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CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT

SYMBOLS, THEMES & ANALYSIS OF THE DIVERGENT TRILOGY

Choosing to be Insurgent or Allegiant is an unauthorized guide and commentary on Divergent and its related universe. None of the individuals or companies associated with the books or movies or any merchandise based on this series have in any way sponsored, approved, endorsed, or authorized this book.

LitCrit Press

Contents Introduction ...... 11 Factions ...... 13 Choosing Factions ...... 13 Escaping the Factions ...... 14 Understanding the Factions ...... 15 Destroying the Factions ...... 18 Dystopia ...... 21 Dystopian Inspiration ...... 24 Comparisons to Hunger Games ...... 30 What to Wear: Dressing for Dystopia ...... 38 Symbols ...... 43 Beatrice’s Symbols ...... 43 Ravens and Crows ...... 46 Food ...... 47 Names and Numbers ...... 48 Vocabulary’s Deeper Meanings ...... 50 The Heroine’s Journey ...... 55 Savior of the Innocent ...... 55 Family ...... 57 Threshold ...... 58 Friends, Allies, Love...... 61 Divergent’s Climax ...... 64 Facing the Shadow ...... 67 Wicked Stepmother ...... 73

Death ...... 75 Gender Roles ...... 79 The Warrior Woman and Romance ...... 88 Psychology Personality and Fear ...... 95 Brain Chemistry ...... 98 Genes...... 99 Personality Tests ...... 100 The Nature of War and the Child Soldier ...... 106 Themes ...... 109 Coming of Age, Kids versus Adults ...... 109 Prejudice ...... 114 Religion ...... 116 The Nature of Bravery ...... 121 Free Will ...... 123 Setting ...... 127 Fan Responses ...... 133 Movie ...... 137 Future Plans ...... 139 Characters of the Series ...... 141 Works Cited ...... 143 Primary Sources ...... 143 Interviews ...... 144 Secondary Sources...... 145 Index ...... 149 About the Author ...... 154

10 VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL

Introduction

In May 2011, HarperCollins imprint Katherine Tegen Books published Divergent, the debut novel by then 22-year-old author Veronica Roth. The first in a planned trilogy, Divergent describes a future Chicago in which society is divided into five personality-based factions – Candor, Erudite, Amity, Dauntless, Abnegation – and the main character, Tris, struggles to fit into her chosen group. (C.J.)

Insurgent followed a year later, then Allegiant was published the following October, less than six months before the upcoming film from Summit Entertainment – the studio behind Twilight.

“The Hunger Games was just becoming a thing when I was finishing writing it,” Roth says, and Divergent led the next wave of YA dystopian fiction. The timing worked in her favor, and so did the current distaste for fragile YA heroines like Twilight’s Bella Swan; Tris is strong and uncompromising … Despite its trendiness, Roth sees Divergent less as a traditional “point a finger at society” novel and more of a personal critique. (Dobbins)

The book, published by a student still in college, did astoundingly, instantly well. “Divergent was published in May 2011 and spent eleven consecutive weeks on the New York Times’ children’s best-seller list; the sequel, Insurgent, debuted at No. 1 a year later” (Dobbins). Though Roth herself joked the 11

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT next book would be called Detergent, with a box of soap on the cover, Allegiant concluded the series. As with Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, and others, the fandom has been vocal and expressive, filling the internet with creative works and speaking eagerly at young adult literature conferences. One critic adds:

They not only read the books, they emotionally devour them, often multiple times. So, if a majority of readers have a gripe about a character’s motivations seeming unrealistic to the story, they most likely have a point. And whether they intend to or not, they help Roth market her series across Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and other various social media streams. There’s something special about YA readers. We are not a quiet bunch that takes reading as a personal endeavor; our engagement and emotional attachment is unparalleled in other reader groups, and to disregard that is Roth’s mistake. (White)

This style of book, which makes such an enormous impact on our teen culture, also lends itself well to scholarly examination. What can readers learn about prejudice, courage, heroism, leadership, sacrifice from reading this story. What deeper symbolism appears in Tris and Tobias’s fear landscapes? How does the heroine’s journey unfold in a dystopian world? For that matter, why are dystopias so popular now and what do they say about the current teen culture? This book explores all those questions and more, inviting readers to dig deeper through Roth’s unusual vocabulary and vibrant images to find the true meaning of being Divergent.

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Factions

Choosing Factions “Tomorrow at the Choosing Ceremony, I will decide on a faction; I will decide the rest of my life; I will decide to stay with my family or abandon them,” Tris says at the first novel’s opening (2). Tris explains that to live factionless “is to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life: community” (20). Emphasis is placed on one’s adopted family of like-minded individuals, rather than the family of birth. As the story progresses, this attitude changes. Roth explains, “No one fits into a faction perfectly, so determining your aptitude is extremely difficult. But as for choosing a faction it’s all about priorities” (Divergent Bonus Materials 8). Some value friendship, others bravery or knowledge. This method of sorting has been noticed by many Harry Potter fans, with its personality test and house affiliation. However, it appears a closer metaphor for today’s aptitude tests, which cleanly pigeonhole people as creative introverts suited to be painters or intellectual yet neurotic researchers in esoteric subjects. Likewise, many students pigeonhole themselves in high school. There are the jocks, the geeks, the theater crowd, the goths, or famously the outcasts who do not choose…Beatrice starts by being told all people must fit cleanly into a category, and she gradually discovers this is not true for herself, or truly for anyone around her. Roth adds:

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT

The faction system reflects my beliefs about human nature – that we can make even something as well-intentioned as virtue into an idol, or an evil thing. And that virtue as an end unto itself is worthless to us…I think we all secretly love and hate categories – love to get a firm hold on our identities, but hate to be confined – and I never loved and hated them more than when I was a teenager. That said: Though we hear a lot about high school cliques, I believe that adults categorize each other just as often, just in subtler ways. It is a dangerous tendency of ours. And it begins in adolescence. (Amazon)

“Divergence is extremely dangerous,” as Tori notes, but it’s the only path to independence free from the group’s selfish morality. Divergence celebrates independent thought and diversity – questioning tests rather than succumbing to them like a sheep. The outside world has no castes, and Tris and Tobias must bring about a world in which people may join a group or not as they please, but will no longer be wholly defined by this single choice.

Escaping the Factions “I think we’ve made a mistake ...We’ve all started to put down the virtues of the other factions in the process of bolstering our own. I don’t want to do that. I want to be brave, and selfless, and smart, and honest,” Tobias tells Tris (Divergent 405). He shows her his five faction tattoos in a synthesis of the different beliefs, and as she studies from him, she comes to believe in his choice not to abandon the other factions’ lessons. Christine Weasley, author of a series of essays about the rising conflict in Divergent as seen through a lens of alchemy explains:

Overall, I think that is Roth’s ultimate goal for Tris’s character, what Tobias already understands and manifests in his back tattoo: that no one virtue supersedes another, and it is in fact necessary to develop each equally in the process of becoming a fully mature adult. (Weasley, “Nigredo”)

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Thus, Tris refuses to be a Dauntless leader because she feels she’s truly Divergent. She notes, “I am whatever I choose to be. And I can’t choose to be this. I have to stay separate from them” (Insurgent 266). She dreams of being “an ambassador to the other factions” (Divergent 408). Like Four with his variety of tattoos, Tris feels a bond with all five communities, and displays many skills from her top three – In one instance, Tris objects to Dauntless brute force and suggests mixing it with cunning. (Insurgent 173). In turn the Dauntless ask her to guess the Erudite plans because she can think like one of them. In time, she and Four forge an alliance with the Factionless ... in return for their being part of the government to come. She values all the groups, including the one that rejects them all.

Understanding the Factions “Those virtues are the ones I believe in. And to kind of dismantle my own understanding of those virtues, or what it would be like to live this way, was a little bit like delving into my own psyche,” Roth says, explaining her creation of the five factions (Dobbins). In the second book, Tris visits all the factions and dresses in their clothes, trying to discover who she wants to become. She too is deconstructing them along with herself. “I am collecting the lessons each faction has to teach me, and storing them in my mind like a guidebook for moving through the world. There is always something to learn, always something that is important to understand” (Insurgent 269). In each place, she has a life- changing moment as she faces the essence of that Faction: Visiting Amity, Tris brawls with Peter and is injected with their serum of peace and happiness. She skips and smiles, and to Tobias’s view is “acting like a lunatic.” She’s flirtatious, happy, and worry-fee, things she hasn’t been since the attack on Abnegation. Tris counters that “They put me in a good mood, that’s all” (62). When Tobias sees it’s worn off, he says, “Thank God … I was beginning to think it would never wear off and I would have to leave you here to … smell flowers, or whatever 15

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT you wanted to do while you were on that stuff” (67). Tobias later comments that Tris possibly didn’t fight it off because on some level she wanted to feel Amity’s peace and lack of responsibility. “Sometimes, people just want to be happy, even if it’s not real,” he adds (68). Following this, Tris wears baggy red pants and aids the other rebels to escape disguised as Amity, playing and laughing in the corridor. Her own experience there has granted her a deeper understanding of them, so much so that she can appear one of them. “No factions? A world in which no one knows who they are or where they fit? I can’t even fathom it. I imagine only chaos and isolation,” Tris thinks at the second book’s beginning (110). After, however, she eats diner among the Factionless, rides a train with them, wears their clothes, and washes up in their all- too-public bathroom. Among the Factionless, Tris borrows clothes and again appears one of them in “jeans and a black shirt that is so loose up top that it slips off my shoulders,” indicating how badly she fits among them (Insurgent 115). She also meets Tobias’s mother Evelyn and discusses strategy with her. Evelyn suggests Tris become important and help bring about a world without factions, giving Tris a Factionless path to follow. “They all laugh. We all laugh. And it occurs to me that I might be meeting Tobias’s true faction. They are not characterized by a particular virtue. They claim all colors, all activities, all virtues, and all flaws as their own” (409-410). Tris undergoes a grueling initiation in Candor, interrogated before the entire population with truth serum. There, she’s simultaneously rewarded and burdened with the knowledge of how much she means to Tobias, then she must accept and confess the worst thing she ever done – she tells Christina, Tobias, and everyone else that she shot Will. She also tells everyone she’s Divergent, the great secret she’s kept hidden for far longer. “I feel bare. I didn’t realize I wore my secrets as armor until they were gone, and now everyone sees me as I really am” (Insurgent 151). Of course, this is the actual initiation Candor’s trainees undergo, thus she has literally become one of them. 16

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL

Jeanine extorts her into coming to Erudite, and there she tortures and kills Tris (as far as she knows). At the same time, Tris comes to understand Jeanine’s analytical mind and studies her own brain scans, discovering what Divergence actually means. At the end of the book, Tris has disguised herself as Erudite and mimics them well enough to be believed: “‘The data is of the utmost importance,’ I say, trying to sound as arrogant as some of the Erudite I’ve met. ‘I would rather not leave it to get riddled with bullets’” (Insurgent 471). The other woman believes her and Tris infiltrates the compound. In Abnegation, she and Tobias recover as they scrub each other in his childhood bathroom, each selflessly caring for the other in Abnegation fashion.

“I’ll be your family now,” he says. “I love you,” I say. I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don’t know why I didn’t say it when he could hear it. Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was almost too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me. I am his, and he is mine, and it has been that way all along. (Insurgent 399-400)

Tobias says he loves her in return, and they have a moment of peace and happiness before the book’s climax. This in alchemy is the albedo stage, a spiritual climb before the violent red of conflict known as the rubedo. Christine Weasley adds:

In perhaps one of the most beautiful reunion scenes I’ve read, Insurgent’s albedo culminates in a moment of humility and submission: Tobias washes Tris’s feet, dirty and bloodied by a barefooted flight from Erudite headquarters – an echo of Christ washing his disciple’s feet the night before Judas’s betrayal. If Divergent’s alchemical wedding represented a physical (though chaste) union, Tris and Tobias’s humble exchange of “I love you” signify a spiritual

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT

mingling. The water of the tub turns pink with Tris’s blood, ushering in Book Two’s rubedo. (“Albedo”)

Destroying the Factions As Tris observes, “Dauntless was formed with good intentions, with the right ideals and the right goals. But it has strayed far from them” (Divergent 206). Too many teens are killed and maimed because the faction values competition and cruelty over teamwork. The other factions are flawed as well. Amity refuses to take a stand in the war. Abnegation become lambs to Erudite’s slaughter as they battle over their secrets. By the third book, Tris has gained much perspective on the factions: “Every faction loses something when it gains a virtue: the dauntless, brave bur cruel; the Erudite, intelligent but vain; the Amity, peaceful but passive; the Candor honest but inconsiderate; the Abnegation, selfless but stifling,” she explains (Allegiant 123). As she adds, “But now I’m wondering if I need it anymore, if we ever really need these words, ‘Dauntless,’ ‘Erudite,’ ‘Divergent,’ ‘Allegiant,’ or if we can just be friends or lovers or siblings, defined instead by the choices we make and the love and loyalty that binds us” (Allegiant 134). Roth explains:

I thought of what would unite that group to other groups, and given my fascination with personality-based groups (like those in Harry Potter, or the armies in Ender’s Game, or the houses in Kushiel’s Dart, even), I came up with the other “virtues.” (Granger, Interview)

Each of the series mentioned has team names like Harry Potter’s battling houses or the literally battling armies of Ender’s world. Kushiel’s Dart has houses of courtesans that cater to different tastes (Balm House is for healing, Heliotrope for laughter, etc.) but these houses are known for camaraderie. In Allegiant, they are forced to abandon their factions. “I am wearing a grey shirt, blue jeans, black shoes – new clothes, but beneath them, my Dauntless tattoos. It is impossible to erase my choices. Especially these,” Tobias says (Allegiant 23).

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“The reason the factions were evil is because there was no way out of them,” I say. “They gave us the illusion of choice without actually giving us a choice. That’s the same thing you’re doing here by abolishing them. You’re saying, go make choices. But make sure they aren’t factions or I’ll grind you to bits” (463-464)

With these words, Tobias confronts his mother and reminds her that commanding people to be Factionless is as bad as forcing them into Factions. The rebel group who wants to leave their sheltered world call themselves Allegiant “because they’re allied with the original purpose of our city,” Evelyn explains (Allegiant 20). By story’s end, the Allegiant, the Factionless, and those who are pro- faction are all granted what they wish – the choice to go or stay but live in peace, all equally valued. The rightness of this is one of the story’s morals.

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL

Dystopia “If utopian fiction became the new trend, instead of dystopian fiction, I wouldn’t read it,” Roth adds. “If you actually succeed in creating a utopia, you’ve created a world without conflict, in which everything is perfect. And if there’s no conflict, there are no stories worth telling – or reading!” (Roth, The World of Divergent, Kindle Locations 49-51). Today, many teens feel uncertain in a changing world, so many series explore worst-case scenarios, consequences, and possible outcomes for our modern lifestyle, pushed to extremes. “Western civilization used to produce literary utopias, but in the past century of world wars, financial panics, murderous totalitarian regimes and nuclear threat, dystopias have outnumbered sunny projections by several orders of magnitude,” comments critic Brian Bethune in his article “Dystopia Now.” “Telling a story in a futuristic world gives you this freedom to explore things that bother you in contemporary times,” Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games explains. For her, these are “issues like the vast discrepancy of wealth, the power of television and how it’s used to influence our lives, the possibility that the government could use hunger as a weapon, and…the issue of war” (Hudson). Divergent, like most other dystopian series, sets up an implausible world to explore issues as a modern-day philosophy exercise. In Tris’s world, the Factions’ attributes are explored, along with the shallowness of personality tests – in our world, people are not only smart or only brave or only self-sacrificing. Tris learns to combine these three qualities in herself as tools to recreate her world. There are

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT also themes of prejudice, bullying, and war as the hatred between factions escalates into violence. “Western civilization used to produce literary utopias, but in the past century of world wars, financial panics, murderous totalitarian regimes and nuclear threat, dystopias have outnumbered sunny projections by several orders of magnitude,” comments critic Brian Bethune in his article “Dystopia Now.” Roth comments:

DIVERGENT was my utopian world. I mean, that wasn’t the plan. I never even set out to write dystopian fiction, that’s just what I had when I was finished – at the beginning, I was just writing about a place I found interesting, and a character with a compelling story, and as I began to build the world, I realized that it was my utopia. And then I realized that my utopia was a terrible place, and no one should ever put me in charge of creating a perfect society. (The World of Divergent, Kindle Locations 58-62).

“We like to be scared of things that are not real. The idea that we’re watching or reading things that are completely outlandish or impossible or realty dire helps us cope with what is,” comments Karen Springen in her own Publishers Weekly article on dystopias. “YA [young adult] authors are using the dystopian genre to grapple with the issues of today,” adds David Levithan, editorial director at Scholastic. “It’s about improving the dystopia rather than throwing up your hands and saying, ‘This is what we’re fated to be’” (Springen). Roth adds:

When you’re a teenager, everything seems like the end of the world, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a silly thing. You’re waking up and becoming aware that the world has problems and those problems affect you, whereas when you’re young they don’t seem to affect you that much even if you’re aware of them. This dystopian trend picks up on that little part of your life where everything feels really extreme. (Carpenter)

Dystopia, whether for teens or adults, has various conventions. The story’s beginning introduces the dystopian 22

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL world with situational irony for readers – they know it isn’t “normal” to have to wear all grey like the citizens of Divergent or Matched, to live in the ruins of a futuristic city, plagued by food shortages and climate change. For some time, the main character accepts her life and follows the rules. Then comes a revelation or epiphany for the main character that this life is exploitative and a lie. The term for this, according to the literary scholars, is Anagnorisis (from the root of discovery in Greek). Suzanne Collins notes:

The interesting thing about Katniss is when the story begins, she doesn’t have much political awareness…And so she is struggling to put things together as she goes through the series, and it’s quite difficult, because no one seems to think it’s in their interest to educate her … Even though hers is an extreme case, I think all of us have to work to figure out what’s going on. (Hudson)

From this moment on, the young hero or heroine becomes a threat to the government. The character deliberates whether to become a revolutionary and change the system or succumb to despair. Eventually, the character chooses action and succeeds or fails. Frequently, there’s a love story, which is almost always anti-government, in a world that bans love or independence. Tris follows this pattern in her first book, when she realizes Erudite plans to control the Dauntless faction, and within hours, it does. As the Dauntless attack Abnegation, Tris instantly turns revolutionary. The third book sees her wrestling with a more complex disillusionment. First Tris walks out of her city into a world of billboards, and she sees “people with skin so smooth they hardly look like people anymore” who fly in airplanes and remember the history of the U.S. (Allegiant 103). Then comes the revelation that her world is an “experiment” to fix genetic damage, artificially constructed by those on the outside. As the GDs including Tobias attempt to fight the system, Tris must choose a side and finally evolve a better plan to recreate the world.

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT

Most often, the story ends either with the government winning (a pointed message of 1984 and Brave New World, for instance) or a revolution bringing about a marginally better world. Sometimes, the hero and heroine can only flee, finding a better life beyond the government’s influence.

Dystopian Inspiration Roth read several famous dystopias, from The Hunger Games to the classics of the past in order to construct her narrative. Among her favorite books and inspirations, Roth lists Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, 1984 by George Orwell, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, the Animorphs series, Harry Potter, and anything by Flannery O’Connor (Goodreads). She also mentions the Bible, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson and Juliet by Andras Visky (Divergent Bonus Materials 10). She adds:

I had this stretch of childhood where I read a ton of children’s fiction, then I grew up and read it all over again. I’m a big fan of Lois Lowry, of The Giver, and Madeleine L’Engle, of A Wrinkle in Time. But my dad also instilled in me a science fiction streak. I read Dune by Frank Herbert when I was far too young to understand it. (Deutsch)

The Giver, like Divergent, begins with a coming-of-age ceremony as aptitude placement. Like Tris, the story’s hero Jonas is unique as he’s appointed apprentice to the mysterious Giver. Both receive the jobs they’ll have all their lives, but both slowly learn their community is more horrific than it first appeared. Tris experiences simulated fears, and Jonas, transmitted emotions and memories of the past – both use these images from a subconscious reality to grow and learn. However, Jonas, like Tris, discovers that his government murders innocents in order to maintain total control. Leaving one’s innocence for a new understanding of horror and experience is present in most dystopian tales as a 24

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL metaphor for growing up. Both teens finally escape into the outside world to find freedom from the restrictive rules and summary executions. Unimaginably far into the future, the novel Dune takes place. The matriarchal Bene Gesserit rely on controlled breeding, and learn to access their ancestral memory through a deadly initiation ritual. They seek a Divergent hero in a sense, one born to guide humanity toward a better future using awesome mental powers. The initiation and emphasis on a chosen one with special mental powers are also found in Roth’s series. The Bene Gesserit Lady Jessica defies orders to conceive the child she wishes instead of the one required by duty – a similar choice to Tris’s mother’s. Jessica and her son Paul escape into the desert where Paul grows extraordinary mental powers to the point where he can sense future paths. Paul, the child of two worlds, becomes the great savior as he leads a revolution. He is a Tris of his story as both struggle to bring about a better future. In Dune, the Litany Against Fear reads:

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing...... Only I will remain.”

