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Divergentreadingacitivities.docxSummary: Chapter 1
A young female narrator sits nervously in front of a mirror while her mother cuts her hair. Along with her sixteen-year-old peers, she is about to take an aptitude test to match her with one of society’s five factions. After the test, she will decide whether to stay in her current faction, Abnegation, or leave it forever. As she heads to breakfast with her mother, she reflects on her family’s unselfish life and feels guilty for wanting to leave it behind.
On the bus ride to school, the narrator’s brother Caleb, who is also sixteen, gives up his seat to another rider. As they arrive, she asks Caleb if he is nervous about the test, but instead of answering, he asks her the same question. She lies about her anxiety and they leave for separate classes. In the crowded hallway, a boy from the Erudite faction calls her “Stiff” and knocks her down. She explains that tensions between the Abnegation and Erudite have grown recently. As she does every day, she pauses at a window to watch dozens of pierced, tattooed students from the Dauntless faction jump out of a moving train. After scolding herself for watching, she continues on to class.
Summary: Chapter 2
Classes over, the narrator awaits testing in the cafeteria. There is no way to prepare, so she watches students at the Dauntless, Erudite, Amity, and Candor tables. While Caleb is being tested, the narrator thinks about his easy selflessness and wonders why she finds it so difficult. Caleb is pale when he returns, but he stays quiet, since discussing results is forbidden. When the next group is called, we learn the narrator’s name is Beatrice Prior. Her test administrator, a Dauntless woman named Tori, has a tattoo of a hawk on her neck. After Tori asks Beatrice to sit next to an ominous-looking machine, Beatrice impulsively asks about the tattoo. Tori explains that she chose the hawk, a symbol of the sun, after conquering her fear of the dark. She attaches wires to Beatrice and gives her a vial of liquid to drink.
Beatrice awakens in the empty cafeteria. A voice asks her to choose between two baskets on a table, one containing cheese, the other a knife. Beatrice resists, the baskets disappear, and an angry dog enters ready to attack. Recalling that looking in a dog’s eyes is a sign of aggression, she lies down, and the dog becomes friendly. When a little girl appears and the dog prepares to pounce, Beatrice tackles it and is suddenly transported back to the mirrored room. She walks out onto a bus and sees a scarred man holding a newspaper. He asks whether she knows the man on the front page, a murderer who has just been caught. Though he looks vaguely familiar, Beatrice senses danger and professes ignorance. The man accuses Beatrice of lying and says she could save him if she confessed, but she refuses.
Summary: Chapter 3
Beatrice awakens to find Tori looking concerned. Tori briefly leaves the room, leaving Beatrice to worry that she will be left factionless and in poverty. When she returns, Tori explains that the test was inconclusive. Instead of eliminating four factions, it only ruled out two: she possesses traits of Abnegation, Erudite, and Dauntless. These results make her “Divergent.” Tori warns Beatrice that the label is extremely dangerous and she should never tell anyone about her results. She sends Beatrice home to think about how to handle the next day’s choosing ceremony.
Beatrice plans to intercept Caleb and ensure he doesn’t reveal her early return to their parents. As she passes through the decayed factionless sector, an unkempt man approaches and asks her for food. She gives him a bag of apple slices and he grabs her wrist, asking her about the choosing ceremony. As she prepares to hit him, he lets her go and tells her to choose wisely.
Analysis: Chapters 1 – 3
Divergent is set in an American city at some point in the future, possibly after a cataclysmic event has changed the landscape and social order. The setting is an urban matrix of glass and steel buildings bordered by a giant marsh that was once a lake. When combined with buildings named in later chapters, it eventually becomes clear that the protagonist lives in an alternate version of Chicago. Though elements of her life are familiar to contemporary readers– children ride the bus to school, adults have jobs, politicians govern – Beatrice’s opening sentences reveal that this isn’t contemporary America. As she watches herself in the mirror, a recurring motif, we learn her “faction” only allows her to look at her reflection once every three months. In dystopian fiction, existence is unpleasant or frightening in some way, usually because an unseen authority controls people in ways that are imaginable but unlikely in real life. Dystopian novels often feature a protagonist who tries to fight authority through a struggle that either succeeds or goes horribly wrong. Beatrice is the novel’s protagonist, and because the narration is first person, giving readers access to her innermost thoughts, readers are invited to sympathize strongly with her.
