“Divergent” by Veronica Roth, Essay Example

“Divergent” by Veronica Roth is a science fiction novel in which humanity is symbolically represented by a dystopian society. The setting of the book takes place in Chicago during an unspecified time period in the future. Society has split itself according to the human virtues each group of people treasures most; Abnegation represents selflessness, Amity represents peace, Candor represents honesty, Dauntless represents bravery, and Erudite represents intelligence. It is interesting to note that each faction remained a separate entity until Beatrice Prior took the aptitude test; in this weird future world, people were only expected to have a single trait that the modern world considers to be desirable.

The conflict of this story stems from the fact that after taking the aptitude test, children must decide whether they should stay with their parents or join their new faction. Beatrice finds that she doesn’t fit into a single faction and is therefore considered “divergent”; since this is an abnormal outcome for this society she is expected to keep this information secret. When the Erudite carry out the plan to make the Dauntless sleeper soldiers, Beatrice is not affected. This is a significant part of the story because it’s the first time when a significant difference between Beatrice and the rest of society is obvious.

Several quotes from the book stood out as particularly significant to Beatrice’s individuality and the choices she needed to make as a “divergent”. Firstly, although Beatrice was found to have aptitude for Abnegation, Erudite, and Dauntless, she chose to join the Dauntless faction. The reason she gave for joining Dauntless is the following: “Becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.” Choosing Dauntless was a difficult decision for Beatrice; while she intended to remain in Abnegation to stay with her family, her mind suddenly changed when her brother joined Erudite. This wasn’t a surprising decision because Beatrice always had respect for Dauntless; even though she didn’t initially intend to act upon this admiration, her brother’s decision sparked her interest in the possibility and excitement of transferring into another faction.

Several others quotes in the book emphasize why it is problematic to only have one positive characteristic that represents humanity. One of these quotes are “It must require bravery to be honest all the time.” This represents the way that most humans are naturally; a person is usually not only brave or not only honest. People with positive human characteristics usually have more than one; bravery and honesty don’t usually stand alone. This is represented again in the quote “I am selfish. I am brave”. In this case, this quote attempts to argue against the point that humans can have more than one positive trait; in a sense, it indicates that if one belongs to the Dauntless faction and are brave, they cannot also belong to Abnegation and be selfless. Unfortunately, it is the view of many characters in this book that only one of these qualities can be had. Yet, we see that Beatrice can be both brave and selfless; she demonstrates that both of these qualities can coexist when she, along with help from her friends and father, return to Dauntless in an attempt to stop the simulation that causes the Dauntless sleeping soldiers to attack the others.

The quote that best reflects the theme of the book is “Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again.” Although humans don’t tend to always be good by nature, they have the potential to be. The biggest problem with Beatrice’s society that coincides with their tendency to become evil is their value of only one positive human characteristic at a time. If the characters in this book all tried to acquire all of the positive characteristics possible in their society, they would be less likely to make negative decisions and everyone would live together in peace.

Works Cited

Roth, Veronica. Divergent. HarperCollins Publishers, 2011. Print.