Roth adds that she imagines Tris repeating this to herself, over and over (Divergent Bonus Materials 13). Dune is a novel of environmentalism and deprivation, in a future of severe water shortage. Many other series offer this theme, as Wither and Matched show food shortages especially among the poor. Cassia in Matched is only allowed to wear dull brown and black. Tris mentions shortages both of technology like cars and of fresh produce. Her own people eat canned and frozen supplies as part of their self-deprivation campaign. Of course, living this way emphasizes the suffering of the dystopia, 25

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT but it doesn’t appear to improve people’s souls. As one critic notes:

Abnegation has moved beyond self-discipline to extreme self-denial, to the point where mirrors, birthday parties and even hamburgers are forbidden indulgences. The have become convinced that they know how to best govern and, as the example of Marcus shows, there is a potential for abuse when someone in power can act unchecked for “someone’s own good.” Through their constant and public self-sacrifices, they hamper their own ability to feel affection for each other and actually draw more attention to themselves than a regular glance in the mirror would or a piece of artwork would. (Freeman II)

The novel 1984 is one of the world’s most famous dystopian works and a central inspiration of Roth’s. Big Brother, head of the Party, rules every aspect of people’s lives, from television watching to thoughts. Cameras are in every room. The protagonist, Winston Smith, works for Big Brother, rewriting old newspaper articles to reflect the new version of history. Every moment, he must guard his expressions, pledge loyalty to Big Brother, second-guess whether the people around him are spying for the government. At last, one day he can’t take it anymore, and in his diary, his hand independently writes, “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” (Orwell 20). Tris has come to accept the spy cameras as a way of life though she’s horrified that “they didn’t intervene, they just invaded our privacy. Constantly” (Allegiant 135). Harder is the knowledge that she could be killed only for the mental skills she was born with – like a Thoughtcrime but less under her control. “They don’t want you to act a certain way. They want you to think a certain way. So you’re easy to understand. So you won’t pose a threat to them,” Tobias explains (Divergent 312). The history lesson she’s told during the Choosing Ceremony is false, as is Edith Prior’s speech at the end of the second book. It’s 26

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL revealed in book three that their entire history has been fabricated to manipulate them, much like in 1984’s world. Smith resists the government with his secret love for Julia, as they sneak into abandoned buildings or meet in the forest. Lev Grossman, in his essay, “Love among the Ruins,” posits that this romance inspired much of the dystopian teen novels’ ubiquitous love stories:

All these love stories are descended from the one in 1984 – the alienated bureaucrat Winston Smith’s passion for the beautiful Julia, a member of the terrifying Junior Anti-Sex League. But since then the focus has subtly changed. 1984 was a study of totalitarianism, and the love story of Winston and Julia was there in the service of that study, to show us the damage the state could do to individual lives. In the new dystopia, it’s hard to tell whether the love story is there to tell us about the dystopia or if the entire ruination of humanity has occurred just to set up the hookup. (Grossman)

Both Winston Smith and Tris are tortured with their worst fears – however, it’s an attempt to break Winston of his love and to train Tris to overcome them. Tris faces the flock of crows, Peter setting her on fire, herself drowning in a tank or in the ocean, then herself watching her family die or being forced to shoot them (Divergent 263). Tris does not break or stop loving her family as a result – by the third book, she sacrifices everything she is to save her brother. It’s her training that makes her strong enough to do this. Winston Smith, arrested for his thoughtcrimes, is tortured with his worst fear – rats – in order to remake him as someone loyal to the Party. When they strap a wire cage of rats to his face, he finally screams, “Do it to Julia! Not me!” (Orwell 300). By the end, his love has turned to hate, much as Peeta’s does in The Hunger Games. “Both The Hunger Games and Nineteen Eighty- Four pit the power of hate versus the power of love,” notes critic Mary Borsellino. While hate triumphs in the latter, The Hunger Games “ultimately insists that love is strong enough to survive through the horrors placed before it” (31). Divergent makes a 27

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT similar statement that facing fear and sharing it can improve one’s love for others. Juliet by Andras Visky deals with people kept prisoner for decades, facing suddenly being set free, paralleling the experience of the Faction citizens in the third book. It’s one of the subversive stories from Eastern Europe, as common people struggle against an unjust government.

While The Hunger Games begins in Appalachia, three more recent dystopias, Marie Lu’s Legend, Veronica Roth’s Divergent, and Moira Young’s Blood Red Road (all the first of trilogies, optioned by the likes of Ridley Scott and the producers of Twilight), rise up out of, respectively, Los Angeles, Chicago, and the American flatlands that have been reduced to a second Dust Bowl. In each case, the teenage-girl narrator has grown up sheltered in a zone of relative comfort. Her troubles multiply as society’s flaws are revealed to her and she must fight for survival and the safety of her family…By the end of Divergent, Legend, and Blood Red Road, the three couples have become rebels against a despoiled state, sprung from locked-in systems into unfamiliar territory. The relationships will be stressed and tested in future books – as Katniss and Peeta’s was in battling not one but two regimes in the Hunger Games trilogy. But the young women and men will apparently go forward together, partners in crime and world salvation. In this recession-battered age, these four authors (including two in their mid-20s) present the wild possibility of love and social change amid the ruins. If there’s hope in dystopias, what’s impossible in our world? (Nolan) ,

“I think it coincides with young people’s anxieties about the future, in that it’s about a heroic figure triumphing over the odds, but what drew me to write that kind of story was simply that it gave me a big canvas in which to explore love, betrayal and mistakes,” says Moira Young, author of Blood Red Road (Craig). Ender’s Game forces a young boy to battle endless simulations, conquering his fear as he becomes a battle genius, just in time to fight in a great war. Ender and Tris are both meant to be turned into ferocious killers. They, the good 28

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL characters, train as soldiers, ordered to abandon their ethics. “These characters gain their power not only because of their suffering but also because of their empathy; yet the same empathy that makes them powerful makes their violence painful” (Murphy 204). Laser tag or paintball are blended with actual, even deadly bullying, forcing them into a world of shifting rules and no adult supervision. Though they excel, both discover that violence has a terrible cost, especially for the young. Brave New World programs its citizens for particular values – they are raised to loathe family, enjoy new clothes, have only shallow relationships. They are also sorted into five castes at birth, from the smart and powerful Alphas to the barely- competent Epsilons. Each is programmed to be happy, in what the author describes as an incredibly effective totalitarian state: “Slaves do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude” (Introduction, xv). With less literal brainwashing, people of the five factions are also unnaturally conditioned. Candor teaches that truth is more important than kindness, and the Erudite value knowledge over compassion. Amity with their laughter and friendship circles somewhat mimics the overly- happy citizens of Brave New World, as both are drugged to feel only joy and love –“Instead of feeling miserable, they’d feel jolly. So jolly,” the government head explains cheerfully (92).

Both Candor, with its truth serum, and Amity, with its tranquilizer-laced bread, resort to pharmacological short- cuts in their efforts to force their citizens to live up to the Faction ideals. In doing do, both Factions rob people of their free will, as much as the Erudite’s simulation serum does. (Freeman II)

While Brave New World is something of a tragedy, with a society that kills its rebel and continues into the future, Tris and Tobias shatter their society and release its people from their glassed-in Eden to become part of the outside world. On the topic of glassed-in Edens, Divergent was sold to HarperCollins as “Hunger Games meets the Matrix.” Both The 29

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Matrix and Divergent are the story of a society living in a bubble, unaware there’s an outside world. Tris and her friends are shocked in the third book to discover their City is such a tiny percentage of the world that it’s almost nonexistent. Likewise, the “chosen one” Neo discovers that our world is merely a hallucination like Tris’s simulations. He, like her, has the power to break through them and finally escape into the real world. “This is what Jeanine was willing to enslave minds and murder people for – to keep us all from knowing. To keep us all ignorant and safe and inside the fence,” Tris realizes (Insurgent 524). Like Neo, she and her friends must find the courage to explore the world beyond their safe enclosure. All these dystopias comment on making moral choices in an immoral world, a popular theme in dystopia. Roth explains:

As a teenager, I put a lot of pressure on myself, and a lot of that, for me, was about finding a moral high ground. As I’ve grown up, I’ve decided to abandon that because it made me judgmental and also stressed me out. There’s really no way to be perfect. Perfectionism is a silly trait to have, so in a lot of ways that inspired the world of “Divergent,” in which everyone is striving toward that ideal and falling short of it. Tris is a character who experiences that stress about, “Am I doing the right thing? I always have to do the right thing. If I don’t, what am I worth?” (Carpenter)

Tennyson’s “Ulysses” also inspired Roth, especially the ending. “For Tris and the people who help her at the end,” she explains:

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, – One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Comparisons to Hunger Games

Both “Divergent” and “The Hunger Games” feature appealing, but not conventionally pretty, young women with 30

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toughness to spare. Both start out with public sorting rituals that determine the characters’ futures. And both put the narrators in contrived, bloody battles that are in fact competitions witnessed by an audience. Even the language sounds familiar: the Hob is a central geographic point in “The Hunger Games”; in “Divergent,” it’s the Hub in the remnants of what was once the Sears Tower. For a book that explores themes about the right to be individual and the importance of breaking away from the pack, “Divergent” does not exactly distinguish itself. (Dominus)

Certainly, tough, wary Katniss and Tris have many parallels, brought up to wear drab clothes and endlessly sacrifice for others, and then flung into conflict. Their battle begins as a game for a personal reward (making the Dauntless cut, winning the first Hunger Games) then expands outwards into revolution. Their first person teenagers who struggle to end the violence and bring about a better world are a poignant plea for peace, especially with the devastating deaths at the climax of each third book. Roth comments:

The Hunger Games is pretty fantastic, so I always get a little scared when people make those comparisons because I think, “Well, I never tried to do that…” And it’s so good that it’s a little daunting to see those comparisons out there. But at the same time, it’s been pretty incredible what it’s done for the genre and for my book’s visibility. Also, if you’re going to be compared to something, it might as well be The Hunger Games because it’s really awesome. At least it’s not something I didn’t like. (Truitt)

The books begin similarly with the girls preparing for their reaping and Choosing Ceremony.

Compare:

“Tomorrow at the Choosing Ceremony, I will decide on a faction; I will decide the rest of my life; I will decide to stay

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with my family or abandon them.” (Divergent 2)

My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping. (Hunger Games 3). “Family devotion only goes so far for most people on reaping day. What I did was the radical thing.” (Hunger Games 26)

The girls face psychotic killers like Eric and Cato, but also find allies and friends. Both attempt to protect the weak, though Al and Rue both die nonetheless. This is the beginning of many deaths of allies and friends as the war gains momentum. Roth says:

What’s interesting about these characters is that a lot of their strength is expressed in a physical way. Tris is physically weak but she learns how to be skilled in a physical way. Katniss isn’t super buff, but she knows how to defend herself. I think that’s something that needs to be explored more. Characters like Tris and Katniss, their worth and strength is not limited to their physical abilities. They’re very much in control of their own destinies. In “Insurgent,” Tris says, “Where I go, I go because I choose to.” That element of “I can do it. I can control my life,” that everything that happens, good or bad, happens because of the choice of the main character, that’s sort of a new thing. (Carpenter)

The Districts and Factions have parallels as well – each creates specific products with individual attitudes, lifestyles, and symbols. Foods, naming patterns, and so forth remain distinct for each. In the second book, both heroines begin understanding the other districts and the concept that they’re all on the same side. The two teens are tough, powerful survivors who can take care of themselves. They also have moments of breaking out and looking incredible, once they shed their drab, dystopian clothes:

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Compare:

“My face is noticeable…This is someone whose eyes claim mine and don’t release me; this is Tris” “See?” she says. “You’re…striking” (Divergent 87).

And there I am, blushing and confused, made beautiful by Cinna’s hands, desirable by Peeta’s confession, tragic by circumstance, and by all accounts, unforgettable. (Hunger Games 137-138)

“I can’t force you. I can’t make you want to survive this…But you will do it. It doesn’t matter if you believe you can or not. You will, because that’s who you are,” Tobias tells Tris (Insurgent 365).

“Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without,” Gale says (Mockingjay 329).

Both girls break down from PTSD. They run endlessly, shake, refuse to touch their weapons. Both are caught in endless nightmares. As they repeat words of self-blame, like Tris’s “His hand, I could have shot his hand, why didn’t I? Why?” (Insurgent 9) or Katniss’s “How can I help the districts when every time I make a move, it results in suffering and loss of life?” (Mockingjay 12), they begin to succumb to despair over their situations. Only their willpower and the comfort of their friends helps them overcome it. The heroines battle supervillain mass murderers President Snow and Jeanine Mathews, who specifically target the heroine’s home district and cause indescribable loss. The heroine is recruited by the other side – the Factionless or District Thirteen who exist to fight the great dictator. However, Katniss and Tris soon realize the women in charge of the anti-establishment, Evelyn Johnson-Eaton and Alma Coin, are no better than the enemy.

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Compare:

“What I’m suggesting, [Evelyn says], is that you become important.” (Insurgent 111)

“What they want is for me to truly take on the role they designed for me. The symbol of revolution. The Mockingjay.” (Mockingjay 10)

“I don’t trust her, I think she’s trying to use you,” Tris tells Tobias about his mother (Insurgent 294)

“The truth is, I don’t trust the rebels or Plutarch or Coin. I’m not confident they tell me the truth,” Katniss confides (Mockingjay 114)

Tobias mentions that the Divergent tattoo artist Tori “would also request the tight to rid the world of Jeanine Matthews.” “I’m sure that could be arranged,” Evelyn replies. “I don’t care who kills her; I just want her dead” (Insurgent 292).

“I KILL SNOW” (Mockingjay 38). Coin replies that she’ll flip Katniss for it.

Evelyn appears to be Jeanine’s opposite: Jeanine wanted to kill everyone not in factions; Evelyn tries to disband them. However, they both use tools of total control and insist on total obedience. Evelyn announces everyone must do a job rotation and share all the jobs equally. This parallels Coin’s District Thirteen in which all things must be shared, from food to skin ointment. Every hour is scheduled. Worse, Coin begins bombing the enemy’s civilians just as Snow did, and celebrates her new reign by instigating another Hunger Games. When Evelyn takes over, she proves a second Jeanine – Evelyn forces a curfew and promises to get the Allegiant under control. Tris’s journey to the outside world and the people studying genetics in O’Hare airport mirrors Katniss’s travels to District Thirteen. Both societies seem benevolent, but they ignore the people starving just beyond their gates and do nothing to stop the bloodshed in the experiments or districts. “How can I walk 34

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL these squeaky floors and wear these starchy clothes when I know that those people are out there, wrapping their houses in tarp to stay warm?” Tris asks (Allegiant 367). Thirteen and the base both offer unheard-of technology but also a world of spy cameras and rules. Outside these small, enclosed worlds is a larger world more like our own, with luxury, technology and fashion. This world also avidly watches the spy cameras, rooting for Katniss and Tris in a parody of our own actions. Both girls are repelled. Like a fan, Nita wonders what her fear landscape would be, if she were to enter the world of her on-screen heroes (Allegiant 239). Katniss’s supporters sigh over her love story with Peeta in the first Game, then vote on her wedding dresses. These are clearly a reflection of us, the Americans who live artificial lives, with art and music, and flowers grown simply for ornament and luxury.

Compare:

Outside her city, Tris sees “people with skin so smooth they hardly look like people anymore” who drink Coke and energy drinks (Allegiant 103).

What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment? (Hunger Games 65)

“Do they really have no idea how freakish they look to the rest of us?” Katniss wonders (Catching Fire 49)

“People in the bureau watch the screens often and for the past few months you’ve been involved in a lot of interesting things. A lot of the younger people think you’re downright heroic” Tris responds sarcastically that she was obviously focused on heroism, “not, you know, trying not to die” (Allegiant 148)

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Suzanne Collins notes:

The Hunger Games is a reality television program. An extreme one, but that’s what it is. And while I think some of those shows can succeed on different levels, there’s also the voyeuristic thrill, watching, people being humiliated or brought to tears or suffering physically. And that’s what I find very disturbing. There’s this potential for desensitizing the audience so that when they see real tragedy playing out on the news, it doesn’t have the impact it should. It all just blurs into one program. (Hudson)

Tris calls watching the spy cameras “creepy and invasive” (Allegiant 191)

“They’ve surely got a camera tracking me now. I think back to the years of watching tributes starve, freeze, bleed” (Hunger Games 169).

I can see the plants in this room were selected for beauty not practicality – flowers and ivy and clusters of purple or red leaves…Whatever this place is, it has not needed to be as pragmatic as our city” (Allegiant 141)

The roses are glorious. Row after row of sumptuous blooms in lush pink, sunset orange, and even pale blue. (Mockingjay 354).

Both societies admittedly want the heroine and her friends for their genes. The heroines smilingly accept working for the corrupt leaders (Coin and David) in order to maneuver into the right place to take a real stand. These leaders believe in sacrifices for the greater good, but the life-loving heroine is determined to stop the war and end the slaughter of innocents. They pass through fire and trauma as they try to bring the world to peace:

“The fire, the fire. It rages within, a campfire and then an inferno, and my body is its fuel. I feel it racing through me, eating away at the weight. There is nothing that can kill me now; I am powerful and invincible and eternal” (Allegiant 468).

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Katniss, on the edge of death, imagines herself, saying, “I am Cinna’s bird, ignited, flying frantically to escape something inescapable” with “feathers of flame,” like a phoenix (Mockingjay 348).

“It seems like the rebellions never stop, in the city, in the compound, anywhere. There are just breaths between them, and foolishly, we call these breaths ‘peace’” (Allegiant 316).

"Now we're in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated. But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self- destruction." But he adds, "Who knows? Maybe this will be it ... The time it sticks. Maybe we are witnessing the evolution of the human race. Think about that." (Mockingjay 379)

Allegiant ends with the competent Johanna Reyes of Amity taking charge (her last name means king) just as Commander Paylor becomes president in the final wrap up of Mockingjay. Both are nonwhite women determined to end the corruption and bring about a new world, in which the minorities and underprivileged will be welcomed with justice.

Epilogues

What I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. (Katniss, 388)

Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other. (Tobias’s closing words, 526)

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What to Wear: Dressing for Dystopia Katniss lights the fire of revolution from the first moment she dazzles spectators with her flaming costume in the opening procession. She continues to burn in her jeweled ballgown and yellow candlelight dress, until all who see her are consumed by her passion. As she puts on Cinna’s costumes, Katniss begins to grow into Girl on Fire and Mockingjay together, finally announcing, “If we burn, you burn with us” (Mockingjay 106). In the Matched series, Cassia’s gowns, like Katniss’s, indicate a progression through both maturity and rebellion. Cassia wears a fluffy spring green gown to her Matching party, like a prom or Quinceañera dress. It matches the color of the green pacifying pill everyone carries, and Cassia wears it on her book’s cover, looking content and properly pacified in her bubble. On the Crossed cover, she’s dressed more practically, in clothing she can move in. She wears the blue of her survival nutrient pill and is smashing out of the bubble. Reached has Cassia in a more mature red gown, standing stately and proud. She’s broken out of the red sphere, the color of her dystopia’s brainwashing pill, as she broke through the other colors and conquered their pills to find the truth beyond. Tris transforms when she finds a tight, provocative black dress, rather than the baggy, concealing grey clothes of Abnegation. In the world of Scott Westerfeld’s Pretties and Uglies, Tally can have all the disposable, worthless clothing she wishes, mirroring her disposable, changeable “pretty” face. Still, it’s the homemade sweater from the forest that means much more to her. For both girls, new clothing means a change of status, a desire to become part of a new fearless community. Most dystopian girls must follow this path in order to become leaders.

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Divergent’s cover shades from blue to black, with an orange flame. Blue and black indicate twilight falling but also innocence shading into experience. Erudite members must wear blue, as they believe “blue causes the body to release calming chemicals” (Divergent 348). Blue is a tranquil color of the infinite sea and sky, suggesting an untested heroine who hasn’t begun her journey. The placid Virgin Mary wears blue in art. It’s a pleasant, calm color, the “green and brown and blue” of Cassia’s hometown (289). In the Delirium series, Julian’s childhood room is decorated in green, blue, and white, and those are the colors of Portland for Lena (66). Katniss wears a blue Reaping dress, and wears a finer blue gown in the second movie. Even Four’s eyes are “dark blue, a dreaming, sleeping, waiting color” (Divergent 59). In all these scenes, the journey is about to begin. Insurgent offers a spring-green cover with the Amity Tree. Green can represent youth and newness along with the growing things. It’s the color of lively nature and the protective forest – that’s why it’s Katniss’s favorite. Green, like blue and white, symbolizes innocence and childhood. Cassia sots placidly in a bubble wearing her green gown, with green pills used as sedatives. Tris too is green, just beginning to let her roots travel outside her two factions to explore the others. Within her first scenes, Tris is only allowed to wear grey. Dystopian heroines are often unable to get pretty gowns, like Katniss or Cassia, who both dress dully. Grey suggests dullness, gloom, an unformed state, or uncertainty. Beatrice is ordered to wear concealing grey, to rarely look in a mirror, to be stiff and distant and selfless – literally. In Delirium, Lena loves grey, the 39

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“moment when the whole sky goes this pale nothing color … it reminds me of waiting for something good to happen” (35). That’s the symbol of the untried heroine. Tris in turn reveals, “It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else” (Divergent 87). In Dauntless, everyone wears dangerous black. Black represents death but also the fertile soil of new life. As such, black is the feminine color of yin, the color of destruction but also a stalwart defense against it. When Tris tries on a knee- length black dress and literally (and figuratively) lets her hair down, she’s transformed. Her friend Christina puts black eyeliner on her, and Tris looks “noticeable for the first time” (Divergent 97). At that moment, she feels she’s transformed from proper, quiet Beatrice into Tris. Everyone comments that she looks good, as she’s discovering who she was meant to become. Other dystopian series also see slim black outfits appear as the rebels head into danger. Sneaking out to see her boyfriend Alex in Delirium, Lena wears black pajamas, black flats, and a black ski hat (206). Tough, black haired Raven is the leader of the group Lena meets in the Wilds – even her name suggests blackness. By contrast, her innocent daughter is named Blue. When Cassia finds the rebels of her world, they’re wearing “slick black clothes” (Crossed 347). In Uglies, it’s the scary Specials who wear “raw silks in black and grey” (Uglies 103). Of course, the heroine protests that she doesn’t want to dress up. Lena confesses, “I don’t like makeup, have never been interested in clothes or lip gloss” (Delirium 15). Offered a universe of pretty clothes, Tally attends a Pretties dance in her old brown sweater from the forest. Katniss sees the beauty treatments as something to endure. “You aren’t going to be able to make me look pretty, you know,” Tris protests. Christina retorts, “Who cares about pretty? I’m going for noticeable” (Divergent 86-87). Likewise, Cinna makes his tribute unforgettable as the Girl on Fire, gleaming like flame and coals. 40

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The catch is that Katniss and Tris don’t want to dress up – are coaxed into it by others. “If Katniss sought to be the center of attention, if she chose to string along two handsome young men more than willing to give their lives for hers, if she wanted to have her every movement photographed and admired, if she dreamed of leading the revolution, if she longed to compete and to win – if she had any ambition at all – she would be a bad girl by such a standard” (Miller). She must prove her goodness by not really wanting them. Tris too cares little for clothes, spending her effort on the revolution. In the second book, Tris tries on bits and pieces from the other factions, as if uncertain who she’s supposed to be. Most of these color symbolisms are clear – Amity wears cheerful, bright red and yellow – the opposite of self-effacing Abnegation. Their hair is down and they giggle and joke in the corridors. Candor is stark in black and white – they believe there is truth or falseness with no shading between them. Their attitude is as abrasive as their color sense, and they’re as unlike Amity as possible. The Erudite wear blue suits and glasses. Many ancient gods in India, Egypt, and more wore blue to demonstrate their heavenly sky power. Long ago, it was a royal color for its expense, but now we associate it more with business suits, like the clothing of the Erudite Faction. Among the Factionless and in the outside world, Tris mixes and matches her colors. She’s becoming a heroine of the world, not of a single faction but all of them, as we Americans are. Book three’s cover is the red of conflict. The seventh Harry Potter book has many references to red as Rubeus (red) Hagrid crashes into Hogwarts amid fire and blood. “The sky is now streaked with long filaments of orange and red, like the tendrils of a massive jellyfish,” Lena notes on the eve of revolution (Requiem 328). The third Matched book features Cassia in an elegant red dress, fully burst from her bubble and far more adult. John Granger, the 41

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“Hogwarts Professor” notes that Mockingjay’s climactic conflict is filled with redness: “Katniss watches a video of exploding rose bushes before donning her red-riding hood disguise (338) and entering the bloodiest, reddest pages of Mockingjay” with pools of blood everywhere in the Capitol. At the climax she burns, and sees herself as a fiery phoenix: “I am Cinna’s bird, ignited, flying frantically to escape something inescapable. The feathers of flame that grow from my body. Beating my wings only fans the blaze. I consume myself, but to no end” (348). Only after the war can peace and rebuilding come, as the people rededicate their city. Everyone may wear colors and choose factions or no factions as they please, and within this rainbow, they begin to heal.

