, Roth described the social structure to have expanded from her initial conception,
and she added Candor to fill "a gap in the reasoning behind the world that needed to be filled."[6]

The social structure most affects the novel's themes by socially dividing different knowledge
types that characters can access. In her book chapter exploring how literacy in different
knowledge types affects the series, Alice Curry described the factions and the character
indoctrination in those factions as deliberately creating knowledge gaps between initiates to
different factions.[15] Because of the initiation process, the characters become illiterate in the
knowledge that is valued by the other factions.[15] Tris's "divergence" allows her to be
successful because she can become literate in a broad set of knowledges and information types
and so she becomes more admirable to the reader.[15] Curry argues that Jeanine's leadership in
Erudite represents an academic ivory tower that alienates other types of knowledge and so the
book critiques academic learning in favor of the broader knowledge that is embodied by Tris.
[15] Curry compares the novel to Julie Bertagna's 2002 Exodus, describing both as using spaces
and landscapes in which knowledge is learned, to critique "crumbling knowledge institutions,"
like academic spaces that "dissemble" knowledge instead of facilitating deeper holistic
knowledge literacies that create "understanding."[15]

Violence and fear

Like The Hunger Games, Divergent depicts considerable violence for a young adult novel. The
Publishers Weekly review emphasized that stylistic choice, called it "edgy," and described the
initiation rituals that Tris endures "as spellbinding as they are violent [requiring] sadistic tests of
strength and courage."[16] However, as Susan Dominus pointed out, the novel does not keep the
violence at the forefront of reader experience. She wrote in The New York Times, "Terrible things
happen to the people Tris loves, yet the characters absorb these events with disquieting ease.
Here, somehow, the novel's flights from reality distance the reader from the emotional impact
that might come in a more affecting realistic (or even fantasy) novel."[3]

When describing her inspiration for the Dauntless training their initiates by exposing them to
their fears, Roth, in an interview for the website "PopSugar," said that she was influenced by
many sources, but the most important was her "Psych 101 my first year of college [where] I
learned about exposure therapy, which is when they treat people with fear, like for anxiety. It
exposes them repeatedly to what they're afraid of, and gradually you become less afraid of it, or
have a healthy level of fear, and I thought of the Dauntless then, because they're conditioning
perfectly normal people to get over perfectly rational fears."[6]

Daniel Kraus's Booklist review of the novel described the intense psychological pressure as like
"akin to joining the marines" but also providing the "built-in tension" that makes the novel a
compelling read.[13]

Christianity

Though the novel does not maintain an overtly-Christian thematic interest, some readers place
the novel's themes within that context because of Roth's professed religiosity. In the postscript
"Acknowledgements," Roth emphasized her Christian faith: "Thank you, God, for your Son and
for blessing me beyond comprehension."[17][18] For some reviewers, this element of Roth's
lifestyle is important to the novel's impact. For example, when reviewing the novel for the
Christian ministry "Break Point," Sherry Early described Roth as "a Christian" and the novel
setting as "post-feminist, maybe even Christian."[19] She also said that though the novel is "not
overtly Christian," it follows a "Christian point of view" because it "fight[s] against the
restrictions placed upon her by a controlling and totalitarian state" and because "Tris must also
explore the cracks and imperfections within her own psyche."[19] K. B. Hoyle also
acknowledges that the novel would have a "Christian message" in reviewing it for the
Evangelical book review organization The Gospel Coalition.[18] However, Hoyle criticized the
novel for using profane terminology and for never "clarify[ing] what the practices are supposed
to mean."[18]

Reviewers outside the Christian community have also noticed the Christian context of the novel.
In a review of the book and the first movie, David Edelstein observed the book's treatment of
intellectuals as following a tendency in Christian culture to question genetic modification and the
majority: the intellectual Erudite faction are largely depicted as control-hungry villains pitted
against the Abnegation faction, which is depicted as righteous and merciful.[20] He wrote, "The
novelist, Veronica Roth, reserves her loathing for the 'Erudites', who spend their days in
intellectual pursuit" and that the trend of intellectualism (thinking without feeling) "makes
people apt to seize power and impose Maoist-like uniformity on entire populations — on pain of
death."[20]

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Next SectionReception Previous SectionStyle

Film adaptation
Summit Entertainment bought the rights to film an adaptation of the novel in 2011.[37] Summit
recruited Neil Burger to direct.[38] Initially, Summit gave the film a budget of $40 million,[39]
but Lionsgate later increased it to $80 million, which was finally changed to $85 million because
of the success of The Hunger Games.[40]

Shailene Woodley was chosen to star as Beatrice "Tris" Prior.[41] The role of Tobias "Four"
Eaton eventually went to Theo James after an extensive search.[41] Kate Winslet was signed as
Jeanine Matthews.[42] Also recruited into the cast were Maggie Q as Tori, Zoe Kravitz as
Christina, Ansel Elgort as Caleb, Miles Teller as Peter, Ashley Judd as Natalie Prior, Tony
Goldwyn as Andrew Prior, and Jai Courtney as Eric.[42][43]

Filming began in Chicago on April 16, 2013, and concluded on July 16, with nearly all filming
taking place in Chicago.[44][45][46] The film was released March 21, 2014 and earned
$150,947,895 in North America and $137,228,004 in other areas, for a worldwide total of
$288,175,899.[47] The critic aggregating sites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic both gave the
films mixed reviews.[48][49] However, the audience surveyor CinemaScore showed that
audiences were very receptive to the film.[50]
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Next SectionNotes Previous SectionReception