The rules that govern thought and behavior seem especially strict in Beatrice’s faction, but no one in the novel’s society has much free will. An unnamed authority has separated society into five factions. At age sixteen, each person must take an aptitude test that tells them which faction they are best suited for. The factions each have corresponding professional roles. For example, in Abnegation, Beatrice’s mother works for a volunteer organization that helps renovate buildings. Once they join a faction, idividuals must suppress their preferences and hide inconsistencies in order to conform to the community’s values. There are clearly tensions and overlap between factions, both in Beatrice’s inner world and in society at large. Throughout the book, she and her peers will wonder who and what actually determine the qualities that define each faction
Beatrice is anxious about the upcoming test and ceremony for conflicting reasons. The fact that her mother still cuts her hair indicates that in some ways she is still a child, and is apprehensive at the thought of leaving her parents and brother behind forever. However, at sixteen, she’s also on the cusp of an adult revelation. She senses that she has never belonged in Abnegation and that in a different faction she could be a different person. Adding to her inner turmoil, the other members of her family seem to be ideal Abnegation members. When she compares herself to them, Beatrice feels like an “outsider.” She freely admits she has trouble tamping down on her curiosity, making her feel both incompetent and oppressed. She is also drawn to the Dauntless, envying their life of climbing tall statues and jumping out of moving trains. Tori, the Dauntless woman who administers her test, provides Beatrice a new adult role model, and a chance to see what she could achieve if she left the safe but boring comforts of her selfless life.
Though Beatrice is shocked when the aptitude test labels her “Divergent,” the result confirms her instinct that she is out of place in Abnegation. But the result takes that difference a step further by separating her not just from her faction, but from any clear identity in a society that forces people to show only one aspect of their personalities. Beatrice finds the prospect both exhilarating and terrifying. Though she never says so directly, her thoughts imply that she is trying to decide between Abnegation and Dauntless. Her encounter with the factionless man as she walks home shows what could be in store for her by reminding her that those who fail to conform, whether by choice or lack of ability, are doomed to live terrible, lonely lives. Nonetheless, she also recognizes that her inconclusive test allows her to make an unexpected and meaningful choice about her future.
Summary: Chapter 4
Beatrice arrives home five minutes early and waits for Caleb to return. She thinks about how all the houses in Abnegation are the same to prevent vanity, pride, and envy among faction members. When Caleb arrives with their friends Robert and Susan, Beatrice lies about her early return, saying the test made her sick. Though Caleb doesn’t believe her, she tells him she can’t discuss what happened. After the others leave, the siblings cook dinner together, and Beatrice feels irritated with Caleb’s natural unselfishness.
Their parents arrive home, and as the family sits down to eat, their mother mentions she heard there was a problem with one aptitude test. Meanwhile, their father, a politician, is angry about Erudite’s accusations against his colleague, a fellow Abnegation leader named Marcus. Jeanine, the Erudite representative, has released a report saying Marcus’ son, Tobias, left Abnegation for Dauntless because Marcus was violent and cruel. Beatrice’s father refuses to believe the report. He sees Marcus’s son’s departure as a betrayal, and thinks the Erudite are seeking power for themselves. On their way to bed, Caleb surprises Beatrice by telling her they need to think about themselves when they choose a faction, not just their families. She notices a stack of books on his desk and wishes she could ask him for help with her decision.
Summary Chapter 5
Beatrice and her family arrive at the Hub for the Choosing Ceremony. After giving up their space in the elevator to make room for others, they climb twenty flights of stairs to the ceremony room. All the sixteen-year-olds stand in a large circle, inside of which sits a ring of chairs for family members. In the center are five large metal bowls containing substances representing each faction: stones for Abnegation, water for Erudite, earth for Amity, coals for Dauntless, and glass for Candor.
Beatrice knows her father expects both children to stay in Abnegation, and is surprised when her mother says she’ll love her no matter what she chooses. Then Marcus gives a speech explaining the “democratic philosophy” that underpins the factions. The divisions are meant to eradicate evil human impulses, including ignorance, duplicity, and selfishness, and the system has led to years of peaceful civilization. The initiates’ names are called in reverse alphabetical order. When called, each person cuts his or her hand with a knife and sprinkles blood into the bowl representing their chosen faction. Beatrice and the other Abnegation members are shocked when Caleb chooses Erudite, since the two factions have become enemies. Feeling obligated to her family, Beatrice nearly chooses her home faction, but after a few agonizing moments, she picks Dauntless.