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Symbols

Beatrice’s Symbols Tris begins her series gazing into a mirror, though she knows it’s forbidden. To her, the mirror symbolizes vanity, self-indulgence. Throughout history, mirrors have had another meaning. “Because of the once universal belief that one’s reflection is a vital part of one’s soul, mirrors and other reflective surfaces were long regarded as soul-catchers or doorways to the other world of spirits” (Walker 145). The symbol of Aphrodite gazing into her mirror is actually the modern symbol for woman. Thus Beatrice is gazing at her own soul, as she prepares to embark on her journey. She next encounters a mirror during her test. “Mirrors cover the inner walls of the room. I can see my reflection from all angles,” she says. “The ceiling glows white with light” (Divergent 11). This is a chamber of literal self-reflection, in which Tris reveals who she is. The whiteness suggests purity and cleansing in the midst of her initiation, but also starkness. “It looks like a place where terrible things happen,” Tris decides (12). Tori is her guide through the procedure. With her tattoo of a black and white hawk with red eye, she carries all the goddess colors.

The three original sacred colors were white, red, and black, signifying the goddess as maiden, mother, and crone: purity, maternity, and wisdom. Upheld by Indian and Greek legend, these colors were later adopted by the Christians as symbols of faith: virginity, martyrdom, and death …

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White, red, and black are goddess colors: young moon, full moon, and new moon. (Frankel, Girl to Goddess 192)

Tori explains that the hawk symbolizes the sun and thus represents her overcoming her fear of the dark. Tobias describes her arms as covered in “Flames and rays of light and hawk wings” (“The Transfer”). Thus she is a sun goddess of power and light, protecting and guiding Tris with enlightenment. In the test, Beatrice rejects the either/or choice of cheese and knife, even when ordered to pick one. Thus she demonstrates her legendary stubbornness along with her rejection of factions on a fundamental level. She is many things, not restricted by a choice of one group or another. Thus Tori explains that Beatrice confused the test by failing to make the programmed responses. Most people are not absolutes – a person might face a scary dog but refuse to pick up a knife, or save a child and a fierce criminal both. Tris has defied their test by acting wholly human. “It’s my choice now, no matter what the test says,” she realizes (23). In the Choosing Ceremony, she must choose between the bowls – each bowl is filled with a substance that represents a particular faction: grey stone for Abnegation, water for Erudite, earth for Amity, lit coals for Dauntless, and glass for Candor. These parallel elements: Amity to earth, Erudite to water, Candor to air, Dauntless to fire. Abnegation, stone, may represent the lead of alchemy or the spirit that was the fifth and most sacred element. Roth notes that Abnegation “includes five of the traditional ‘seven heavenly virtues’ chastity, temperance, charity, patience, and humility,” making it in many ways the most transcendent (Amazon). Tris feels she’s not good or spiritual enough for this last, so she chooses to stoke her own inner fire. Jeanine with her water magic becomes Tris’s enemy, but also a path to greater understanding. Water is transformative – Tris and Tobias have their first kiss surrounded by rushing water and spray. “For a few minutes we kiss, deep in the chasm, with the roar of water all around us”

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(Divergent 338). In her fear landscape Tris realizes she doesn’t truly fear drowning but losing control. She uses a rainstorm to save her when Peter burns her at the stake, symbolizing the transformation she will one day bring to the fire of the Erudite war, using the enemy’s symbol against her. Tobias too has a water symbol – the blue glass sculpture that’s “an abstract shape that looks like falling water frozen in time” (Allegiant 212). It’s a luxury in stark Abnegation but also a hint of better times to come and the possible transformation Evelyn offers her son before she abandons him to his father. She tells him, “It doesn’t do anything obvious. But it might be able to do something in here … beautiful things sometimes do” (Allegiant 514). He has the flexibility of Divergence, so it’s no surprise the statue remains a symbol of him. Evelyn holds it for hours after she takes charge of the city but loses Tobias. The symbol of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare is a tank of water that drips single drops onto a slab of rough stone, with each drop representing human intervention on the problems of the world. A woman tells Tris, “If they are persistent enough, even tiny drops of water, over time, can change the rock forever. And it will never change back” (Allegiant 146). Tris in turn is disgusted by the slow, patient approach to change: “I imagine the wave of water colliding with the rock and spilling over the tile floor, collecting around my shoes. Doing a little at once can fix something, eventually, but I feel like when you believe that something is truly a problem, you throw everything you have at it, because you just can’t help yourself” (Allegiant 147). Of course, this is the type of action she takes before the book’s end. After this, Cara says they’re taking the sculpture down. There’s no need for gradual change, as the world of prejudice and memory wiping has been ended by force. Cara and Tobias sit before it, silently watching the water and thinking of Tris’s final act (Allegiant 498). “I suppose a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last,” Tobias says of her (Allegiant 492). As Tris is dying, she too imagines the fires of Dauntless and conflict rising around her: “The fire, the fire. It rages within, a campfire and then an 45

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT inferno, and my body is its fuel. I feel it racing through me, eating away at the weight. There is nothing that can kill me now; I am powerful and invincible and eternal” (Allegiant 468).

Ravens and Crows In the tattoo parlor, Tris is captivated by Tori’s hawk as well as the image of a raven in flight. Birds traditionally symbolize freedom in a world of tyranny and oppression: Tris tattoos them on herself as she enters the Dauntless faction to signify a break with her old life. She also chooses three ravens, noting, “Maybe there is a way to honor my old life as I embrace my new one” (Divergent 90). While they represent her family members, Tris also considers herself a bird of a sort, ready to take wing. “I know that I am birdlike, made narrow and small as if for taking flight, built straight-waisted and fragile. But when he [Four] touches me like he can’t bear to take his hand away, I don’t wish I was any different,” she notes (Insurgent 49). She learns to fly on the zipline and feels the incredible freedom and joy of life in Dauntless, as the wind sails around her:

I throw my arms out to the side and imagine that I am flying ... My heart beats so hard it hurts, and I can’t scream and I can’t breathe, but I also feel everything, every vein, and every fiber, every bone and every nerve, all awake and buzzing in my body as if charged with electricity. I am pure adrenaline. (Divergent 221)

Crows or ravens (symbolically considered the same, as a raven is the largest member of the crow family) are ill omens. Both are black, but more disturbingly, after wars the birds would scavenge battlefields and eat the flesh of the dead. Thus they came to mean death and dark times. When Tris chooses them to represent her family, she may sense the darkness that’s coming. “Because of their association with the other world, ravens were viewed as oracles and teachers of magic” (Walker 408). Ravens are the iconic bird of 46

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL wisdom, from Odin’s ravens Thought and Memory to the Raven trickster lore of many Native American tribes. In Welsh myth, Bran the Blessed, whose name means raven, became an oracle after his death. They were a bird of Apollo, patron god of the oracles in Greek myth. Psychologically, Jung thought the raven symbolized man’s shadow – his dark side and unacknowledged fears. Certainly they become this for Tris. Tris’s great fear is a flock of crows tearing her apart. In the simulation vision, first one crow clings to her with fragile feathers and stubborn claws (perhaps her mother, still clinging to her despite everything). Then a flock of hundreds of crows attack, drawing blood and choking her with feathers. Tris has hundreds of former faction members from Abnegation. They are the leaders, the adults ruling the system. And if she reveals she’s Divergent, she fears they may be the ones to kill her. As Four reveals, crows certainly represent something else. When he sees her tattoo, which he identifies as crows, he believes her family is tied to her hallucination (Divergent 248). Tris suspects the “terror and helplessness” are what she really fears (Divergent 251). By this point, Tris’s family is dividing and entering danger. In the next chapter, Peter and Molly attack her family through Tris and her fear comes true (Divergent 243). Later, Tris dreams her mother is cooking a crow for dinner. Tris wakes to discover Al has killed himself. If a dead crow represents the first of her friends to die, then the crows indeed are loved ones and dark omens combined. By book’s end, Tris is killing crows in her simulation and reclaiming her power.

Food Each Faction’s food choices as well as dress reveals much about itself. Dauntless eat chocolate cake, beef stew and hamburgers – indulgent high-calorie foods popular with teenagers, those with action-packed lifestyles, and with those 47

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT who don’t worry about consequences – those who embrace life and all its sensations. Abnegation has healthy, bland foods – chicken, peas, and scrambled eggs. Tris’s mother only makes sweet banana bread for those in need, not for her family. In the third book, Tris and Tobias joke that the logical treat there would be oatmeal or stale bread. By contrast, the Erudite have fizzy drinks – a treat created by science rather than grown in nature. Amity has a strawberry-colored drink that brings a peaceful, dreamless sleep. Their bread is likewise adulterated with a mood-enhancer. The Candor offer their visitors ice cream, a treat as cold as they are. The Factionless pass around different cans so everyone gets a bite of everything – no one is superior, and all of them share.

Names and Numbers Tris’s name contains a “tri” – the Latin root for three and also for complex. This is appropriate as her Divergence places her in three factions, in contrast with most Divergents’ two – she is especially divergent, three-part, and complicated. The trinity symbolizes a union of mind, body, and spirit or past present and future. Many religions have trinities, from the maiden-mother-crone defining female lifestages to the tri-part gods of Hinduism and Christianity, may actually have been adapted from the earlier goddess trinity. Barbara Walker in her book on feminine symbols explains that the shamrock and all symbols of the trinity like it date back to the triple goddess “The triangle represented the three-in-one unity of this Goddess from the earliest scribblings of primordial man” (34). Three is also the number of fairytales – the smallest child, the third son or daughter wins in the end. Tris is not the third child of her family, but she’s smaller and physically weaker than her fellows. Through cleverness and compassion, she triumphs nonetheless. 48

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Tobias notes that when Tris is no longer afraid of them being together, “everyone can call you six,” because she lose one of her seven fears (Divergent 407). As described in The Da Vinci Code with its examination of symbols, a hexagram or six-pointed star represents a union of male and female (Walker 69). Beatrice means blessing or according to some, traveler. Both of course are logical for this blessed traveler who saves her city by journeying from her home to a new faction, exploring each of the factions, then finally leaving her city for the outside world, preserving life wherever she goes. The most famous Beatrice is Dante’s guide who teaches him to travel through the realms of hell, purgatory, and paradise and bring new knowledge back to his community, as Tris does for Tobias. “Prior,” Tris’ last name, gains importance at Insurgent’s end, as it means “what comes before,” even “origin” and “cause.” Edith Prior, one of her society’s founders and Tris’s ancestor, speaks to Tris like the voice of the past, directing how to save her world. Four’s real name, Tobias, comes from the Hebrew for “God is good.” It feels like a sanctimonious Biblical name of proper behavior, given to the perfect young Abnegation boy he was supposed to be, much like Caleb before they find new factions for themselves. Roth comments, “I choose names mostly based on how they feel to me, and Abnegation names tend to feel stuffy or old-fashioned (Beatrice, Tobias, Susan, Marcus). Joshua [though a Bible name] doesn’t feel stuffy to me, it feels tough, strong – maybe a Dauntless or Candor name?” (Baird- Hardy). She adds that he would prefer not to go by Tobias: “Four views ‘Tobias’ as the name of a helpless little boy, so he chooses ‘Four’ as the name of his adult self in an attempt to leave the pain behind him. It signifies his strength rather than his weakness. But what he finds is that he can't ignore his past; it keeps creeping up on him, especially in his fear landscape” (FAQs “Four”). The number four is a male symbol as the patriarchy divided the world into square maps and crossroads. The earth was conceived of as a four-cornered place. “Crosses represented male gods long before Christianity” at the tree of life or axis of 49

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT the world (Walker 46). If one adds the female three and male four, this equals the number of Tris’s seven fears.

Vocabulary’s Deeper Meanings The Factions are Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the peaceful), Candor (the honest), Dauntless (the brave) and Erudite (the intelligent). Of course, many fans have discussed these words and the concepts behind them. Roth explains:

I have been asked in the past if I made up the words for the faction names. I didn’t, but I did intentionally choose unfamiliar words, for an assortment of reasons. One of them is that I wanted to slow down comprehension of what each faction stands for, so you learn as much by observing as by the name of the faction itself. Another is that the definitions of the more obscure words are more specific, in interesting ways. And a third is – since I’m being honest here – that they sound cooler. (Roth, The World of Divergent, Kindle Locations 76-79).

In her companion book, The World of Divergent: The Path to Allegiant, Roth offers her definitions of the five words used for the factions.

Abnegation: 1. to refuse or deny oneself (some rights, conveniences, etc.); reject; renounce. 2. to relinquish; give up

Abnegation suggests an absence of self, a cutting off of one’s own desires in sacrifice. The word sounds more like a punishment than the heroic “selfless” because it suggests suffering and doing without. Roth adds: “I like the verbs in that first definition: ‘refuse,’ ‘deny,’ ‘reject,’ ‘renounce’ – active forms of stripping things from your life. As opposed to ‘relinquish,’ ‘give up’ in the second definition – which are more passive.” As Beatrice explains in the first book, “The reason for the simplicity isn’t disdain for uniqueness, as the other factions have sometimes interpreted it. Everything – our houses, our clothes, our hairstyles – is meant to help us forget ourselves and to 50

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL protect us from vanity, greed, and envy” (28).

Dauntless: fearless, undaunted. (Undaunted: courageously resolute, especially in the face of danger or difficulty; not discouraged.)

The word relates to undaunted – unstopped by one’s fears, unwilling to let terror interfere with goals. Roth adds: “Being fearless and being undaunted are two different things. And the characters in DIVERGENT struggle with that distinction.”

Amity: 1. friendship; peaceful harmony. 2. mutual understanding and a peaceful relationship, especially between nations; peace; accord. 3. cordiality

The root of this word is related to “amor,” love. It’s not just friendliness, it’s a state of peace and love as one settles things kindly with one’s fellow. Roth adds: “It’s not just about banjos and apple-picking. It’s about cultivating strong relationships and trying to understand each other.”

Candor: 1. the state or quality of being frank, open, and sincere in speech or expression; candidness. 2. freedom from bias; fairness; impartiality.

Candor, related to candid, means being brutally honest. When someone requests perfect candor about their hairstyle, they’re not seeking politeness, but the cruelest truth. Roth adds: “That definition helped me flesh out Candor more, particularly in the second book, Insurgent. The faction is not just trying to develop honesty – they’re also trying to develop impartiality.”

Erudite: characterized by great knowledge; learned or scholarly

Erudite people are well-spoken, well-learned, well-studied on a particular subject or more than one. They generally gain respect wherever they go. Roth adds: “The word ‘erudite’ focuses on knowledge rather than intelligence – intelligence 51

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT being something you’re born with and can’t necessarily control, and knowledge being something that you acquire. I find that interesting, given what I know about Erudite.” (Roth, The World of Divergent, Kindle Locations 85-109) Divergent is another word for deviating from the norm. The word fundamentally means being different. So many series begin with the hero finding out that his odd feelings and sense of not fitting in mean that he’s the Chosen One, destined for greatness. Tris discovers something similar with her power to beat simulations. However, as so often happens, her “difference” marks her as a target. If she reveals herself, her order-based dystopia will kill her for not fitting neatly in a category. Insurgent is defined for readers within the text: “Insurgent, he says. Noun. A person who acts in opposition to the established authority, who is not necessarily regarded as a belligerent” (Insurgent 458). An insurgency is a term for rebellion, but it can be a quieter term of political action rather than battle, and thus is often used as a euphemism for violent upheaval. While there are fights and deaths, Tris and her friends channel much of this into political action and small, concentrated strikes rather than the all-out war of many other series. The rebel group who wants to leave their sheltered world call themselves Allegiant “because they’re allied with the original purpose of our city,” Evelyn explains (Allegiant 20). The word itself, especially with the American Pledge of Allegiance, suggests loyalty to a cause and unity as the Factions finally work together. One critic analyzes the cover as Tris making her peace with the Erudite at last:

Just as the Dauntless fire emblazoned the cover of Divergent and the Amity tree provided our entrance into Insurgent, the wave-like swirl marking Allegiant is actually an Eye – Erudite. In the first two books, Tris begins at a place of incomplete, stereotyped conception of the depicted faction, and by the story’s end has come to a complex, mature belief in that faction’s values. In Allegiant, I posit that Roth will push Tris to explore the opposing poles of the subject of knowledge: anti-intellectualism represented by the Factionless and Evelyn, and a ruthless disregard for the 52

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welfare of others in the pursuit of hidden knowledge represented by Jeanine’s Matthews’s Erudite. (Weasley “Rubedo”)

The Factions can be said to represent parts of the psyche – Amity, all smiles, guards the gates of the land and produces the supplies. It can be said to be the Persona, the public face one shows to other people. Though it may appear friendly, a smile may hide the person’s deeper feelings. Visitors need not feel love toward each other, only act as if they do and keep the peace. In just this was, Amity produces a happiness serum, but it is an artificial mask over its inhabitants’ true feelings. Candor represents one’s conscience. Visiting them, Tris is forced to confess the truth she’s been hiding – she shot her friend Will, and she is Divergent. Erudite of course is the mind, but it’s a mind without compassion. Jeanine is its embodiment, and Tris observes, “She is cruel because she doesn’t care what she does, as long as it fascinates her. I may as well be a puzzle or a broken machine she wants to fix. She will break open my skull just to see the inner workings of my brain” (Insurgent 329). Abnegation is the place of empathy, and Dauntless, of the shadow, or dark side. Here Tris confronts all her hidden fears as simulations, and embraces the selfish, daring, expressive side she’s never explored. Of course, a truly strong person acknowledges all sides of the personality and doesn’t rely on the Persona like a shallow socialite, or spend all their time facing their raging dark side until it consumes them as it does vengeful Tori. Tris and Tobias wisely learn to master all sides of themselves and become fully-rounded individuals. “To kind of dismantle my own understanding of those virtues, or what it would be like to live this way, was a little bit like delving into my own psyche,” Roth says (Dobbins). It’s a fascinating exploration for readers and characters alike. To save the world in the end, Tris uses tools from all her worlds – Cara disables the guards with Amity serum. Caleb and Tris play a game of Candor until she realizes his motivations. She uses her understanding of self-sacrifice, offered by her Abnegation mother, to take Caleb’s place and enter the room of 53

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT the death serum. She resists it through her special Divergent genes, remembers the code while succumbing to her injuries thanks to her Erudite knowledge, and battles to save the world with the strength and training of Dauntless. She has become the embodiment of all virtues, and with them, she saves the world.

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The Heroine’s Journey

The hero’s journey and the less-known heroine’s journey form the basis of many popular books – Harry Potter, Ender’s Game, Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, and more. On the hero’s journey, the hero leaves home and crosses a threshold into another realm. As Joseph Campbell, author of the defining work on this subject, relates: “The hero feels something’s lacking in his life. He then goes off to recover it or to discover a life-giving elixir. There’s a cycle of going and returning” (123). The hero faces death in the darkest place of all, and then returns to life, transformed by his initiation. This is Tris’s pattern in all three books.

