Sienna Nicholson
Title: Divergent
Text type: Novel
Author: Veronica Roth
Beatrice Prior is the main character in the novel Divergent. She lives within a dystopian society split into factions based on personal virtue and characteristics. Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the kind), and Erudite (the intelligent). Annually all 16 yr olds take a test which should tell them what faction they should choose the next day. At the ceremony you may choose whatever faction you desire regardless of the test results. Beatrice, having full faith in the test, got an inconclusive result, (Divergent). Authority and government fear Divergents as they do not follow the normal algorithm and are more likely to defy and question the strict principles that are there to “keep their society safe and in order.”
The government within the Divergent universe used fear to ensure conformity. Divergents, like Beatrice, are emotionally, physically, and mentally more capable of seeing through their debilitating class system and creating awareness to overthrow it, making it harder to control a society built off labels. People were afraid to see the flaws in this, which was exactly what insured the successes of the system.There’s no denying the age of the protagonist was there to show a reflection of our current society. Teenagers arguably have the most pressure to conform into a group or feel pressure to sit under a label. In my own life (as a teenager) I have seen friends pretend to be someone they’re not in fear of reaction and rejection. Beatrice, like many other kids, felt she never fitted in anywhere, and struggled to find people with like minded ideals. We live as humans of any age with labels such as black, white, Asian, sporty, academic, female, male, skinny, fat, religious.we know this because there used every day, by almost everyone.when i went to america i felt hugely labeled and sometimes isolated by my ethnicity. They would talk about normal problems everyone has but i just “wouldn’t get it because i’m white”.similarly Beatrice talks about how shes never taken seriously in dauntless as she was abnegation (a stiff). “People tend to overestimate my character…They think that because I’m small, or a girl, or a Stiff, I can’t possibly be cruel. But they’re wrong.” These labels, although can be useful, also live with negative connotations making people feel trapped within a overall judgement of their character. I personally fear them as they could split our nation’s up, as we have seen before with racism and feminism and as they did in the Divergent universe.
Jenene (antagonist) planned to control people using her simulations and serum. The Divergent couldn’t be controlled by these. For this reason she tried to kill the rest of their kind. It’s crazy how relevant this actually is in our world today. Recently there was a shooting in New Zealand in a muslim mosque. The shooter had a similar philosophy to Jenene, done out of need to control and genuine belief in their actions. It’s so corrupt to think that, just because someone thinks slightly different to you, you could take their life simply because you fear their influence on others. Personally these events and this novel opened me up to the explorations of nature and nurture and how it affects who and what we fear and love.I can confidently say The influence we have on one another affects who we are.In Divergent they essentially were all manipulated into thinking the same, without knowing it, which showed the power of one person’s mindset spread by consistently instilling into people that fear. It showed the importance of what you let people away with and stand up for because if higher power gets into the wrong hands we could end up somewhere like the Divergent universe or worse.
“Becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it”- Beatrice. I agreed with this statement immediately when reading the novel. People aren’t just born without fear, it’s human nature and a crucial rule for survival. We all have fears, it just affects us in different ways. For a lot we don’t fear the actual thing, we fear the possible consequence. Beatrice was afraid of being attacked by birds in a field, but she doesn’t have a bird-phobia. As Beatrice notes when she’s going through her fear landscape, the bird fear “isn’t about the birds. It’s about control”. This links back into the prejudice which we visit in all aspects and history of life. White people didn’t literally fear the black pigment of humans, they feared that they were different and couldn’t be controlled. I personally learnt from this that accepting your fear is how you lose it. I can say that many times in my life i have let fear cloud my judgment on things and even people.You can never be fearless, but you can always control your own mindset and trying to force control on someone elses is limiting.
Another perspective explored is how fear stimulates our brains. “Fear doesn’t shut you down, it wakes you up.” Tobias said this to Beatrice with admiration rather than insecurity. Fear can become motivating and gives opportunity to be heroic. It took Beatrice to be afraid to realise who she was and what she could achieve. I stand by a quote “everything happens for a reason” as if I really analyse who I am today I would find that my strength is built off my weakest times, exactly like Beatrice and Tobias. You never really know how brave you are until you’re faced with legitimate fear. For some people, as said before, they try eliminate the fear rather than control it which debatably can be just as brave, and is shown all throughout time in our society. In the Christchurch massacre one lady got out of her car and brought an injured man into her car to try save his life. This is obviously brave as she risked her life for his. It’s pretty safe to say most people are scared of getting shot, but for this lady it drew her into the situation rather than made her run away. She, like Beatrice, was an everyday citizen but fear motivated her and gave her a reason to help and become heroic.
When I first read this novel, it was easy to discount the similarities it has to our current and past societies. When you take away specific details, the Divergent universe is essentially symbolism for our world today. Fear can, and will, bring out the worst or best in us all and it’s just as important to remember it’s fundamental to our humanity and impossible to resist.
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