POW! The sounds of gunshots send the members of Abnegation dissipating in affright as asinine Dauntless march into the Abnegation headquarters armed and at the command of the Erudite and more specific, Jeanine Matthews. These fatuous, mind-controlled robots were oblivious of their actions, because this one woman became covetous for power.
The book Divergent elaborates on this event, before and after, and is proof of what Tris’s mom said on page 441, “Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again,” although in certain areas her statement is contradicted and once, even by herself. History backs up Tris’s mom, Natalie Prior, and her belief with examples of evil people or groups being poisoned by evil, terminating any period of good that was occurring before them. In history, recent and long ago, there have been periods of time when certain leaders and nations or just simple groups have been massacred innocent people by the thousand and even millions simply because of their race or beliefs. The only title given to these people is “evil”.
The book begins in a society that has resorted to factions to keep peace, and each faction is known for a single trait that the members of that faction practice to achieve mastery in. There were five factions: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite. Ever since the factions were created, or as far as anyone can remember, the have maintained a society without war even though some factions don’t exactly enjoy the other’s company sometimes. According to the way Tris acted, the factions seemed stable and normal to her, and she didn’t have a thought in her mind that they could ever mutate into a warzone. By the descriptions in the book, Tris had a loving family, a nice brother that she got along with, and friends that she could see herself spending the rest of her life with. She may have not felt like she truly belonged to the faction of Abnegation, but that didn’t matter, because she had a stable environment with everything she needed. Life was great. That feeling of insecurity about her faction led her to choose Dauntless at the “Choosing Ceremony” where sixteen year olds choose which faction to be in for the rest of their life if they complete initiation. Tris received the expected response from her father, but her mom simply mouthed the words “I still love you,” which cushioned the blow from her father a little bit. Even in the light of what all has happened, life is still good for Tris, and the only thing she has to worry about is Dauntless initiation.
When Tris undergoes her aptitude test to determine which faction she would be in the rest of her life, she ends up becoming Divergent, or qualifying for more than one faction. She was told by her test administrator, and later her mother, that being Divergent is dangerous. This befuddled Tris, and she began to believe that the factions weren’t as good as they seemed, and she felt that the leaders in...