Savior of the Innocent

Though it’s less known, the classic heroine too has a journey, found in ancient epics across the world, as well as fairytales and modern fantasy novels. Her goal is to become the all-powerful mother. Thus, many heroines set out on missions to rescue their shattered families: Meg Murray of A Wrinkle in Time quests to save her father then her little brother. Coraline tries to save her parents, Meggie of Inkheart and Clary of The Mortal Instruments, their mothers. Tim Burton’s Alice tries to rescue the Mad Hatter. Scores of young women in folklore rescue their lovers from fairies, demons, and ogres. Demeter forces herself into the realm of the dead to reclaim her daughter, while Isis scours the world for her husband‘s broken body. Katniss, of course, spends the series protecting Prim and her growing 55

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adoptive family, from Peeta to the children of Panem. (Frankel, Many Faces of Katniss 113-114)

Katniss notes: “Prim … Rue … aren’t they the very reason I have to try to fight? Because what has been done to them is so wrong, so beyond justification, so evil that there is no choice? Because no one has the right to treat them as they have been treated?” (Catching Fire 123). Tris comes to a similar realization:

“My mother wasn’t a fool,” I say. “She just understood something you didn’t. That it’s not sacrifice it it’s someone else’s life you’re giving away, it’s just evil.” I take another step and say, “She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love, not misplaced disgust for another person’s genetics. That it should be done from necessity, not without exhausting all other options. That it should be one for people who need your strength because they don’t have enough of their own.” (Allegiant 473–474)

Tris’s childhood training in the selfless faction of Abnegation informs much of her value system. “Everything - our houses, our clothes, our hairstyles - is meant to help us forget ourselves and to protect us from vanity, greed and envy, which are just forms of selfishness. If we have little, and want for little, and we are all equal, we envy no one” (Divergent 27-28). She automatically protects a little girl in her original test. Later, she takes frightened, helpless Al’s place in the knife throwing scene and helps Four face his darkest fears in a simulator. “It’s when you’re acting selflessly that you are at your bravest,” Four tells her (Divergent 311). “We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another,” Will says when he quotes from the Dauntless manifesto (Divergent 206). Of course, the teens in Dauntless are actually pitted against one another, and cooperation vanishes. Tris also saves a little Candor girl when the Dauntless invade Candor. “You decided to charge into a crowd of armed Dauntless all by yourself. And I’m willing to bet you weren’t carrying a gun,” Tobias chides (Insurgent 210). After, Tris publicly 56

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL accuses Eric of killing the people of Abnegation and thinks of “all the grey-clothed innocents lying dead on the street” and the Candor boy Eric kills (Insurgent 273). Back in Dauntless headquarters, Tris and Christina save the youngest children from throwing themselves to their deaths. Tris knows deep down that she’s meant to protect the most helpless. When she considers mind-wiping the entire Bureau, she argues, “The people in the city, as a whole, are innocent. The people in the Bureau, who supplied Jeanine with the attack simulation, are not innocent” (Allegiant 388). This is the defining factor to her. She acts in the end because to her the war is “about taking away [the Bureau’s] power to control thousands of lives” (Allegiant 408). Her heroic sacrifice destroys those who made that choice and preserves the city of her innocent childhood, where other children are growing into Divergent saviors like herself.

Family The first thing Tris does after discovering she doesn’t fit the world’s neat little categories is leave home forever. Roth explains:

I wrote these books at a point when I was growing up. Senior year in college, about to do what Tris does, she’s making decisions about what she’s going to do with the rest of her life, and Tris’s decisions are comparable to maybe choosing a college, but also to choosing a life path. (Codinha)

The New York Times stated that Divergent explores a “common adolescent anxiety – the painful realization that coming into one’s own sometimes means leaving family behind, both ideologically and physically” (Dominus). Critic Leila Sales explains that “Dead parents are so much a part of middle-grade and teen fiction at this point, it’s not even the ‘in’ thing. It’s not ‘au courant’ or ‘en vogue.’ It’s just an accepted fact: kids in books are parentless.” Unusually in fiction, Tris comes from a stable happy family, with two living parents who love her. Gone are Bella and Katniss’s checked-out parents, 57

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT or Harry Potter’s comically horrid relatives. This makes Beatrice’s choice far more wrenching as she chooses to leave them behind in favor of her own personal growth. Though she’s left, Tris continues to channel her parents’ lessons, often doing the selfless thing like comforting Al and scrubbing the dormitory floor after Edward’s stabbing, which she realizes is something her mother would have done. “If I can’t be with her, the least I can do is act like her sometimes,” Tris decides (Divergent 209). Roth of course dedicated the book to her own mother, whom she sees reflected in Tris’s:

The only one that’s close to someone I know is Tris’ mother is a lot like mine, because my mother was always self- sacrificial and very kind and helpful to us. But when I got older, I realized she was also a badass, and I think that experience motivated a lot of the aspects of Tris’ mother that we see, so she’s a little like my mom. (Rachel)

“I love you. No matter what,” Mrs. Prior tells Beatrice at the Choosing Ceremony (Divergent 41). When her mother visits, they relate in a new dynamic, more as friends than mother and dependent child, and Tris discovers secrets of her mother’s past. A New York Times reviewer notes, “It is not a coincidence that Tris falls in love while undergoing initiation into her new tribe. It is precisely the moment when young people discover romance that family life all but evaporates, at least in terms of its emotional significance” (Dominus).

Threshold “In the first stage of this kind of adventure, the hero leaves the realm of the familiar, over which he has some measure of control, and comes to a threshold” (Campbell 146). For Beatrice, this of course is her personality test followed by the Choosing Ceremony. As she stands between Dauntless and Abnegation, safety and adventure, family and independence, she must choose. She’s 58

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL certain she’s flawed – not selfless enough to be what her family wishes, so she takes what she calls the selfish option. “It’s my choice now, no matter what the test says. Abnegation. Dauntless. Erudite. Divergent,” Tris thinks (Divergent 23). She has the choice to fade away, to become an intellectual, or to be daring – to seize life and take charge of it. This last is what she chooses. Like Harry Potter, Beatrice departs on a train that bridges the gap between her old world and her new one. “I hear a train horn, so faint it could easily be wind whistling through an alleyway. But I know it when I hear it. It sounds like the Dauntless, calling me to them” (Divergent 30). Initiation requires stepping through a gateway or some other great passage. For Tris this is a literal jump into the unknown. She’s told she must jump several stories into a mysterious darkness, so she takes the initiative and leaps before anyone else. “First jumper – Tris!” Four greets her, embracing her into the new world (Divergent 60). “Welcome to Dauntless.” By entering Dauntless, Tris becomes a new person, devoted to showing off and being the best rather than hiding her gifts behind a curtain of selflessness. Thus she chooses a new name for herself. “A new place, a new name. I can be remade here,” she thinks, and names herself “Tris” (Divergent 60). She chooses a slim black dress that makes her look “striking” and “noticeable” instead of the baggy grey clothes and ill-fitting black ones. As she adds in fascination, “Beatrice was a girl I saw in stolen moments at the mirror, who kept quiet at the dinner table. This is someone whose eyes claim mine and don’t release me; this is Tris” (Divergent 87). Naming oneself is a sign of character and strength, declaring who one wishes to be and what impact she wishes to make on the world. Roth notes that renaming is common once a person enters a new state of being or finds one’s purpose:

In the Torah, when a biblical figure has an encounter with God, sometimes he or she is given a new name. Abram to Abraham, for example. Jacob to Israel. Sarai to Sarah. Same thing in the Bible – Saul becomes Paul; Simon 59

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becomes Peter. This usually signals the beginning of some kind of transformation or indicates that a transformation has already taken place. If you want a more current example, think Mr. Anderson versus Neo in the Matrix movies, or Augustus versus Gus in The Fault in Our Stars (a little different, but interesting to consider, I think), or Andrew versus Ender. (The World of Divergent, Kindle Locations 118-122).

Roth adds that “Four views Tobias as the name of a helpless little boy, so he chooses Four as the name of his adult self in an attempt to leave the pain behind him” (The World of Divergent, Kindle Locations 127-128). The name Four is a symbol of strength of course, emphasizing that he’s overcome more than his peers to become the embodiment of Dauntless. He reveals in the third book that his instructor and mentor named him, just as he encourages Tris to rename herself. Next for the heroine comes a decent into darkness. The Dauntless compound itself is in a literal pit, with constant battles and black clothes – a place of darkness and risk like nowhere Tris has ever been. Death is a constant there, as Four says, “The chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy! A daredevil jump off this ledge will end your life!” (65). At Al’s funeral, death is revealed to be like Dauntless – “an unknown, uncertain place” (307). This new realm thus represents the underworld, a place of breaking down and transformation for Tris as she finds her inner strength. Many thresholds follow as Tris fires a gun, beats other initiates in their sparring matches, wins capture the flag, flies down the zipline. Each achievement is rewarded with friendship from Will and Christina, affection from Four, or status in the eyes of her peers. She also learns to reconcile her old skills and new ones: “Over the course of Divergent’s narrative, Tris undergoes a series of physical, emotional, and intellectual challenges, reducing her to an essential understanding of bravery – that selflessness and courage share more similarities than differences” (Weasley, “Nigredo”). She journeys into Four’s fear landscape, then her own and beats them both.

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Following this comes a more dramatic descent into death, this time literally.

By the end of Stage 2, due to her remarkable ability to defeat the fear simulations, Tris ranks number one among her class of initiates. That night, on her way to the water fountain for a drink, Peter, Drew, and Al abduct Tris and attempt to throw her into the Dauntless compound’s underground river, “the chasm” – a near death and symbolic baptism. Four saves Tris in the knick of time. After her rescue, she describes her anger toward her attackers as “replacing my blood with bitter water … filling me, consuming me.” (Weasley, “Nigredo”)

Facing death comes with her own near sacrifice, then with the actual death of Al, Tris’s friend. With this sadness, Tris begins to question the meaning of bravery and being Dauntless.

Friends, Allies, Love On the heroine’s journey, the young woman meets a best friend or lover who echoes her undeveloped male side. This Animus “evokes masculine traits within her: logic, rationality, intellect. Her conscious side, aware of the world around her, grows, and she can rule and comprehend the exterior world” (Frankel, Girl to Goddess 22). At the most superficial level, the Animus is a force of brute strength and power. As the heroine grows, her Animus matures, or is replaced by a wiser Animus when she’s ready for his more developed stages: initiative and planning, rule of law, and wisdom. (Frankel Buffy 45)

Al is one of these for Tris. He tempts her into compassion when he first sobs all night, making her long to comfort him. Further, he teaches her valuable lessons. Al, a pacifist, is revolted when told to spar. He protests, “This is ridiculous! What’s the point of beating him up? We’re in the same faction!” (95). When Christina must dangle over the river, Al cheers for her, courageously offering his support and friendship. Guided by his example, Tris joins in, and they drag Christina to safety together. “I think it’s important to protect people. To stand up 61

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT for people. Like you did for me,” Al tells Tris, and she takes his lessons to heart (Divergent 190). Later Christina persuades Tris to share the glory in capture the flag and Four compliments her for the gesture. Four is Tris’s next guide: He teaches Tris to ignore her fear and “pretend it doesn’t exist,” as he does (Divergent 145). In the knife-throwing scene he goads her to strengthen her resolve. He offers complementary skills to Tris’s, training her to be a tough, powerful fighter. When she loses her first sparring match, he teaches her to strike first, quickly, and end the battle. He’s her perfect boyfriend and perfect defender, like a strong, hidden part of herself she slowly masters. He defends Tris when she can’t defend herself, calling Peter “a miserable coward … afraid of a short skinny girl from Abnegation” (297). He also has skill with mechanics and computers that Tris lacks (Insurgent 434). Tris realizes she hears Tobias’s voice in her head, because he taught her to shoot (Insurgent 282). Four represents Dauntless to Tris – its better half, as Eric is its sadistic side.

“A brave man acknowledges the strength of others,” Four replies. “A brave man never surrenders.” Four and Eric stare at each other for a few seconds. I feel like I am looking at two different kinds of Dauntless- the honorable kind and the ruthless kind. (95)

Tobias is her guide to the way Dauntless should be as he confides, “I don’t quite belong among the Dauntless. Not the way they are now, anyway” (334). Tris comes to agree with him that Dauntless is “a faction worth saving. Maybe we can become brave and honorable again” (206-207). Four tells her that it used to be different, with teamwork a priority, and he wishes that were still true (142). As she matures, he guides her from physical skill through mental bravery. “It requires you to control both your emotions and your body – to combine the physical abilities you learned in stage one with the emotional mastery you learned in stage 62

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL two. To keep a level head,” he says (296-297). She protects him in turn and they fall in love.

“You think giving you a hug would give away too much?” he says. “You know,” I say. “I really don’t care.” I stand on my tiptoes and press my lips to his. It is the best moment of my life.” (414-415)

Unlike just about every other young adult novel, this one doesn’t have a love triangle. Tris and Tobias are completely devoted, with no awkward competitors. Roth explains:

It was important to me to have their relationship feel real, and one of the reasons why I didn’t introduce a secondary love interest or a love triangle was because I wanted to explore how relationships are challenged over time, so the best way to do that is over the course of the series. (Codinha)

Tobias also cautions Tris when she’s being too reckless or self- destructive. In the second book, he’s less of an instructor and more an embodiment of the cautious warning within her:

“I love Tris the Divergent, who makes decisions apart from faction loyalty, who isn’t some faction archetype. But the Tris who’s trying as hard as she can to destroy herself … I can’t love her.” I want to scream. But not because I’m angry, because I’m afraid he’s right. My hands shake and I grab the hem of my shirt to steady them. He touches his forehead to mine and closes his eyes. “I believe you’re still in there,” he says against my mouth. “Come back.” (Insurgent 261)

“I’m not going to pretend to know what’s going on with you,” he says. “But if you senselessly risk your life again – ” “I am not senselessly risking my life. I am trying to make sacrifices, like my parents would have, like – ” “You are not your parents You are a sixteen-year-old girl – ” I grit my teeth. “How dare you – ” 63

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“ – who doesn’t understand that the value of a sacrifice lies in its necessity, not in throwing your life away! And if you do that again, you and I are done.” (Insurgent 260)

Thus he helps her realize the different kinds of sacrifice – that some things are worth offering her life for and others are simply self-destructive. Later in the series, Tobias turns from powerful mentor to child, as he seeks his parents’ approval. “I am not a desperate unsteady child who throws his trust around,” he thinks unconvincingly (Allegiant 274). This suggests a different type of animus for Tris. As she grows stronger, he’s no longer her all- powerful warrior boyfriend, but her lost inner child wishing to connect with family. As he enacts her new type of wish- fulfillments, he saves the traitorous Caleb for her, and Tris must decide whose life to save – Caleb’s or her own. It’s Tobias’s compassion for his own family that teaches her to do the right thing.

Divergent’s Climax

Fairytale mothers always die (or in modern fantasy are incapacitated), allowing the heroine to thrive. Metaphorically, the all-caring mother of young childhood is not what the questing adolescent requires. The heroine cannot quest with her mother holding her hand – she must find the source of support within herself as she grows. (Frankel, Katniss 66)

Thus both of Tris’s parents sacrifice themselves to save her, and Tris learns a lesson she will carry through the trilogy – self- sacrifice from love is the purest. “It isn’t just brave that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, without hesitation” (Divergent 451). Campbell explains that in classic tales, “the hero is swallowed and taken into the abyss to be later resurrected – a variant of the death-and-resurrection theme” (146). This occurs many times for Tris as she descends into simulations or marches

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL into death in the tyrants’ laboratories. Each represents a sacrifice that leads to wisdom and resurrection. When her friends are taken over, only divergent Tris and Tobias remain immune. “I feel like someone breathed new air into my lungs. I am not Abnegation. I am not Dauntless. I am Divergent,” Tris thinks, claiming her aberration as the mental power it is (Divergent 442). She is not a mindless drone like the other faction initiates – she is an adult capable of independent thought. “I am no longer Tris, the selfless, or Tris, the brave. I suppose that now, I must become more than either” (Divergent 487). She courageously journeys into the lion’s den to find her family. There she faces her own potential death several times and is finally trapped in a tank of water in Erudite. Roth comments:

In college I learned about the “return to the womb” trope – in the book Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, the main character undergoes a false “death” in the form of a powerful emotional experience, and then wraps herself in a coat, and then emerges with a better sense of self. Since I read that book I’ve seen false deaths everywhere in fiction, and I’m completely fascinated by it. (Granger, Interview)

The symbolically transformative water cradles her as she forces down her fear. She surrenders to death and as she says, “I let the water fold me in its silken arms” (438). She rises from the tank symbolically reborn, stronger as she’s reunited with her mother, who represents her adult feminine courage. Tris’s mother thus pulls her from the tank, and they flee to safety. She confirms she was once Dauntless and gives Tris the key to save herself before the great sacrifice – not Tris’s own death, but her mother’s:

Divergent wraps up with a veritable bloodbath of a rubedo [the combative, red-smeared climax]: Tris’s bleeding shoulder wound, the “crimson” staining her mother’s shirt as she dies, the “violent red” Tris sees when she shuts her eyes. After a descent underground into the Pit, Tris ascends to the top floor of Dauntless HQ, where a 65

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simulation-controlled Tobias nearly kills her. In her willingness to allow her lover to shoot her, Tris finally concludes that selflessness and bravery are, essentially, the same virtue transformed by action. And as she recognizes this about herself, the revelation spawns a mirrored moment of recognition in her male Divergent counterpart. Tobias awakens from his slumber (a nice reversal of gender roles to ice the cake), the two share a kiss, and they flee the city toward the Amity compound. (Weasley, “Nigredo”)

She can only save Tobias from the simulation by holding his gun to her own head and calling on him to hear her voice. “There is power in self-sacrifice,” she thinks (476). He responds just in time and is pulled from the simulation by her faith and love. Through facing death, Tris has triumphed. Roth explains:

Tris’s parents’ deaths were revelatory moments, both for Tris and for me. For Tris, they seemed to awaken her to the power of self-sacrifice out of love; she later handed over the gun to Four rather than kill him, essentially giving her life rather than taking his. She said something in that moment about the power of self-sacrifice, but her actions don’t quite apply that power in the best way – letting herself get killed, at that time, was maybe noble from a romantic perspective, but wouldn’t have saved the Dauntless from being simulation-controlled zombies, and wouldn’t have saved Tobias from his own simulation. (“About the End of Allegiant”)

In a simulation in the second book, Beatrice’s mother appears, like an unearthly guide, and tells her that the Erudite are not evil but “like everyone else, a blend of good and bad” (Insurgent 346). This is the lesson Tris must learn: that this isn’t a war between factions; it’s a struggle to become a good person, to gather up these warring impulses within the self and make a cohesive whole, then finally to save the world by doing one’s best, not by giving up.

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Facing the Shadow “The hero’s or heroine’s journey is all about facing one’s Shadow, the repressed nature that’s been buried and rejected from the conscious self – the rage, hatred, fear and other primitive emotions” (Frankel, Buffy 28). This is the inner turmoil shouting to get out, the snarl of rage or fear beneath one’s polite behavior. As Tris explains, “Inside of me is a beast that snarls, and growls, and strains toward freedom, toward Tobias, and, above all, towards life. And as hard as I try, I cannot kill it” (Insurgent 341). This inner beast is her shadow. Tobias also encounters it in angry Matthew when he notes, “It’s not often you encounter the real person behind a good-natured mask, the darkest parts of someone. It’s not comfortable when you do” (Allegiant 429). Likewise, he fears his “considerable capacity to kill” adding, “How many young men fear that there is a monster inside them?” (Allegiant 239). Campbell describes facing this Shadow as “destruction of the world that we have built and in which we live, and of ourselves within it; but then a wonderful reconstruction, of the bolder, cleaner, more spacious, and fully human life” (8). Becoming balanced, using the dark and light as needed, is the goal of the quest. The hero may also encounter someone who’s everything he rejects – like his shadow side embodied and brought to life. At the same time, the pair have a disturbing similarity or connection – Luke and Darth Vader, Harry Potter and Voldemort, or Harry and Draco. By facing this figure, confronting and understanding it, the hero grows in understanding. Peter is such a shadow. When Tris says he ought to be “kicking puppies or spying on girls while they change,” he retorts, “Don’t pretend that you’re better than I am because you and I, we’re exactly the same” (Insurgent 349). He knows she shares his capacity for darkness though she tries to bury it. Both have committed murder, put their faction above 67

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT another’s. The difference is Peter’s analytical calculations with life as a balance sheet, as he rejects connecting with others. By contrast, Tris offers pure emotion, empathy, and love:

“I don’t know what world you live in, but in mine, people only do things for you for one of two reasons. The first is if they want something in return. And the second is if they feel like they owe you something.” “Those aren’t the only reasons people do things for you,” I say. “Sometimes they do them because they love you. Well, maybe not you, but …” (Insurgent 394)

Tris confronts far more of these shadow figures in the powerful women around her. Though she has only just left childhood, they have the strength of character that she’s struggling to find within herself. “Tris finds many doppelgangers in the women she encounters – Jeanine, Edith Prior, and Johanna – and it is the latter’s sacrifice that will resurrect in Tris a desire to reflect that self-denial, born out of unconditional love, onto those around her” (Weasley “Rubedo”). As the second book progresses, Tris is torn with guilt over Will’s death and then for the many other children and teens killed on Jeanine’s orders. This leads her to offer her life, but out of pain not true understanding. Roth adds:

The “selfless” acts she thought she was performing in Insurgent – charging upstairs during the Erudite-Dauntless attack unarmed, spying on Max’s conversation with Jack Kang without a weapon, and then handing herself over at Erudite headquarters even when she’s asked not to – were more self-destructive than anything. She rationalized those self-destructive acts by calling them selfless, but when she was about to be executed, she realized that her parents didn’t give their lives for her just so that she could die when it wasn’t necessary. She realized that she wanted to live. (Roth, “About the End of Allegiant”)

Still on the cusp of this discovery, Tris surrenders to the Erudite. She’s experimented on, and then taken into Jeanine’s lab for her execution. Jeanine is Tris’s great shadow and the

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL story’s wicked witch, the slayer of children. Just as Tris struggles to save the innocent, Jeanine seeks to destroy them. In Insurgent, the Dauntless walk to the edge of the roof and recite her chilling message: Until the Divergent deliver themselves to Jeanine, the teens and children will kill themselves. “I do not doubt Jeanine chose young Dauntless because she knew their deaths would affect us more,” Tris explains (302). She’s an ice queen when Tris encounters her, as she’s analytical and amoral to the point of viciousness, though she’s not emotionally invested in the cruelty. Tris relates:

I used to think that cruelty required malice, but that is not true. Jeanine has no reason to act out of malice. But she is cruel because she doesn’t care what she does, as long as it fascinates her. I may as well be a puzzle or a broken machine she wants to fix. She will break open my skull just to see the inner workings of my brain; I will die here, and that will be the merciful thing. (329)

An interviewer notes that when Kate Winslet performs her movie scenes as Jeanine, “Winslet’s character adopts a positively chilly demeanor” (Alexander). She is rigid, immune to the pleas of those she slaughters. “That’s the whole point of Jeanine,” Winslet says. “She walks down the corridor and sort of just leaves this vapor trail. I knew I had to bring that intimidation” (Alexander). Despite their differences, Tris and Jeanine have a connection – not biologically but in their appearance and their Erudite curiosity. “Arrogance is one of the flaws in the Erudite heart – I know. It is often in mine,” Tris thinks while debating with her brother (Insurgent 367). The two women also reflect each other physically. Tris relates, “It’s not so difficult to pretend I’m speaking to Jeanine when I speak to my own reflection. My hair is blonde like hers; we are both pale and stern-looking” (Insurgent 331). This thought disturbs Tris – that she could on some level be like Jeanine. As she adds, “I am pale- skinned, pale-haired, and cold. I am curious about the pictures

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT of my brain. I am like Jeanine. And I can either despise it, attack it, eradicate it…or I can use it” (Insurgent 332). The trick is to understand the shadow well enough to master its powers within the self, making it a tool rather than an object of terror. Jeanine’s detachment and cleverness are something Tris must learn. Tortured by Jeanine in her lab, Tris finds ways to understand and negotiate with Jeanine using her Erudite abilities. She asks to see her brain scans, something Jeanine can respect because she would likely make the same request out of scientific curiosity. Tris even stresses that it’s her Erudite side that’s asking. Famously, in A Wrinkle in Time, Mrs. Whatsit gives Meg the gift of her faults. “But I’m always trying to get rid of my faults!” Meg protests. “I think that you’ll find they’ll come in very handy on Camazotz,” her mentor replies, and takes her to a totalitarian planet where every ball bounce is regulated (112). When they arrive, Meg fights with her irregular, loving humanity rather than the logic IT demands. She is a defier of the system, something ultimate order cannot abide. Tris has a similar revelation:

“I see no reason to provide that information,” says Jeanine. (Insurgent 342)

I make my voice flat and factual, like hers. “I see no reason to provide that information.” I hear a faint snort. Peter is covering his mouth. Jeanine glares at him, and his laughter effortlessly transforms into a coughing fit. “Mockery is childish, Beatrice,” she says. “It does not become you.” “Mockery is childish, Beatrice,” I repeat in my best imitation of her voice. “It does not become you.” (Insurgent 343)

Tris is using her youthfulness, and yes, even her inner brattiness to battle Jeanine. “I’m sixteen. I change,” she notes (Insurgent 326). It’s Jeanine, frozen in sterile pursuit of knowledge, who cannot adapt. “What she wants is control,” Tris 70

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL observes, and thus Jeanine is too rigid to learn (Insurgent 200). In time, it works: In a final session, Tris screams that Jeanine will never control her, and thus reclaims her own inner power. With her abnormal brain, Tris frustrates Jeanine to the point of torture. Even in her frightening lab, Tris realizes that she has all the power: “Pain can’t make me tell you. Truth serum can’t make me tell you. Simulations can’t make me tell you. I’m immune to all three,” she smirks. “You will never be able to control me” (Insurgent 374-375). “I laugh, mirthless, a mad laugh. I savor the scowl on her face, the hate in her eyes. She was like a machine; she was cold and emotionless, bound by logic alone. And I broke her” (Insurgent 375). Tris has won her battle with the Erudite, but only momentarily. She must face death once more as she’s dragged to her execution.

The table is cold. Frigid, seeping into my skin, into my bones. Appropriate, perhaps, because that is what will happen to my body when all the life leaves it; it will become cold and heavy, heavier than I have ever been. As for the rest of me, I am not sure. Some people believe that I will go nowhere, and maybe they’re right, but maybe they’re not. Such speculations are no longer useful to me anyway. … I need to live. Jeanine holds my head steady with one hand and inserts the needle into my neck with the other. I’m not done! I shout in my head, and not at Jeanine. I am not done here! She presses the plunger down … Then the heart monitor stops beeping. (Insurgent 384-385)

Tris returns from death far different, as she views the entire world with joy. She also claims a new identity for herself, a mature identity she’s avoided through most of her adventures.

“Tris,” Tobias says, crouching next to me. His face is pale, almost yellow. There is too much I want to say. The first thing that comes out is, “Beatrice.” 71

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He laughs weakly. “Beatrice,” he amends, and touches his lips to mine. I curl my fingers into his shirt.” (Insurgent 388)

Roth adds, “She emerged from that near-execution with new maturity: she valued her own life, she wanted to solve problems without resorting to violence, she sought truth over destruction.” (“About the End of Allegiant”). There’s a final shadow battle as Tris breaks into Jeanine’s lab, only to confront…herself. Tris passes through darkness to find herself in her old sparring ring. Before her is Jeanine’s door and around her is a cloud of poison ready to be released. Once more she’s in an arena of death. “Someone appears in my path. She is short, thin, and blond, with dark circles under her eyes. She is me” (489). To save the day, Tris will need to outwit … herself. This of course is another shadow moment as Tris literally battles the killer within herself. Roth explains:

Tris fights herself not because that’s who she would not want to fight, but because everyone would have to struggle against themselves in one way or another, depending on their disposition. For Tris it’s a logical puzzle based on a physical challenge. You know, “How do I beat an opponent who knows exactly what I’m going to do, can do the same things I do, is a total match for my strength and speed and is no better or worse than I am.” (Rachel)

Thus Tris battles herself and wins, mastering the cleverness of Erudite and using it to beat an aspect of herself designed by mastermind Jeanine. Tris’s determination proves the key to getting past her reflection, as she offers an act of true desperation. On the other side, however, another challenge appears. Tori, who reflects Tris’s angry Dauntless-Divergent-warrior side, kills Jeanine in revenge for her family, enacting Tris’s secret wishes. With Jeanine’s death, Tris realizes that all her sacrifices were for nothing, as she thinks (501). She still needs to realize that sacrifices made in hopes of political agenda or physical gain won’t save the day, only make things worse for others. 72

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Wicked Stepmother For the heroine, the inner voice she has rejected is the evil witch, murderess of the innocent. This woman is powerful and tyrannical as the heroine is childish. She is Mrs. Coulter of The Golden Compass, who murders children in deadly experiments. The dried up Wicked Witch of the West. Jadis, the White Witch, who freezes Narnia in sterile winter. All the wicked stepmothers and witches from the catalogue of Disney villainesses. (Frankel, Katniss 123)

Evelyn and Jeanine of course are described the same way – Jeanine will kill the Divergent and keep the history of their world hidden so she can have ultimate power, and Evelyn will punish all those who disagree with her. The destroyer figure is reflected around the world as bloodthirsty goddesses like Sekhmet or Kali, who nonetheless bring about change and new growth through their slaughter. Evelyn insists on total control just as Jeanine did. Critic Christine Weasley calls Evelyn “the cold, calculating White Queen and doppelganger for Jeanine” (“Rubedo”). Evelyn explains she’ll bring the Allegiant under control, and Tobias pictures “needles and serums and seeing without seeing” (Allegiant 21). Evelyn forces a job rotation and curfew just as Erudite monitored the people through cameras, Evelyn does it through electricity as Tris’s friends suspect (Allegiant 58). Thus, like in Animal Farm or The Hunger Games, the new regime follows all the practices of the old. The world is still totalitarian and nothing has changed. In this way, Katniss discovers her true enemy isn’t Snow but the new President Coin.

Coin tortures Katniss’s childlike prep team, and Katniss soon realizes this is meant as a declaration of her authority. When Coin assigns Peeta to Katniss’s squad, Katniss 73

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knows Coin wants her more than controlled: she wants her dead. Katniss has become so likeable that Coin fears for her own position. “You’re the face of the rebellion. You may have more influence than any other single person,” Commander Boggs tells her (Mockingjay 266). Coin is not a wise leader, but a jealous force of sterility and cruelty – she must control everything, or it must perish. (Frankel, Katniss 123-124)

The matriarch’s conflict with Tris is a metaphor for the mother-daughter battle for independence. “Mother and daughter start off as a single united set of desires, one that can be challenging for the daughter to reject without rejecting the mother’s love, while the mother has an equally hard time accepting the daughter as a distinct individual” (Frankel, Girl to Goddess 133). If the mother is unwilling to give up control and allow a new era of change to come about, she and her daughter (or in this case, daughter-in-law) are flung into conflict. Evelyn and Tris compete over their shared love, Tobias, as Evelyn appears unwilling to share him with this new, younger heroine. Evelyn tells Tris, “I promise you, you will not have a place in my new world, especially not with my son” (Allegiant 14). “I don’t trust her, I think she’s trying to use you,” Tris tells Tobias about his mother (Insurgent 294). Thus in conflict with the evil matriarch, Tris and Tobias visit the uncivilized world, a pilgrimage into the wilderness to supply wisdom. Many similar heroes do likewise before the climax of their adventures.

Having escaped from the fenced-in world of the Districts, Katniss and Peeta seek shelter in the District 13 bunker. In Hallows, Harry, Hermione, and Ron spend a (some consider) frustrating amount of time camping in the wilds of Britain as they search for Horcruxes. Hallows and Mockingjay also spun off the motif of hidden knowledge and how its discovery facilitates the main characters’ inner transformations. (Weasley, “Rubedo”)

Tris makes a similar discovery off beyond her city’s borders.

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Death The third book leads up to Caleb making the heroic sacrifice, and indeed, he’s the one most in need of redemption. However, Tris, in a Christlike echo, fixates on the concept of a sacrifice of pure love, rather than one of guilt or duty. Thus she takes her brother’s place.

He is a part of me, always will be, and I am a part of him, too. I don’t belong to Abnegation, or Dauntless, or even the Divergent. I don’t belong to the Bureau or the experiment or the fringe. I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me – they, and the love and loyalty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever could. I love my brother. I love him, and he is quaking with terror at the thought of death. I love him and all I can think, all I can hear in my mind, are the words I said to him a few days ago: I would never deliver you to your own execution. “Caleb,” I say. “Give me the backpack.” (454-455)

Some fans might protest that Tris has family and friends, unlike Caleb. That she has true love and the potential for a happy family. That she would be an ideal leader for the new world she’s created, while selfish Peter or Caleb (both eager to escape the burden of their lives) would be far better sacrifices. Critic Isaiah Molano expresses anger at Tris’s choice, and adds, “She discovers that she, like David, is immune to the death serum. She discovers (to David’s ignorance in a nice twist of irony) that she has perfect genes, the perfect immune system – a superwoman whose genes ought to be preserved in perpetuity.” Clearly, there are many reasons Tris should live. But that’s the point about sacrifice, as Tris tells David – it’s immoral to decide the most disliked or useless person should be sacrificed – that’s how their society of disposable, genetically-damaged people came to exist. “It’s not sacrifice if it’s someone else’s life you’re giving away, it’s just evil,” she says (Allegiant 473). In the world’s most ancient mythologies, it was the goddess’s little brother, or more often son, who was sacrificed each year, while the goddess remained, alive and unchanging. She was the one to mourn and carry on after, while he was the 75

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT one to give his life for the world. This is the story of Jesus and Mary, but also Attis and Cybele, Adonis and Aphrodite, Baldur and Frigga, Osiris and Isis, Uranus and Gaia, Ishtar and Tammuz. This is the young man’s hero’s journey, but also a chance for the mature woman to discover a life beyond her son’s needs. She creates an identity of her own beyond the sacrificing mother and determines what she wants in life.

In initiation, psychic dismemberment is necessary. The internalized hypermasculine animus, the side that makes the heroine rigid and controlled is holding her back. She cannot make decisions based solely on rules or technology, as her choices need to be heartfelt. This animus must be torn apart piece by piece in order to let the heroine reconstitute herself as female, without her earlier dependence on the masculine side. Thus she learns to stand alone. (Frankel, Girl to Goddess 253).

Tris, however, continues to sacrifice. Her Abnegation side may be too overpowering, or she may be too filled with pure motherly love. Offered the requirement that one person die to save the world, she’s determined to take it on herself. “She tries selflessness on for size, and then she tries bravery, but at the end, it’s what she does out of love that’s more important than any virtue,” Roth says (The World of Divergent:, Kindle Locations 68- 69). She passes through the curtain of death serum and rises on the other side, like a phoenix reborn in flame: “The fire, the fire. It rages within, a campfire and then an inferno, and my body is its fuel. I feel it racing through me, eating away at the weight. There is nothing that can kill me now; I am powerful and invincible and eternal,” she tells (Allegiant 468). There she confronts her hidden enemy, David, the architect behind the city of suffering, who plans to destroy the innocent of Tris’s childhood. She defies him and dies. 76

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Her superpowered brain chemistry protects her, but like many heroines, she’s still vulnerable to the patriarchy with its guns. She falls like a wounded bird and is given her reward. In a scene echoing Harry Potter’s at King’s Cross, she meets her mother and hears that her task is finally complete. She apparently becomes a guiding spirit like her mother, what the Little Mermaid becomes at the end of the original fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson:

The new spirit-heroine has ultimate power: She can guide the mortals needing her counsel, especially children or the downtrodden. She can traverse the world in an eyeblink. She can intercede with God for the sake of mortals, like Mary, or bring Cinderella a glittering ballgown to make her dreams come true. She has reached an expanded consciousness, an understanding of how nature and the spirit, earth and air, are the same. The difference between death and life, fairy godmother and infant, is an imperceptible one, offering a barrier as tenuous as a breath. In her enlightened state, she understands how the cycle must continue and she can descend to earth to be reborn and claim her place in the unending ring of nature once again. With this, the heroine truly masters both worlds: mortal and goddess, corporeal and spiritual, enlightened one and guardian of others. This is the truest apotheosis. (Frankel, Girl to Goddess 315)

This is a classic end to the heroine’s journey, tale of self- sacrifice, salvation, and redemption. Usually in these dystopian adventures, the heroine survives the war, grieving over the loss of someone dear to her (whether lover, sibling, or friend) but hoping for a better future as she strives to repair the world. As one critic notes, “Katniss never gets to sacrifice herself. She doesn’t get the heroic death. She survives – and that leaves her doing the hardest thing in the world: living in it once so many of the ones that she loves are gone” (Barnes 26-27). While this may be comforting for the reader, to know their beloved heroine survived, this is a painful path for the character, as Katniss suffers through nightmares

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT and grief or Rhine mourns the loss of so many of her loved ones in The Chemical Garden Trilogy. Roth points out that the death wasn’t meant to be a slap in the face for readers (as many Game of Thrones deaths seem to be) or a gratuitous twist. She had always planned this as Tris’s path (Rachel). While acknowledging that people are encouraged to interpret the book any way they wish (why thank you!) and understanding people’s varied emotions on the book’s end, Roth attempts to explain the choice she made:

For me, Tris’s parents’ deaths made me realize that though Tris had tangibly abandoned her parents’ faction, she was never quite able to separate herself from them, never quite wanted to; that the true struggle of her character, the one she had never been able to let go of, was to figure out how to honor her parents while still maintaining her distinct identity. That was her struggle in Divergent in a more subtle way, but it was also her struggle in a far more obvious way in Insurgent. … After that, Tris entered the same role her parents played when they died for her. She loved and gave her life for Caleb even after he betrayed her, the same way her parents loved and gave their lives for her after she left them for Dauntless.…I thought about reaching out with my authorial hand and snatching her from that awful situation. I thought about it and I agonized over it. But to me, that felt dishonest and emotionally manipulative. This was the end she had chosen, and I felt she had earned an ending that was as powerful as she was. (Roth, “About the End of Allegiant”)

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Gender Roles “Can you be a girl for a few seconds?” “I’m always a girl” I frown. “You know what I mean. Like a silly, annoying girl” I twirl my hair around my finger. “Kay.” (Divergent 369)

Here Tris is nearly parodying femininity, enforcing Christina’s point that she doesn’t know how to be a girl. Roth wrote her to be active rather than girlishly passive, as females often appear. “Beatrice is always the agent. That is, she’s always choosing, always acting, always moving the plot by her behavior” (Divergent Bonus Materials 10). Four calls her “That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend, who hit my dad with a belt to protect me” (Divergent 336-337). Traditional gender roles are defined by society, and people cannot be said to follow them exactly any more than individuals fit perfectly into factions. Still, clichéd gender behavior is a trope we understand:

Men are aggressive, daring, rational, emotionally inexpressive, strong, cool headed, in control of themselves, independent, active, objective, dominant, decisive, self- confident, and unnurturing. Women are portrayed in opposite terms, such as unaggressive, shy, intuitive, emotionally expressive, nurturing, weak, hysterical, erratic and lacking in self-control … dependent, passive, subjective, submissive, indecisive, and lacking in self- confidence. (Johnson 86)

Tris of course is angry, defensive, cruel, independent, active, 79

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT aggressive, and powerful. Thus she, like Katniss, becomes the kind of character boys as well as girls want as a role model – a female whose attributes and behaviors are traditionally coded masculine. “What makes the new dystopian novel part of the zeitgeist is that it appeals to teenage girls – and is predominantly written by women,” explains critic Amanda Craig. Some authors write fashion gown scenes or epics of forbidden love – Wither and Delirium, for instance – while other authors create tough action girls too busy battling the apocalypse to bother with lipstick. Roth explains what she thought as she wrote her main characters and shaped their personalities:

Tris’ voice is very stereotypically masculine, very straightforward, very direct, kind of repetitive. Tobias’ is a little more poetic, a little more descriptive, and he generally shares more. Tris is always withholding, but Tobias shares everything. (Rachel)

Tobias sees Tris as a romantic partner but not as a girlish figure. “I like how you look. You’re deadly smart. You’re brave,” he says (Divergent 338). Two out of three are qualities ascribed to the clichéd male hero rather than the girl. Roth notes, “The word I would come up with for how Four feels about Tris is primarily ‘respect.’ He respects her so much that sometimes he thinks that she’s invulnerable. I think he creates that independence in her as much as she does” (Codinha). Tobias encourages her to act masculine, even dress masculine, noting, “I was happy when she cut it because it was hair for a warrior, not a girl” (Allegiant 5). When they’re kissing, he adds, “I feel strong but so does she, her fingers stern around my arms” (Allegiant 68). Roth adds:

Tobias wants Tris to be strong and is attracted to her because of her strength. That was so important for me to illustrate. They’re not without their problems and they have a complicated relationship, but at the heart of it, he always believes that she’s stronger than she believes she is. In my own relationships, I know that I should break up with 80

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someone who doesn’t encourage me to be strong and make my own choices and do what’s best in my life, so if you’re dating someone who doesn’t want you to be the best person you can be, you shouldn’t be dating them. (Carpenter)

Bolen notes that a warrior goddess like Artemis is filled with contradictions. “On the one hand, she rescues women and feminist values from the patriarchy, which devalues or oppresses both. On the other, with her intense focus on goals she can also require that a woman sacrifice and devalue what has traditionally been considered feminine” (71). Tris too is a defender of the innocent, but remains repelled by the frivolousness of Amity or amoral qualities of the Erudite. She values warriors like Christina, not traitors and overthinkers like her brother Roth adds, “It’s important that she starts out not a particularly brave character, or at least her bravery is downplayed and dormant. She is physically weak and small and everybody underestimates her. I think a lot of readers, especially teens, feel like they’re in that situation too” (Carpenter). From this start, Tris becomes a force of power among the Divergent and in the outside world. “And I’m the kind of person who does not let inconsequential things like boys and near death experiences stop her,” Tris adds (Divergent 346). In a similar vein, Katniss comments, “The very notion that I’m devoting any thought to who I want presented as my lover, given our current circumstances, is demeaning” (Mockingjay 34). While The Hunger Games has a conventional love triangle, in the model of Twilight or many other girl-centric young adult novels, Divergent notably does not. Tobias and Tris commit to each other, without games, as early as the first book, and the rest of the series does little to divide them. They are committed warrior-partners battling side by side. This stresses that the action plot can be central to a girl’s story, instead of a romance. As the author of the essay 81

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“Team Katniss” protests, “If this were a book about a boy who takes his brother’s place at that first reaping, I wonder if we would all be sitting around talking about who he should be with, rather than who we think he should be” (Barnes 19).

“Girls aren’t waiting to be saved any more,” author Gemma Malley says. “They have strong moral compasses, and unlike male protagonists, they have insight into why they are as they are. If you go into schools now, you see teenage girls who are sparky and who think for themselves. Dystopia enables them to have big adventures but it’s also about creating strong characters whom readers care about.” (Craig)

“My will is mine…I shall not make it soft for you”: Roth notes that this classic quote aided her with Tris’s voice, adding, “Her voice is clipped, direct, and strong, just like these lines” (Divergent Bonus Materials 13). Certainly, Tobias isn’t the only one to see Tris as a figure of strength. Her nickname of “stiff” suggests she’s an ice queen rather than warm and alluring. Likewise, Lynn tells Tris that she shaved her head because she got sick of the fact that “Dauntless guys don’t see Dauntless girls as a threat during initiation.” As she adds, Tris creates the same effect but without head shaving (Insurgent 173). Tris deliberately cultivates her toughness, becoming a target for knives and a warrior against the boys rather than a helpless victim. She enjoys shooting a gun for the first time, as she notes: “There is power in controlling something that can do so much damage – in controlling something, period. Maybe I do belong here” (Divergent 79). Even the trilogy’s book covers come across as masculine. Nowadays, young adult bookcovers mainly fall into two patterns – a girl, dressed gorgeously or a few stark symbols. It’s thought by publishers that these covers will have gender-specific appeal, the former for girl readers and the latter for boy readers. (Oddly, The Hunger Games trilogy, The Divergent Trilogy, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and even Twilight all fall into the male-centric category.