Summary: Chapter 6
Beatrice leaves the Hub with the other Dauntless initiates. On her way out, she sneaks a look at her parents. Her father is upset, but her mother is smiling. In contrast to her quiet ascent with the Abnegation faction, she and her fellow initiates run loudly down the stairs. She enjoys the feeling of freedom and is exhilarated as she jumps onto a train for the first time. After another initiate helps pull her in, she sees a boy who didn’t make it onto the train recede into the distance. The girl who helped Beatrice into the train introduces herself as Christina, a Candor transfer.
When the train arrives at Dauntless headquarters, the initiates jump onto its roof. Beatrice, Christina, and several others make it safely, but one girl falls to her death. A Dauntless leader named Max tells them to jump into the compound entrance at the center of the building, a giant hole seven stories deep. Irked by the taunts of a Candor boy named Peter, Beatrice decides to jump first. She takes off her outer shirt, revealing skin for the first time, and throws it at Peter. She jumps, and after a long fall, lands heavily in a net. A young man with dark blue eyes helps her onto a platform. He and another Dauntless girl, Lauren, are impressed that the first jumper is from Abnegation. Feeling like her name doesn’t fit her new faction, she tells them her name is Tris. She learns that the boy’s name is Four, and he welcomes her to Dauntless.
Analysis: Chapters 4 – 6
In these chapters, readers are given a clearer sense of daily life in Abnegation. The faction doesn’t just prioritize humility, it demands it. All of its social norms and requirements – identical houses, simple clothing and hairstyles, limitations on public affection – force people to downplay their individual needs and desires on behalf of the collective good. The faction also plays a central role in the political system. Beatrice’s fictional society assumes that the selfless members of Abnegation make the best political leaders. However, Beatrice’s father reveals that this arrangement has begun to cause tension. Specifically, the Erudite feel that their intelligence is a valuable political asset and have begun attacking the council, which is composed entirely of Abnegation members. These troubling details foreshadow worsening problems between the factions.
Marcus’s speech at the Choosing Ceremony reveals more about the historical rationale for the factions. Decades ago, social leaders decided that war was caused by evils within the human personality, not external forces. This led them to attempt to eliminate the human traits that caused violence. It’s notable that his speech focuses on the desire to eliminate bad traits rather than cultivate good ones. He goes on to say that the arrangement created pools of talent for different occupations, but he doesn’t acknowledge the system’s obvious downsides. The factions separate people into rigid categories, forcing each to cultivate a single virtue at the expense of all others. And even though the factions have lived in peace for decades, their separation invites competition and distrust. The negative reports Erudite has been releasing about Abnegation foreshadow the breakdown of the system amidst worsening faction relationships.
Beatrice is especially sensitive to the personality gap between herself and her brother, Caleb. She considers him a model Abnegation citizen and resents his natural unselfishness. Even though they are in the same grade, he is slightly older, and he acts like an elder sibling. He rebukes Beatrice when she speaks out of turn at dinner, and later he gives her advice about the Choosing Ceremony. Her surprise at Caleb’s decision to switch to Erudite reveals that she isn’t an entirely reliable narrator. Her conclusions about others are often influenced by her own self-concern. For example, the stack of books on Caleb’s desk might have alerted her to Caleb’s Erudite aspirations, but she’s so anxious about her own choice that she doesn’t think about what the books might mean.
The Choosing Ceremony forces Beatrice to confront her conflicted feelings head on, and her desire to break free wins out. She feels guilty about leaving her family, especially since Caleb has also chosen a new faction, but she has convinced herself she is too selfish to stay in Abnegation. As she cuts her hand and drips blood over the coals, she observes, “I am selfish. I am brave.” The statement suggests she can’t imagine being both brave and unselfish. Indeed, the inflexible social order has made choosing a new faction a traumatic experience. Unlike in contemporary American society, in the novel, adolescence means physically leaving one’s family and beginning an entirely new life.
The opening scenes of the Dauntless initiation show Beatrice giving free reign to her adventurous impulses. Even though she is nervous and inexperienced, she isn’t timid. She immediately jumps on the train along with the other initiates, and she’s the first to leap seven stories down into the Dauntless compound, earning her the nickname “first jumper.” Indeed, initiation provides her with the opportunity to create a new identity. When Four asks her name, she shortens it to “Tris.” The change reveals that despite her newfound independence, she’s still vulnerable to social pressure. Although she has joined Dauntless because it best represents her individual self, she chooses a name that conforms to the norms of her new faction. Her desire to appear brave in front of others, especially those who question her abilities, will surface repeatedly throughout the book.