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Perhaps that’s why they all sell so well). Among girl covers, a partial face or (oddly) faceless body is also popular.

Female authors are being pigeonholed as romantic writers and given “girly” covers despite the content of their books, says the young adult novelist Maureen Johnson, who has criticized publishers for the practice. Johnson started out with an idle musing on Twitter: “I do wish I had a dime for every email I get that says: ‘Please put a non-girly cover on your book so I can read it – signed, A Guy.’” (Flood)

She went on to challenge fans to reverse the covers, showing Game of Thrones with a princess cover or her own books with stark clip art. She posted the best of these on her site. Below are some typical young adult covers, all of which emphasize this imbalance.

Girl Cover Art

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Boy Cover Art

As a war story like The Hunger Games, Divergent is marketed as a boy book. Perhaps this is driven by Katniss and Tris’s rejection of all things girly. The warrior woman is a common figure through fiction: She’s not only Katniss, but also Alanna from Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness Quartet. Katsa in Kristen Cashore’s Graceling and Bittterblue. Éowyn of The Lord of the Rings. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Xena, Max Guevara Nikita, Lara Croft, Wonder Woman, Red Sonja, goddesses like Artemis and Athena. The problem appears when a writer suggests the only choice is to be a warrior or be helpless. As Carina Chocano puts it in her New York Times article on the “Strong Women” trope: 84

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“Strong female character” is one of those shorthand memes that has leached into the cultural groundwater and spawned all kinds of cinematic clichés: alpha professionals whose laserlike focus on career advancement has turned them into grim, celibate automatons; robotic, lone-wolf, ascetic action heroines whose monomaniacal devotion to their crime- fighting makes them lean and cranky and very impatient; murderous 20-something comic-book salesgirls who dream of one day sidekicking for a superhero; avenging brides; poker-faced assassins; and gloomy ninjas with commitment issues. It has resulted in characters like Natalie Portman’s in “No Strings Attached,” who does everything in her power to avoid commitment, even with a guy she’s actually in love with; or Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy; or pretty much every character Jodie Foster has played since “Nell” or, possibly, “Freaky Friday.” (1)

When Arya on Game of Thrones claims that “most girls are stupid” or Katniss suggests wearing a gown or falling in love is too off-putting for her to consider, they hint that they hate their own feminine sides. Women who do so are strong but not terribly feminist, as they remind readers that the only path to power is rejecting being womanly. Cocano adds that “what we think of as “virtuous,” or culturally sanctioned, socially acceptable behavior now, in women as in men, is the ability to play down qualities that have been traditionally considered feminine and play up the qualities that have traditionally been considered masculine” (3). Basically, “Strong female characters,” are actually genderless, rejecting all that makes them female to mimic male behavior. Thus girls are taught that being masculine is superior. Katniss is most often found displaying traditional “masculine qualities such as athleticism, independence, self- sufficiency, and a penchant for violence” (Lem and Hassel 118).

Warrior women frequently liken girlishness to feebleness, as Katniss does. She makes herself an asexual warrior, rejecting Gale’s interest and preferring to only be his hunting partner. In fact, she objects to Peeta’s declaration 85

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of love because, as she claims, it makes her look “weak” (Hunger Games 135). To Katniss, strength is impenetrable armor without frothy dresses or gentle emotions. All girlish moments, like getting beauty treatments or trying on wedding dresses appall her and “seem to reinforce the idea that Katniss is more powerful when she embraces masculine ways” (Lem and Hassel 124). In Katniss’s worldview, one cannot be strong and feminine – she must pick one side or the other. (Frankel, Katniss 27)

Admittedly, Divergent does a better job than many series, with Christina, the warrior who also enjoys makeup, and powerful matriarchs like Jeanine and Evelyn (admittedly the villains) who are powerful nonwarriors. Still, Tris considers dumping Tobias because he treated her as “just some silly sixteen-year-old girl,” something she can’t abide (Allegiant 340). In the midst of these patterns, it’s worth remembering that many heroines like Nancy Drew, Meg of A Wrinkle in Time, Lucy of Narnia, or Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz can win their quests by being sweet, clever, and loving, instead of stalking the world with a knife. This series, like The Hunger Games, displays an ambivalence toward gender and power. The hero frequently topples the evil dictator and takes his place. However, in Divergent and The Hunger Games, the heroine refuses power. It is her warrior- boyfriend, Gale or Tobias, who goes into politics. Tris rejects her nomination as a Dauntless leader because she feels she’s truly Divergent. She explains, “I am whatever I choose to be. And I can’t choose to be this. I have to stay separate from them” (Insurgent 266). Four is so strong, so perfect, that it’s easy for him to gain too much power. In the first book, he’s telling Tris what to do in every scene. She averts the imbalance by saving him, and by the third book, she’s grown in authority, while he’s revealed as less genetically special than he’d thought. In response he begins lashing out with erratic plans in a desperation to do something even if it’s wrong. Around the climax, they switch again: As Tris fades away and Four saves the world from both his parents, he’s taking over the narrative. 86

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Tobias is coded masculine, unlike Peeta, a baker and pacifist. “It would be perfectly logical for you to be panicking right now,” Tris tells Tobias. “No need to continually insist upon your unshakable masculinity” (Allegiant 115). Four is nearly perfect – the perfect warrior and teacher for Dauntless and Divergent Tris, but also the perfect boyfriend who’s happy to seduce or let her take the lead. Abby McGanney Nolan, in her essay on teen dystopias, notices the popular trope of the Awesome Boyfriend.

He is strong, emotionally available, capable of altruism, and, yes, striking in appearance (Divergent’s fellow has eyes that are “dark blue, a dreaming, sleeping, waiting color”), and he treats the heroine of the story as his equal from the start. (The boys’ curious names – such as Divergent’s Four and Legend’s Day, a co-narrator – hardly matter.) In this new formula, the blessings of Awesome Boyfriend must be balanced out, it’s true, with hand-to-hand combat, blinding pain, extensive bruising, and close calls with death. The heroine may begin by fighting for her life, but she eventually gets caught up alongside her thoughtful and defiant love interest in the plights of other groups of people, like enslaved workers or victims of government- sponsored mind control.

Further, both series have bad women (Coin, Jeanine, and Evelyn) who turn cruel when they gain power. Tris and Katniss set themselves apart by refusing the crown, by not craving rulership. But on some subtle level, this reinforces the concept that girls are wrong to want power and vicious when they get it – only boys should be in charge. Laura Miller explains in her Hunger Games essay:

If Katniss sought to be the center of attention, if she chose to string along two handsome young men more than willing to give their lives for hers, if she wanted to have her every movement photographed and admired, if she dreamed of leading the revolution, if she longed to compete and to win – if she had any ambition at all – she would be a bad girl by such a standard.

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Likewise Tris, brought up to be meek and self-effacing, cannot conceive of ruling their world, only sacrificing herself again and again to save it for others. Allegiant ends with the competent Johanna Reyes of Amity taking charge (her last name means king) just as Commander Paylor becomes president in the final wrap up of Mockingjay. Both are nonwhite women, banishing the corrupt patriarchy and cruel matriarchy that once ruled to bring about a better world. Appointing a good female ruler helps to banish some of the sexism. Yet a lingering note remains that Tris and Katniss are set up as the heart and inspiration behind the rebellion rather than its presidents-to-be.

The Warrior Woman and Romance In the world of warrior women, Éowyn, Alanna, Katniss, and Buffy share a pattern in their romances. Each of them falls for a fellow warrior, and together they have a devoted relationship. However, it eventually falls apart, as the warrior- pair has only the same skills and attributes to bring to their relationship. “The warrior’s passion for an equal is often doomed. It is difficult to be lover and independent entity, even more so if one’s love offers only identical skills and desires” (Frankel, Girl to Goddess 207). While Tobias and Tris share attraction and affection, the truth of their romance is revealed in the similar pattern of many other series. Éowyn disguises herself as a man and rides to war, out of love for the great warrior-king Aragorn, among other reasons. She saves her uncle on the battlefield and proves herself the greatest of all. Famously, her powers come from the very femininity she’s denied:

“No living man may hinder me,” [the witch-king said.] “But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.” (Tolkien 823) 88

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Even after this heroism, Aragorn remains politely uninterested in wedding her. His true love, in fact, is a gentle elf lady who lives far from the constant conflict that defines his life. However, left behind in the House of Healing, the world of women and peace, she meets the gentle dreamer Faramir. Though they are opposites – she a warrior, he a scholar, they share a similar pain, which Faramir tries to comfort: through his “pity” and “clear sight” (938). Though she resists him, he speaks with her each day and coaxes her to heal as they wait together for the army to return.

And Éowyn looked at Faramir long and steadily; and Faramir said: “Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, Éowyn! But I do not offer you my pity. For you are a lady high and valiant and have yourself won renown that shall not be forgotten; and you are a lady beautiful, I deem, beyond even the words of the Elven-tongue to tell. And I love you. Once I pitied your sorrow. But now, were you sorrowless, without fear or any lack, were you the blissful Queen of Gondor, still I would love you. Éowyn, do you not love me?” Then the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her. “I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,” she said; “and behold the Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.” And again she looked at Faramir. “No longer do I desire to be a queen,” she said. (943).

Éowyn finds a new quest as she lays aside her sword and weds. She is done with fighting for a time, and seeks to discover what lies within herself. Katniss ends her tale on a similar note:

I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in 89

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the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. (Mockingjay 388)

Gale was her warrior-partner, like Tobias for Tris, but he’s a constant memory of war rather than one of healing. They are too similar, too much like yang and yang, too violent. Katniss needs someone to teach her to be better, to complement her flaws rather than reflecting them. This is Peeta, who offers a lighthearted compassion and optimism. Their contrasting skills continue through their marriage, as Katniss describes them: “Peeta bakes. I hunt” (Mockingjay 387). While she fears having children with “a terror that felt as old as life itself,” Peeta is the more maternal one, begging for years until he convinces her to have them (Mockingjay 388). Together they make two sides of a whole, and together they can become a family.

Here the non-threatening, gentle lover touches the huntress’s heart, where a competitive warrior will fail in this quest…This is the source of the woman’s ultimate growth: the sensitive scholar who represents the missing side of the warrior woman’s personality. He teaches her compassion, reminding her that “she doesn’t need to be so tough all the time.” While he supports her goals and willingly submits, he wakens the sensitive side that she lacks. He tempts her towards marriage and motherhood, unlike the fellow warrior, who is happy to remain in a single partnership of equals forever. (Frankel, From Girl to Goddess 209)

In Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness Quartet, Alanna, like Éowyn, disguises herself as the boy Alan and rides off to be a knight. There she falls for the serious Prince Jonathan and becomes his squire. In the end, however, she chooses the lighthearted King of Thieves who calls her Alanna in private so she can nurture her feminine identity. He admires both sides of her, warrior and woman:

Never before had she been coddled and treated like something precious. Jonathan had always treated her as a comrade, except when they were making love. She usually liked the way the prince handled her, but a small, 90

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treacherous part of her longed for the gentle courtesy he gave noble ladies. Now George gave her that courtesy, as well as treating her like a comrade, and she liked the mixture. (Pierce 180)

Alanna ends up with George, deciding to be a highborn lady and adventurer, warrior and mother, and embrace all sides of her personality. “An Artemis woman may fall in love with a strong man and may then be unable to keep a competitive element out of the relationship, which kills it,” notes Jean Shinoda Bolen, author of a book on female archetypes (48).

This pair makes a perfect team, but tragically often ends in death and parting. The warrior’s lover may compete with her and feel jealous of her success. But even if they remain in accord, they are too similar. Neither brings the melding of opposites who join in a perfect relationship as animus and anima [the male and female essences, like yin and yang]. She may regard him fondly, even love him, but he offers her no potential for growth. Each constantly mirrors the other, offering support and acceptance, but no change. (Frankel, From Girl to Goddess 208)

This is the problem between Alanna and Jonathan, and also the one between Buffy and her boyfriends, especially the human soldier she falls for.

Riley is a fellow warrior, and by definition a perfect warrior- partner for the slayer. Each leads a compact team; each has super vampire-fighting powers like strength and reflexes. Riley offers intellect, discipline, and training: He’s a good student, a good soldier, a good boyfriend, a good man. Still, with Riley, Buffy finds herself in a new kind of stagnation. As a fellow warrior, Riley is not a proper complement for her. Lacking any dark otherworldliness, he’s daylight to her daylight and offers little she doesn’t already possess. He’s like a companion for her slayer surface persona, not her real self…With him, Buffy trains her more masculine fighting skills and school skills but not the dark mysticism she craves in “Buffy vs. Dracula” (5.1).

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As she seeks something deeper, Riley senses their disconnection. (Frankel, Buffy 127)

After him she tries other relationships – a vampire trickster who’s all she is not, and in the comics, even a young Japanese woman with a different perspective to offer. She’s still looking for the perfect mate to complete her. Likewise, Tobias and Tris are the warrior-partners, perfect mirrors of each other. Both are Divergent, born in Abnegation and learning courage in Dauntless. As Four relates in “The Transfer,” he was called “Stiff,” just as she was. Their teasing catchphrase together is “I’m not very nice either, you know. That’s why I like you so much.” Tris notices how closely he reflects her:

“You nearly died today,” he says. “I almost shot you. Why didn’t you shoot me, Tris?” “I couldn’t do that,” I say. “It would have been like shooting myself.” (Divergent 486)

In the second book, Tris sacrifices herself without telling Tobias, only to find that he’s done exactly the same thing. “You die, I die too,” Tobias tells her. “I asked you not to do this. You made your decision. These are the repercussions” (Insurgent 338).

“I have something I need to tell you,” he says. I run my fingers along the tendons in his hands and look back at him. “I might be in love with you.” He smiles a little. “I’m waiting until I’m sure to tell you, though.” “That’s sensible of you,” I say, smiling too. “We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something.” I feel his laughter against my side, his nose sliding along my jaw, his lips pressing my ear. “Maybe I’m already sure,” he says, “and I just don’t want to frighten you.” I laugh a little. “Then you should know better.” “Fine,” he says. “Then I love you.” (Divergent 486)

As shown above, Tobias and Tris are eternally defensive and on- 92

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Psychology Personality and Fear

On a long drive from her home near Chicago to Carleton College in Minnesota – which she attended as a freshman before transferring to Northwestern – Veronica Roth saw on a billboard an image of a person leaping off a building. “I wondered why someone would do that,” she recalls. “At the time, I was also taking Intro to Psych and we were studying the treatment of phobias by repeated exposure to fears.” From those musings came the underlying concept of Divergent … [Tris] must confront her deepest fears, guard an ominous secret, and, incidentally, leap off a few buildings. (Fry)

Thus exposure therapy became the original inspiration for the series. Roth describes it as “Therapy where people with phobias are repeatedly exposed to their fears until their brain reconditions it” (Deutsch). If one is frightened of spiders, one might look at pictures of spiders, and then enter a room in which the spider is trapped in a box, etc., gently progressing through stronger layers of exposure and conquering each. The fear landscapes provide a similar opportunity. “It’s basically a struggle between your thalamus, which is producing the fear, and your frontal lobe, which makes decisions,” Will tells Tris (Divergent 247). Tobias notes, “The simulations stimulate the amygdala, which is responsible for processing fear” (Insurgent 353). The computers induce a fear-based hallucination, designed to make the Dauntless stronger by facing their fears and acting

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT despite them. For Roth, this was actually a personal struggle. She explains:

One of the things you see in Divergent, through my fixation on a character who learns how to be bold, brave, and strong, is my struggle with generalized anxiety disorder– something I didn’t know I even had while I was writing it. Exposure therapy took root in me enough to inspire Divergent, and two years after I wrote Divergent, I began exposure therapy to treat my anxiety. Anxiety made me feel stifled just like Tris was stifled in Abnegation, and I wrote her journey as a way of exploring on the page what the escape from that stifling internal environment might be like. Now I’m done with therapy and relatively anxiety free and sometimes I find myself feeling a little like when Tris goes down the zipline– free and grateful and overwhelmed by beauty. (Granger, Interview)

She adds, “I have a fear of swarming animals, so the birds were really freaky for me. I hate animals in large quantities – mostly bugs I have a problem with. Also heights, I don’t like heights at all” (Rachel). Thus Tris’s crows and Tobias’s heights in their fear landscapes come from Roth’s own psyche. One critic notes:

She didn’t recognize it at the time, but Tris also became a test case for Roth’s own life. Not long after selling Divergent, Roth broke up with one boyfriend, started dating another, got married within a year, and moved (temporarily) to Romania (for her new husband’s work). “This is just a theory, but Divergent was sort of good for me, because it was a safe place to explore taking bold action,” she offers. “The things that Tris does” – jump off trains, fly down zip lines, leave her family – ”are insane, and she comes from a sort of repressed environment. And I think my internal environment at the time I was writing it felt sort of repressed.” It is Roth’s particular gift that she could experience this as a peer and then write it as an adult. “It was a way to explore the possibility of making those kinds of big steps. And then when it was finished, I started making them.” (Dobbins)

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Roth’s other inspirations include, as she puts it: “Ideas: Psychology! Exposure therapy, Milgram’s experiment on obedience and authority figures, anxiety disorders, phobias, group dynamics.” (Goodreads). Group dynamics obviously involves the bullying and macho behavior in Dauntless as those in charge force the children into brutal competition. Milgram’s experiment is infamous in psychology. He put one person in a room and commanded him over and over to hit a button which would cause pain to someone in the next room. Whimpers, then agonizing screams, then finally silence would result. In fact, there was no pain; the screams were a recording, and this fact was revealed to test subjects at the end. But the experiment revealed that people would continue inflicting pain on others for quite some time, innocents who had done nothing to deserve it, if an authority figure ordered them to do so. Within the Dauntless, this is common practice as well. Teens are encouraged to beat each other into unconsciousness in order to improve their scores. Al the pacifist protests, “This is ridiculous! What’s the point of beating him up? We’re in the same faction!” but is ordered to battle and complies nonetheless (95). Essentially good people like Tris, Will, and Christina hurt their fellow trainees on their instructors’ orders, and after Al’s initial protest, none try to refuse. Knowing that Eric is a brutal sadist abusing his authority changes nothing for them. Except for Tris and Tobias, they are transformed into mindless soldiers, killing innocents and friends alike because of their conditioning and mind control … a metaphor for the immoral cruelty that has already taken place. Books two and three mean leaving the sheltered world of school and childhood for an outside reality with moral choices. There, Tris learns that other factions value teamwork and compassion over brutality, and she finds her way to a better system.

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Brain Chemistry It’s revealed in Insurgent that Tris has an unusually large prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain “responsible for organizing your thoughts and actions to attain your goals” (Insurgent 334). The “murder gene,” mentioned in the third book, is the opposite of Tris’s condition. As a Psychology Today article explains, “The scientific rationale for diminished responsibility is that a variant of the relevant gene, known as MAO-A is linked to an under active prefrontal cortex, this being a key area of the brain that inhibits antisocial impulses” (Barber). Thus it is used as a genetic scapegoat in murder trials. (The gene is associated with antisocial or violent behavior but only in European Americans who were abused as children. Apparently about 34 percent of Europeans have the warrior gene, and most of them do not commit murder or other violent acts.) By contrast, Tris’s orbital prefrontal cortex, which controls reward-seeking behavior, is quite small. This demonstrates the source of her willpower to break through simulations as well as her selflessness. When the scientists try to suppress this behavior with drugs, Tris panics: “I did not know that my entire personality, my entire being, could be discarded as the 98

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL byproduct of my anatomy. What if I really am just someone with a large prefrontal cortex...and nothing more?” (Insurgent 336). The argument between biology and the events that shape a person, between brain chemistry and free will, is an old one and never fully answered outside of fiction. Beatrice also has a high number of mirror neurons, which allow people to imitate the behavior of others. They produce intuition surrounding people’s intentions as well as empathy. Jeanine notes that they also create a flexible personality (Insurgent 370). These are all traits that aid Tris’s compassion.

Genes For two books, characters have been chanting, “Faction before Blood.” However, as revealed in book three, faction is in the blood – people are genetically damaged and thus predisposed to violence, friendliness, intellect, or passivity. Beatrice wonders if Caleb betrayed her because of damaged genes “like a disease he can’t heal and can’t control” (Allegiant 127). Tobias, too, struggles when he’s told he’s damaged rather than perfect. He explains, “I guess I always knew there was something wrong with me, but I thought it was because of my father, or my mother, and the pain they bequeathed to me like a family heirloom, handed down from generation to generation” (Allegiant 176). However, he also questions whether Marcus hurt people solely because he was surrounded by people with damaged genes. Tobias adds that he and his mother had the same genes but never hurt others (Allegiant 217). Here he compares biology with conditioning, wondering which of the two has damaged him. The “genetic experiment gone wrong” is awkward science in a few places, as are other parts of the Divergent series’ technology. Critic Louise Freeman protests, “If you need to do a genetic test on someone, it is far easier to take a cotton swab and scrape out some cheek cells than it is to inject your subject with some sort of micro-computer-packed serum” (“Epigenetic Boat”). It’s true that current science has isolated various genes, some for physical conditions, other for behavioral, such as the 99

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT controversial “murder gene,” MAO-A. But if one can remove a gene, one can insert it back. Freeman explains:

If you have the technology to go in and “knock out” certain genes (for cowardice, low intelligence or whatever) it stands to reason that you would have the technology to reinsert the original sequences. It’s done with mice all the time. A basic understanding of DNA replication should make it clear that there is no reasonable mechanism for “healing” genes over time … the only way to “heal” a mutation is to rewrite the DNA sequence to get the original gene back: not something to be done one step at a time, over generations. In fact, assuming the “experiments” started out with a population of diverse broken genes (some intelligence, some courage, etc.) the last thing you want to do is isolate them and let them interbreed with each other for generations. You are just as likely to wind up with people carrying multiple mutations that they inherited from different parents as you are to see people “healed.” There is only one good reason for isolating genetic undesirables together: to make it easier to exterminate them all. ( “Epigenetic Boat”)

Freeman suggests that epigenetics, the science of making genes more or less expressed, may be the intended science behind the series. This process is indeed influenced by environment, though there’s still much research to be done. The guesswork of the Bureau, as they believe Tobias is Divergent, and then change their minds, or monitor for people who are aware during the simulation test and thus “might have healed genes” (emphasis added) emphasizes how much isn’t known about the brain and its workings (Allegiant 171).

Personality Tests Anyone familiar with psychology will see an enormous correspondence between the faction test and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment. This popular questionnaire, often given in high school or psychology class, determines which four of eight personality types define each person and thus suggests job aptitude. The four scales calculate where a person falls between two opposite traits: Extroversion- 100

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Introversion, Sensing-Intuition, Thinking-Feeling and Judgment-Perception. This leads to 16 different personality types, so that a person may be labeled ENTP, ISFJ, etc. (Roth has told fans her Myers-Briggs test results like Tobias’s are ISFJ.) This test has become the most widely used personality questionnaire in the world. Psychologist Carl Jung in his 1921 book Psychological Types theorized that there are four principal psychological functions by which we experience the world: sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking. He also proposed one of these categories dominates us, then another at a time. Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, Jungian enthusiasts, developed their test for women’s job placement during World War II. The test is meant to be taken voluntarily, with the individual the best judge of how he or she should answer each question. It reveals indicators, of course, rather than hard and fast rules. Extroverts are talkative and friendly, hog the spotlight. They love drama, meeting people, expressing themselves in sales or people-related jobs. Introverts would rather be alone as writers, programmers, or individual workers. Sensing and intuition are the information-gathering functions that show how new information is interpreted. Those who prefer Sensing trust information from their own five senses – does it look dangerous to go in the building? Those who go for Intuition are fine with hunches and even guesses – information that appears from out of nowhere, like a sense that someone is trustworthy. They also rely more on abstract information from books and reports, and think more about the future rather than the immediate present. Thinking and feeling are the decision-making functions. Thinkers use a detached standpoint to add up the best options and decide what is most logical according to the rules: More lives will be saved than endangered if the person pulls the fire alarm. Thinkers are quite direct and honest, and have trouble relating to more emotionally-driven peers. Those associated with Feeling look at situations from the perspective of one caught inside it, and considering the people involved – If I pull the fire 101

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT alarm, my friend will be in trouble and he’ll hate me, so I’m not sure I can. These groupings were postulated by Carl Jung. Myers and Briggs added the concept that people each have a preference for using either their judging function (thinking or feeling) or their perceiving function (sensing or intuition) when relating to the outside world and those in it. Thus J/P (judging/perceiving) becomes the fourth category. According to Myers, judging types like to “have matters settled” (75). TJ types appear as logical, and FJ types as empathetic. Other people prefer perception value of sensing or intuition. SP types tend to appear to the world as concrete and NP types as abstract. According to Myers, perceptive types prefer to “keep decisions open” (75). Of course, one problem with the test is the same problem seen in the trilogy’s society – everyone is expected to fall into a single, perfect category and be defined by it. “A major premise of the Type model is that only one of the 16 Types best describes each person – the Type to which you are born will be the one you take to your grave. We may adjust our behaviors over time – or at a party versus a funeral – but our personal Type remains the same for life.” (Tieger and Barron-Tieger). Certainly, people can change. It’s also unlikely that there are precisely sixteen personality types, as people rarely lump that cleanly. The either/or categorization also creates false data:

The MBTI personality dimensions seem to be distributed such that most people fall between the two extremes around the boundary point of the dichotomous category distinctions. Therefore people who are very small distances apart on the dimensional measure are categorized as being qualitatively different to one another because they fall either side of the cut-off point between the types and are lumped in with much more extreme scores that fall on the same side of the cut-off however far apart they are on the dimension. (Matthews)

The other popular personality test has an even closer correlation to the trilogy, as it’s known as the Big Five personality traits or the Five Factor Model. These factors are 102

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, referred to sometimes by the acronym OCEAN. One researcher breaks thus describes some of the categories:

Openness (with high scorers interested in art and abstract ideas, low scorers practical and down to earth), Conscientiousness (with high scorers methodical and dutiful, low scorers more distractible), and Agreeableness (with high scorers cooperative and trusting, and low scorers more aggressive and hostile) (Nettle).

“Extraversion includes such related qualities as gregariousness, assertiveness, excitement seeking, warmth, activity, and positive emotions” (G. Matthews). This single category parallels the one from Myers-Briggs, with low-scorers as loners and high-scorers as those who prefer to spend time with others.

An instantly recognizable dimension is neuroticism or negative emotionality, known as N by psychologists. The mind is equipped with systems for protecting itself from harmful things, like physical danger, disease, humiliation, and loss. These systems are driven by emotions like anxiety, fear and shame. It seems that in some people, the systems are a little more easily set off than others. Such people are high on the N dimension. They are worriers, prone to anxieties and fears. (Nettle)

Obviously several Divergent correspondences appear. Louise Freeman matches these categories up in a series of essays for the Hogwarts Professor literary criticism blog, beginning with her essay “A Dip in the OCEAN: Divergent Factions and the Big Five Personality Factors”:

Openness is considered the inventive or curious dimension; its polar opposite is consistent or cautious. This factor is also called “Intellect” by some researchers; this is obviously the element emphasized by Roth in the Erudite Faction. People scoring high in tests of Openness are intelligent, curious about new ideas, creative, appreciative of art and readily challenge convention. These traits are a clear match for the people of Erudite, who read voraciously, are adept at 103

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research and teaching, choose their members and leaders via IQ test scores and invent all manner of handy gadgets. (Freeman)

Abnegation corresponds to Conscientiousness, being efficient and organized while caring for others. Beatrice notes that she’s expected to carry spare food for the hungry, and that her parents will probably stay after her Choosing Ceremony to clean up and stack the chairs. “High conscientiousness is associated with self-discipline, careful planning, an organized environment and high concern with conforming to expectations or outside standards” (Freeman). Extraversion is represented by the Candor Faction, and Agreeableness by Amity:

In the Candor Faction, sharing your thoughts with others is not just a choice, but a requirement. Children are trained to recognize body language associated with deception. A Candor will confront another person at any hint of withholding the truth, even if the person’s motivation is simple politeness. Candor initiation involves lie detector tests and, eventually, the complete sharing of a person’s deepest secrets through a truth serum interrogation. Not even the outgoing Christina was willing to undergo that; it would be sheer torture for a person with any sort of introvert tendencies. The peace-loving Amity Faction corresponds to the Agreeableness personality domain. Agreeable people show friendliness and compassion rather than coldness or unkindness. Certainly the Amity compound, with its lush gardens and orchards and happy, banjo-strumming inhabitants who greet each other with hugs, superficially seems to epitomize the ideal peaceful society. The top priorities of Agreeable people are conflict reduction, social harmony, kindness to others and fostering relationships, but these emphases often come at the expense of leadership skills.

By the time Dauntless arrives, only one category remains. However, the correspondence between Bravery and Neuroticism does seem to work, especially as the Dauntless kids 104

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL enact it. Their behaviors include bullying, leaping from trains, and flirting with death. Suicides are celebrated, alcohol encouraged. As Amar points out, “There’s bravery and then there’s masochism, and the line got a little hazy with [Four],” who enters his fear landscape over and over in a disturbing act of self-torture, not courage (Allegiant 357). “The chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy!” Four tells the new recruits, and many don’t listen (Divergent 65). The Manifesto reads, “We believe in acknowledging fear and the extent to which it rules us. We believe in facing that fear no matter what the cost to our comfort, our happiness, or even our sanity.” (Divergent Bonus Materials, 47). Disturbingly, this is often the case. “Individuals with high Neuroticism scores are considered sensitive/nervous versus secure/confident. They are prone to irritation, rage, sadness, and anxiety, which puts them at risk for depression, phobias and panic,” Freeman notes.

The realities of Dauntless Faction certainly match this description. Though we see some unstable characters in the corrupt leadership of other Factions (e.g., the child- beater Marcus of Abnegation and the murderous Jeanine of Erudite), we see no other Faction who seems to attract so many unbalanced initiates to its ranks. During Tris’s initiation month, certain classmates are threatened enough by her presence to vandalize her property, slander her father with false abuse allegations, physically attack her, sexually assault her twice and attempt to murder her in the middle of the night. Beyond Tris’s tormentors, there is also Edward’s mutilation and Al’s suicide. It is fair to say that Dauntless initiates have more than their fair share of mental health issues. (Freeman II)

While these five categories, like the other sixteen, can be interesting tools for analysis, the fundamental truth is that people are generally mixed – Divergent rather than buttonholed. This appears to be one of the morals of the series.

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The Nature of War and the Child Soldier The Dauntless Manifesto reads: “Sometimes it is necessary to fight for peace. But more than that: We believe that justice is more important than peace” (Divergent Bonus Materials, 47). Of course, the repercussions of that fighting can devastate one’s life. The Divergent Trilogy shows teens suffering from PTSD after their horrific ordeals. After shooting Will, Tris can’t abide guns. Confronted with them, her throat tightens as if she’s having an allergic reaction (Insurgent 23). This form of emotional devastation, post-traumatic stress disorder, may affect as many as 97 percent of former child soldiers (Singer 194). Young soldiers have additional difficulties beyond that of the adults, as they frequently know no other way to live. “Young boys and girls were initiated into violence through a deliberate process of terror. Terrified themselves, they were prepared to inflict terror on others” (qtd in Murphy 202). As they are hurt, they learn to hurt others. Tris and Tobias have their childhoods in Abnegation (despite Tobias’s childhood abuse) but many Divergent-born teens know nothing beyond fighting and showing off. Tris of course sees each of her parents killed to save her, and she murders her friend Will in self-defense. She also sees Tobias caught in the simulation and offers herself in sacrifice to stop him. All this leaves her overwhelmed with trauma. “All I can see is the leaders of Abnegation on their knees on the pavement … all I can see is my mother turning to embrace the bullets,” she tells (Insurgent 457). She has flashbacks to the horrible events she suffered even as she fights to move past them. She can’t bear to hold a gun, even to save herself. Tobias worries that she’s changed from being self-sacrificing to having a death wish. In the second book, Tris is forced to choose between the boy Hector and her friend Marlene. She rescues Hector, and Marlene falls to her death. After, Tris’s body shakes and for a time, she cannot stop screaming as she tears at her clothes and scratches her skin like a wild creature. Later, she walks about in 106

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL a daze, her thoughts skittering away the moment Marlene’s name bobs to the surface. She cannot breathe and avoids the other teens. She speaks, as she puts it, “in a tight little voice that does not belong to me” (Insurgent 307). The teens of Dauntless are mind-controlled, symbolically brainwashed as they’re forced to kill the innocents of Abnegation on behalf of Erudite. This seems a science fiction plot far from our own reality. In fact, many young soldiers are brainwashed or manipulated into killing others, especially today, when lighter, smaller weapons ensure even young children can fight. While the other teens are not seen significantly dealing with their transformation into mass-murderers, Tris’s pain and guilt remain a poignant plea for an end to violence and warfare.

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Themes

Coming of Age, Kids versus Adults For teens seeking control in a hostile world, the dystopia is a powerful story. Katniss of The Hunger Games and Tally of The Uglies are surrounded by manipulative, lying adults, who will torture and kill their friends to control them. Meanwhile, the adults of Matched, Divergent, and Delirium insist that their way of sorting and recreating teens is the only proper way to live. All these young people must break free to discover the world out in the wilderness beyond the adults’ control, while protecting the younger children in their charge and saving the world. In Tris’s life, Caleb is a traitor, Peter and Eric vicious sadists. Christina and Will are her allies. Her parents are mostly out of the picture, and adult leaders are far more distant than the bullies who share her bedroom. Of course, her partner in all this is only two years older than she is, though he’s appointed her instructor. The Uglies are the only possible rebels in a world where the adults have been programmed to be frivolous and useless. Life- risking stunts are quietly encouraged by the Specials, the equivalent of the Erudite and secret police in one. Thus the teens and those raised in the wilderness outside the system are the only ones with enough independence to rebel. “All good dystopian novels are driven by the will to resist conformity, but Uglies was a strikingly new, dark tale which girls took to their hearts in droves … The other new feature of Uglies which also made it attractive to this new female readership was romance 109

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT between its heroine and two heroes,” notes Amanda Craig in her essay, “The Hunger Games and the Teenage Craze for Dystopian Fiction.” Tris follows in this tradition of a teen girl’s dystopia complete with romance. Her love story with Tobias is central, so much so that solving the problems of the dystopia sometimes fade into the background. “The point is to create an interesting obstacle course for Tris and Four, the hero and heroine, to traverse. Our dystopian future is the backdrop to – and a metaphor for – the hideous gulf that separates any two teenagers in love,” explains Lev Grossman in his essay on dystopia. Kid power stories mean child and teen protagonists, not kids rescued by adults. Many popular books, such as A Series of Unfortunate Events and Harry Potter, show clueless adults who don’t understand the danger their world faces. It is the children who must break the adults’ rules to save the day. Roth explains, “I also love that the majority of characters in dystopian and post-apocalyptic literature have a lot of agency – they take charge of their lives in environments that make it hard for them to do so, and I love reading about strong characters like that” (“Q & A”). Suzanne Collins responds to complaints about the teen violence in her series by saying, “Well, the thing is, whatever I write, whether it’s for TV or whether it’s books, even if I’m writing for preschoolers, I want the protagonist to be the age of the viewing audience. So I’m not going to write a war story for kids and then just have them on the sidelines. If I write a war story for kids, they’re going to be the warriors in it” (Margolis). In the US, adolescents can’t vote, can’t make legal decisions without a parent or guardian. But dystopian teens, caught in a life of chaos, can change the world. As Tris devotes herself to protecting the helpless of her world, she gains control, reminding us we can do the same. “Most contemporary YA novels focus on small scale concerns: domestic, athletic and scholastic dramas. By showing societies that depend on teenagers acting as adults, authors can put teenage protagonists 110

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL into very high-stakes and dramatic situations, where the future of society is at stake” (Dobbs). In Wither by Lauren DeStefano, Rhine is kidnapped from her twin brother at age sixteen and forcibly married to a rich young man, along with two other girls. What follows is a women’s gothic tale of horror, as Rhine creeps about the mansion, trying not to attract attention from Housemaster Vaughn. He is her husband Linden’s father, and comes from the older generation. In her world, genetic tempering left young people fated to die at ages twenty for girls or twenty-five for boys, with only the untreated seventy-year-olds still aging normally. Housemaster Vaughn, determined to find a cure, conducts sinister science experiments on his son’s dead wives and babies. The world is divided into young people and those whose genetic experimentation has killed them. It’s even revealed that there was more behind Rhine’s birth than she thought, as her parents were far from innocent in the generational battle. Gone sees every adult over fifteen vanish from a sleepy little town. Sam, the hero, must protect the smaller children from viscous teens with superhuman powers as he and his friends discover who has trapped them in their nightmare scenario. He and his girlfriend becomes the town’s most responsible members as teens care for abandoned babies in the daycare center, while it’s revealed that adult actions nearly caused the town’s destruction. Ender’s Game features a war which (allegedly) can only be fought by genius children, who have the necessary reflexes. The manipulative adults rule the system, though questions are frequently raised about the morality of their actions. Ender, aware that the adults are manipulating every aspect of his life, loves only his young sister, who is as caught in the crossfire as he is. The weakness of Ender’s parent figures “sets up a larger pattern of deliberate, purposeful violence and injury inflicted on children by representatives of the adult world” (Murphy 200). When the children succeed in the end, they’re overcome with laughter at the thought that they will need to return to school on 111

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT earth though they are all war heroes and veterans. Katniss is her family’s food provider, gathering and hunting in the forest to feed all three of them. In Catching Fire, Katniss has graduated to become a far wealthier provider, as her mother and sister join her in her mansion. She continues gathering food for Gale’s family, and she provides all of District Twelve with extra supplies through her triumph.

Panem has far more kid-power than in our own culture. Before age eighteen, Katniss has two fights to the death for her very survival in two different Hunger Games. She’s learned hunting, survival training, and finally warfare. She defies President Snow, becomes a revolutionary, and defends freedom as the beloved face of the rebellion. It’s a compelling lure. (Frankel, Katniss 73)

She’s the savior of the helpless, noting, “Prim … Rue … aren’t they the very reason I have to try to fight? Because what has been done to them is so wrong, so beyond justification, so evil that there is no choice? Because no one has the right to treat them as they have been treated?” (Catching Fire 123). Katniss also fears her own children will be drafted for the Games, so she resists having any. Even the thought of training other children horrifies her, as she explains, “It must be hell to mentor two kids and then watch them die” (Hunger Games 386). For Katniss, parents are useless and the older children protect the younger, as she does Prim, or Rue does her younger siblings. Lena, Delirium’s heroine, has a similar relationship with her little cousin Grace and the orphan girl Blue. Her older sister and other relatives have had the treatment to destroy all trace of love or “delirium” in them and have been turned into what the rebels call “zombies.” While they appear to function adequately, these treated adults do things no sane, untreated person would do. In one scene, her oblivious relatives abandon Grace to die in a fire, leaving only Lena to save her. “Understanding these stories as allegories of how adults and children perceive each other – adults as violating, deceitful, and manipulative; children as unknowably alien, unruly, and 112

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL dangerously powerful – suggests that perhaps the most crucial story told here is the conflict between children and the adults they may become,” Sarah Outterson Murphy comments in her essay on child soldiers in dystopia (199). Some stories have systems in place for harming the children in particular: In Crossed, it’s revealed that when adults commit Infractions, the entire family is punished or exiled, though when a child commits a crime, only he is punished. In the same series, teens are recruited as decoys – allegedly soldiers but really fodder to be killed. In the midst of this horror, Ky saves Eli, the youngest of his peers, since he knows he can’t save everyone. “If I didn’t look out for him, I’d be someone she [Cassia] didn’t know,” he says (Crossed 52). In Divergent, the adults have twisted their courageous faction into a place of competition – teamwork is discouraged in favor of beating other teens. Older members and washout teens are expelled. Tris discovers a better way. As she cheers her friends and reassures them, she builds camaraderie and friendship, growing from competitors to real teammates. As the series continues, she becomes a true defender of the helpless. In Insurgent, Eric starts killing children, with the excuse that they’re useless as test subjects for the Erudite. When Tris sees him murder a little boy, she stabs him. The old regime, the adults, appears as a force of destruction. Tobias’s father Marcus is the worst, as he’s physically abusive – he locked his son in the closet as a child and beat him with a belt. In the Delirium series, Julian’s father is literally abusive, beating his older son until he dies. After he reads part of The Wizard of Oz, a forbidden work, Julian explains that his dad “beat me so hard I blacked out … The next day I had my first seizure” (Pandemonium 173). Raven’s father is also abusive – she’s always covered in bruises and her mother insists Raven help her hide the evidence since otherwise “people would make things difficult” (Pandemonium 225). This type of abuse seems common among the “cured” parents of the series, who no longer feel love. Other dystopias feature parents who are equally irresponsible or destructive. Tobias’s mother abandons her 113

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT vulnerable son to be abused, much as Katniss’s mother checks out from reality and allows her daughters to starve. Lena’s and Tris’s mothers are an exception, both brimming with passionate love the government cannot take from them, though both women are taken from their daughters.

Prejudice On Choosing Day, Beatrice gets shoved to the ground and everyone ignores her. “The Erudite have been releasing antagonistic reports about Abnegation, and it has begun to affect the way we relate at school” she explains sadly (6). Abnegation, the scapegoats, clothe themselves in grey to appear unassuming and forgettable. However, they mirror the minorities whom people of the world can bully because they lack power. The violence escalates through the first book, from newspaper articles, jealousy, and smear campaigns, to a sudden attack with numerous civilian casualties. This mirrors many historical tragedies as prejudice escalated into acts of brutality and genocide. Roth explains that the Factions just represent a different type of arbitrary categorization which can be used for hatred and cruelty:

All the advantages I see only seem like advantages to me because I live in our current society. For example, the members of their society don’t focus on certain things: race, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, etc. I mean, a world in which you look different from the majority and no one minds? That sounds good to me. But when I think about it more, I realize that they’re doing the exact same thing we do, but with different criteria by which to distinguish ourselves from others. Instead of your skin color, it’s the color of your shirt that people assess, or the results of your aptitude test. Same problem, different system. (Amazon)

“Sometimes the people you oppress become mightier than you would like,” Johanna tells Tori (Insurgent 518). Hurting a group who acts or believes differently only spawns more violence and 114

VALERIE ESTELLE FRANKEL cruelty. In this case, the coup turns into a counter-revolution and civil war as the Factionless battle the Erudite for control. At the story’s beginning, there appeared to be six types – the five factions and the Divergent. Allegiant reveals that those in the Bureau who study the City see only two – perfect genes and damaged genes. This regrouping emphasizes how arbitrary categorization is, especially when their categories are revealed as a lie, a convenient scapegoating to avoid solving their real problems. “It’s like they just arbitrarily decided that one kind of DNA was bad and the other was good,” Tris says comparing the difference to the randomness of eye color (Allegiant 256). In the outside world, Tris learns of GD’s. “Genetically damaged people are technically – legally – equal to genetically pure people, but only on paper,” Nita explains (Allegiant 243). Tris and Tobias discover that a GP who kills a GD will only be charged with manslaughter (Allegiant 248). To the teens who grew up in the city, this prejudice seems cruel and arbitrary. Likewise, Nita and her friends reveal this is a scientific error rather than fact – “Some of the people here want to blame genetic damage for everything,” Matthew explains (Allegiant 217). They prefer a concrete explanation and easy finger- pointing to the true mystery that is brain chemistry. The problem isn’t just the mentality, but the laws it creates. Genetically damaged people are subhuman, condemned to prison like mental patients if they commit terrible crimes because they aren’t considered responsible for their actions. “A system that relies on a group of uneducated people to do its dirty work without giving them a way to rise is hardly fair,” Tobias tells the readers (Allegiant 196). At last, the us-versus-them pattern solidifies into Bureau versus city, as the Bureau decides to conclude their “experiment” by mind-wiping everyone and stealing all they are. “They believe there is no reasoning with us, no appealing to our better natures. They decided it would be easier to erase us than to speak with us,” Tobias tells his mother (Allegiant 462). Tris battles to end this cruel practice and ends with a world where people can be whatever they wish, without the awful stigma of 115

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT labels. There are infinite categories, and people can choose where to belong at last.

Religion Some readers may be surprised at the Acknowledgments page at the end of the book, where the first sentence reads, “Thank you, God, for your Son and for blessing me beyond comprehension.” While religion is minimal in some dystopian stories (and is the basis for others like The Handmaid’s Tale), in Divergent it’s subtle but present. There are only a few explicit references to religion: Tris’s family says grace before dinner, though she mentions that “not every Abnegation family is religious” (32). Four has painted the words “Fear God Alone” on the walls of his room (282). This suggests he is a religious person, though it’s not clear if he developed this in his early life of child-abuse or his new life as Four. It’s not clear how much Tris believes in God. Drowning at the first book’s climax, she thinks of him and feels glad she shot Eric in the foot, not the head. Returning to the baptism of her babyhood, she feels at peace (Divergent 438). On her first plane flight, Tris narrates, “I look out the window again, taking slow, deep breaths into a body too tense to move. And as I stare out at the land, I think that this, if nothing else, is compelling evidence for my parents’ God, that our world is so massive that it is completely out of our control, that we cannot possibly be as large as we feel.” Roth explains that she wanted Tris to at least have the opportunity to ask the questions:

I wanted to be true to the teenage experience, which often involves a lot of consideration about existence and about God and even whether you believe in a God or not. I didn't feel that Tris would be a real person unless she considered those things. I tried very hard not to have her proselytize the reader or anything like that because what I really think is that Tris is always questioning everything. She never comes to a decision about spiritual issues. (Chase)

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Abnegation’s beliefs are quite in keeping with the Bible: The Seven Cardinal Virtues of Catholicism are Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, and Humility. Abnegation encourages all of these, of course. The Abnegation Manifesto reads, “Give freely, trusting that you will also be given what you need,” urging people to ignore possessions. Slander and insults are unimportant, as “The opinions of others cannot damage you.” It adds, “You must no longer think cruel thoughts. Cruel thoughts lead to cruel words, and hurt you as much as they hurt your target” (“Divergent Bonus Materials” 36-37). Compare to these Bible quotes for similarity of language and message:

Luke 12:15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

Matthew 16:26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Matthew 12:36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.

James 1:19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;

Psalm 37:8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

Notably, Tris leaves her “religious” family of selfless people because she fears she isn’t good enough. She finds herself among the rebel punk teens, getting tattooed, eating indulgent junk food, and learning to fight with guns and knives. Her new “gang” are manipulated into slaughtering the pacifist

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Abnegation, who mostly turn the other cheek and are martyred. Even in the midst of this, Tris has a morals argument with her father, demanding, “There are men with guns up there. When they see me, they will kill me, if they can … Should I let them?” He replies, “Go and God help you,” encouraging her to fight for her faith rather than perish (Divergent 467). Tris’s father, the voice of old-fashioned mortality in the series, truly dislikes Erudite, as he notes, “Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it’s so important we don’t rely on it” (Divergent 102). The implication is that the Bible and its laws make superior moral guides. In the Bible, the search for knowledge led to expulsion from the garden, thus many true believers rely on faith rather than facts. Apples have repeated Biblical symbolism in the story. Cara and Tris discuss the problematic nature of pride, and both agree “that it blinds people to the truth of what they are” (Allegiant 308). Then Matthew comes in, munching an apple and Tris cringes, “imagining the bitter taste of apple seeds” (Allegiant 309). Through pride, Adam and Eve believed they were equal to God and were cast from Eden. Tris picks apples in Amity as well. Amity is a realm of peace, brought about by the happiness serum they put in the bread. It’s Tris and her friends who bring violence and disharmony to the Amity compound, and finally rally its people to war. Both appearances of apples introduce outside knowledge and weaponry to a place of peace, and with it knowledge of the true state of the world, in an allegory of the Eden legend. Tris, of course, has trouble with Abnegation’s selflessness and automatic forgiveness. After a deadly and humiliating attack, she thinks:

“Somewhere inside me is a merciful, forgiving person. Somewhere there is a girl who tries to understand what people are going through, who accepts that people do evil things and that desperation leads them to darker places than they ever imagined. I swear she exists, and she hurts for the repentant boy in front of me. But if I saw her, I wouldn’t recognize her.” (299-300) 118

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She turns away from Al’s apology and adds that she swears “to God” she’ll kill him if he tries again (300). Tris’s chosen God is an angry one. In the Bible, Judas betrays Jesus then hangs himself in despair. After Al turns on his friend and cannot be absolved, he takes a similar path. “Can I be forgiven for all I’ve done to get here? I want to be. I can. I believe it,” Tris thinks poignantly (Allegiant 476). Finding the road from anger to understanding is a major theme, especially Tris’s for Caleb. After he betrays her, he offers to sacrifice himself in return for her forgiveness, but Tris realizes such a sacrifice should only be offered in perfect selfless love, in the spirit of Abnegation.

She goes to a perfect, selfless death, like Aslan’s in the Narnia series. It’s the flawed, human characters who are left behind to repair their dystopia. In this world they’re creating, Tobias dreams of trading his “guns and knives for more productive tools, screwdrivers and nails and shovels” (Allegiant 419), compared with the similar Bible quote: “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4). Roth explains:

Just to be clear, Tris’s story is not “Christian” any more or less than other stories that feel somehow true to people– I am committed to a particular faith, yes, but my intention is always just to tell the most honest story I can (even when 119

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those stories are obviously not “factual”!). But given my particular worldview, I think the problem of Tris’s society is that they’re moralistic– they exhort people to behave a particular way in order to justify their place in the world, instead of encouraging them to love and believe and explore and become the fullest, richest versions of themselves. And I think this is something we often do in Christian culture– we emphasize having the right behavior and the right moral beliefs, we judge others for their moral failures, but by paring everything down to those elements, we lose what makes our faith alive and active and beautiful and humbling, which is the love and acceptance of God despite all our inevitable and constant failure to be perfect. Striving for moral perfection, the way the factions do, is just another way of trying to prove your worth when that’s just suffocating and pointless– you don’t have to prove your worth. You are already worthy; you’re worthy and broken, all at the same time. (Baird-Hardy)

Many characters have Biblical names, but these appear to be more old-fashioned and pious-sounding than allegorical. Nonetheless, a few correspondences appear. Caleb in the Bible was known for doing what he thought was right but also being a skeptic. He spied for his side when he snuck into the enemy’s land, much like Tris’s brother. Caleb also led his people into a new land beside the general Joshua, just as cynical Caleb does beside Tris at the beginning of Allegiant. Tobias in the Biblical book of the same name is a romantic hero, forced to confront obstacles and battle a demon before he can wed his destined love, Sarah, and find their happy ending. The romance and heroism may offer a small correlation. King David, famously, was a warrior, so God forbade him to build the Temple, which was meant to be a place of peace. David of Roth’s series is the king of his world, but he’s willing to destroy Tris’s city with a memory wipe. Like King David, he has a skewed impression of peace and justice. An ideal world can only exist when he is taken out of the picture. King David murdered Uriah the Hittite in order to steal his wife, Bathsheba. It seems more than coincidence that Uriah Pedrad is killed in a rebellion against David’s government. 120

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Ezekiel was one of the Old Testament’s “doom and gloom” prophets, surrounded by images of skulls. His prophecies saw the destruction of Jerusalem, and finally the restoration of a better land in the future. This cycle of events is what occurs in the series, with Ezekiel Pedrad helping to bring it about. The faithfully-named Christina and Johanna (which means Grace of God) are the human characters who survive, and who, along with Tobias, will bring about a better world. Presumably belief and goodness will be involved. When discussing her writing, Roth adds:

I think what bleeds into the writing is mostly an awareness that religious questions are essential to our growth and development. Even if you question yourself and you come to a decision that you don’t believe in anything, I think those questions are important. As far as the books go, it’s important to me not to send any kind of [religious] message – subtle or overt or anything. I don’t even want to do a moral preaching. I mean, obviously, your beliefs about the world inform your writing. It’s important to me to have Tris always asking questions – she is never really sure what she believes, but she inches towards revelations throughout the series, then sort of backs away from them. (Codinha)

When asked what message she hopes readers take away from her book, Roth is definite. “I want people to come away from my book with questions,” she says. “Questions about virtue and goodness. Not answers” (Fry).

The Nature of Bravery Several characters tell Tris to “Be Brave,” right before something terrible happens. The Dauntless Faction is meant to embody the true nature of courage, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Nonetheless, characters offer Tris different definitions which she uses to shape herself and her future. “The chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy!” Four tells the new recruits (Divergent 65). He insists there’s no shame in yielding to a stronger opponent, and that courage needn’t mean competition. The sadistic Eric feels 121

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT differently, plunging the two leaders into constant conflict as they demonstrate two tracks of thought. Similarly, the Dauntless Manifesto defines courage for its members. An excerpt reads as follows:

We believe in freedom from fear, in denying fear the power to influence our decisions. We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another. We believe in acknowledging fear and the extent to which it rules us. We believe in facing that fear no matter what the cost to our comfort, our happiness, or even our sanity. We believe in shouting for those who can only whisper, in defending those who cannot defend themselves. (Divergent Bonus Materials, 47)

At the Dauntless funeral for Al, everyone salutes him for his courage and Tris is horrified. To her, suicide is not courageous but cowardly and selfish, and should not be celebrated by anyone. As she spends time in Dauntless, she discovers many definitions for bravery as she faces her fears and crafts an identity for herself.

We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure to act in the midst of fear…You are far less likely to soil your pants and cry for your mother if you’re prepared to defend yourself. –Four (Divergent 77)

I think it’s important to protect people. To stand up for people. Like you did for me. That’s what the Dauntless are supposed to do right? That’s what courage is. Not...hurting people for no reason. – Al to Tris (Divergent 190).

Courageous? Courageous would have been admitting weakness and leaving Dauntless, no matter what shame accompanied it. Pride is what killed Al, and it is the flaw in every Dauntless heart. It is in mine. –Tris (Divergent 308- 309)

It’s when you’re acting selflessly that you are at your bravest. –Four to Tris (Divergent 311) 122

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My mother’s death was brave. I remember how calm she was, how determined. It isn’t just that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, without hesitation, and without appearing to consider another option. –Tris (Divergent 451)

Though I have stood still while knives spun toward my face and jumped off a roof, I never thought I would need bravery in the small moments of life. I do. –Tris during an intimate moment with Tobias (Divergent 373)

“There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater. But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life. That is the sort of bravery I must have now.” –Four (Allegiant 509)

Likewise, Amar points out that “There’s bravery and then there’s masochism, and the line got a little hazy with [Four],” commenting that going through one’s fear landscape over and over is obsession and unnecessary pain, not courage (Allegiant 357). The series maintains that bullying the weak or showing off is not true courage, but doing scary things despite one’s revulsion will improve the world. In the end, it’s the little moments as well as the big ones, the enduring through pain as well as the grand gestures, that can remake the world.

Free Will Divergent’s tagline is “One choice can transform you,” and Insurgent’s is “One choice can destroy you.” “One choice will define you” finishes the trilogy. Choice, clearly, is central to the story. Tris and Tobias have been set apart because of their free 123

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT will, strong enough even to shatter simulations. As such, they are the chief warriors for free will in a world of total obedience.

“Abnegation produces deeply serious people. People who automatically see things like need,” he says. “I’ve noticed that when people switch to Dauntless, it creates some of the same types. Erudite who switch to Dauntless tend to turn cruel and brutal. Candor who switch to Dauntless tend to become boisterous, fight-picking adrenaline junkies. And Abnegation who switch to Dauntless become … I don’t know, soldiers, I guess. Revolutionaries.” (Allegiant 354)

Tris ultimately sacrifices herself to prevent the people trapped in the experiment from losing her memories – to her mind, all that they are. Upon confronting his mother, Tobias makes a similar gesture. Instead of mind-wiping her, he appeals to her reason and particularly to her love.

If I erase her memories, I can create for myself a new mother, but. But she is more than my mother. She is a person in her own right, and she does not belong to me. I do not get to choose what she becomes just because I can’t deal with who she is. “No,” I say. “No, I came to give you a choice…It’s not fair for me to give you this choice,” I say. “But I have to. You can lead the factionless, you can fight the Allegiant, but you’ll have to do it without me, forever. Or you can let this crusade go, and… you’ll have your son back.” (Allegiant 464-465)

Tobias is terrified that she will choose power and her cause over love for her son – “afraid that she will refuse to choose, that she will choose power over me,” he adds.

Evelyn’s eyes, dark as wet earth, search mine for a long time. Then she reaches across the table and pulls me fiercely into her arms, which form a wire cage around me, surprisingly strong.

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“Let them have the city and everything in it,” she says into my hair. I can’t move, can’t speak. She chose me. She chose me. (Allegiant 465-466)

The word “choose” is central to this passage – sacrifice and love must be chosen freely or they mean nothing. As Tobias thinks earlier, “Sometimes, all it takes to save people from a terrible fate is one person willing to do something about it. Even if that ‘something’ is a fake bathroom break” (Allegiant 438). Tobias concludes:

I feel a twinge of guilt. I didn’t come here to ask her to lay down arms for me, to trade in everything she’s worked for just to get me back. But then again, I didn’t come here to give her any choice at all. I guess Tris was right – when you have to choose between two bad options, you pick the one that saves the people you love. I wouldn’t have been saving Evelyn by giving her that serum. I would have been destroying her. (Allegiant 478)

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Setting

I’ve never thought of those two things – world building and character development – as being opposed to each other. The world affects the character. The character gives you ideas about the world. The more you weave those two things together, the better they will both be. Now that I think about striking a balance, I’m sure I didn’t get it exactly right, but I did the best I could. (Rachel)

Roth explains above the importance of setting in her novel. To anyone who knows the place, Tris’s city is instantly recognizable as Chicago, with the street names and tall buildings of downtown still remaining among the ruined streets. “We run down the clean, even sidewalks on Madison Avenue, passing State street, toward Michigan Avenue,” Tris explains (Insurgent 462). After losing her mother, Tris hides in an Abnegation sector basement, on the corner of North and Fairfield.

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The El, Chicago's train system, is elevated instead of underground like a subway – that’s why Tris and her friends jump off it.

I chose Chicago for a few reasons: first, I’m from the Chicago area, so I love it there, and I’m more familiar with it than any other city. Second, the trains! The ‘L’ trains in Chicago run almost constantly, like a force of nature instead of something man-made, just like the trains that are so important in Divergent. (Rachel)

Trains’ importance continue through the three books and further – The cover of “The Transfer” features a circle of trains colliding over Chicago’s skyline.

I think I chose Abnegation first, on the north side of Chicago, mostly because there’s more neighborhood-y areas there. And then Dauntless is not supposed to be a real place. I don’t know any buildings that are set up in quite that manner or any underground areas or any underground rivers, so it’s kind of an impossible, fantastical place that’s further south. And then one of my favorite buildings is the Merchandise Mart, so that’s why Candor is in there. And Erudite, the kind of row of buildings across the street from the Art Institute, just seemed very Erudite to me. And then Amity had to be out somewhere, also in a place that does not exist.(Rachel)

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The Merciless Mart, home of Candor, was once the Merchandise Mart (left). The Amity live in an area of forests and fields. By the Abnegation, all is plain grey houses, with a similar one for Abnegation Headquarters. Dauntless Headquarters is far from town with a seventh story entrance and underground caverns with a river. The Erudite Sector is across from Millennium Park, not far from the Navy Pier. Its central building is a library.

The reason [the year] not in there is because I am terrible at estimating time and how long it takes for certain things to happen and for changes to happen, so I just kept it deliberately ambiguous. When I tried to figure it out, I just stressed myself out, so I think it’s just really far in the future. (Rachel)

The story takes place in the ruins of the once stunning city – Navy Pier is falling apart, though the Ferris wheel and carousel still sit there. All is rusting metal and broken glass, below the rusted red seats of the wheel. Lake Michigan has dried into a murky swamp rather than a lake, with the border fence stretching down its middle. Some of the buildings, especially north of the bridge, still exist in better condition, however. The 129

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT city is divided into sections for the five factions: Erudite, Abnegation, Amity, Candor, and Dauntless. The factionless are scattered through abandoned areas.

There’s something really fun about it because it’s so clean compared to other cities. Imagining it all destroyed and wrecked was really interesting – not that I want to see it destroyed and wrecked! It also just kind of appeared out of nowhere. When I wrote the first draft of Divergent, there were just a lot of trains and this marsh and I just realized that it’s already in Chicago. My favorite buildings, Sears (Willis) Tower and the Merchandise Mart, are both in the books. So are the Ferris wheel and the Bean. (Deutsch)

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The zip line is on the Hancock building (left). The Hub (the Willis tower, long known as the Sears Tower) is “the tallest building in the city,” black with two prongs, the iconic symbol of Chicago (Divergent 38). The Choosing Ceremony room is on its twentieth floor – quite a distance for the Abnegation to hike.

Caleb and Tris talk in Millennium park, opposite the Erudite building, though it's only a barren stretch of grass. They sign the final treaty in Millennium Park “where the mammoth bean sculpture reflects the moonlight” (Allegiant 480).

At story end, some scientists are trying to restore the river and the lake. (left) Tris’s parents would meet at Buckingham Fountain (right), though it no longer operates. (Of course the skinny black Hub/Sears Tower can be seen in the back.) In the third book, the Bureau of Genetic Welfare is located some distance from the city, in O’Hare Airport. This location, 131

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT pictured on Allegiant’s cover, is much of the setting. Tris gets the chance to fly in a plane and see the city below. Visitors to Chicago today of course share these adventures.

Cinescape Chicago Film Studios was the onsite company producing much of Divergent. During filming, many fans were excitedly watching the film locations reserved by “Catbird,” a fake name used to draw people off. For instance, an elevated railroad set was built at 700 Federal St. and 2400 S. Michigan Ave (the former home of the newspaper the Chicago Defender) was used for filming. The first set built was a series of blocky Abnegation Houses on an abandoned lot at 600 S. Wells St. Many train stations were used, along with central shots of the large buildings and Navy Pier. Onlocationvacations.com has a large section on Divergent with fan photos and tips and Divergentfactions.com has a filming section as well. Like many dystopias, the story takes place in the ruins of a familiar place. There’s also a plea for environmentalism: There is nothing to eat but genetically engineered produce, and Tris’s is mostly frozen or canned. The technology of the future is used to control, brainwash, and torture its people. Only places that rely on human actions come to prosper. “Training comes first, technology second,” they say in Dauntless (Divergent 83).

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Fan Responses

“It’s neat seeing this community of fans as they’re coming together,” says Molly O’Neill, Roth’s editor, of events that attracted crowds in the hundreds. “I read the blogs, and there are stories of fans knowing each other online, and then finding each other on line [at an event). Roth’s growing popularity is an integral part of her touring success. The author has more than 26,000 followers on Twitter; a couple of months before Insurgent came out, according to O’Neill, that number was closer to 12,000. “Pretty much anytime she sends a tweet there are dozens of responses within minutes,” O’Neill says. “She blogs, and she’s on Tumblr, which is really big in her demographic.” (C.J.)

Unlike many authors, Roth maintains many lines of communication on her blog and at conferences. She posts updates on her Tumblr page, theartofnotwriting.tumblr.com and her blog http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com. She publicly vowed on that blog that she would jump into a pool filled with marshmallows if she finally got a book deal, and then she fulfilled her promise (into a bathtub of marshmallows, but still, footage is available). In a later interview, she promised that if her book was made into a movie, she’d go further:

Veronica: I've always wanted to jump into a pool of Jell-O. That may be really hard (to make happen), but for something as incredible as a movie coming out? So … yeah. I'll call it. Jell-O.

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Serena: And now you've said it in front of millions of USA TODAY's HEA readers, so … Veronica: Yeah. It's official now. I can't back down. Serena: Jell-O it is! (Chase)

She’s also been seen at many conferences, from young adult literature ones to Harry Potter. There she frequently meets Divergent fans, crafters, and costumers. “Some of it is great!” Roth says. “People make me key chains … someone attached a Dauntless symbol to a silver pen. That one is what I use to sign books. I use that a lot. I like to keep them around because they remind me that people are waiting for these books and that they really love them. It gives me motivation in those times when I'm not feeling very motivated” (Chase). Of course the conferences offer an array of fans, some incredibly dedicated:

I have seen tattoos and costumes! The costumes make me so excited, I can’t even tell you. The tattoos make me a little bit nervous – if someone has a lot of tattoos, though, or if the tattoo also has a deeply personal meaning (I met a girl who had tattooed “Dauntless” on herself because she was trying to overcome some intense anxiety and found inspiration in the book, and that was pretty amazing to hear about), I’m less nervous. Obviously people should do what they want with their skin ink, but it’s just strange to think that my work inspired something so permanent. I want to be like “but wait! I’m flawed and the work is flawed! Don’t tattoo it!” But that’s the insecure writer in me talking, mostly. (Baird- Hardy)

Of course, this level of author-fan involvement can backfire when readers discovered Tris’s final fate. Along with many heartbroken tweet and demands for hugs and comforting, “The ensuing days included death threats, 827 one-star reviews out of 2,452 total (to compare, it only had 647 five-star reviews) on Amazon.com, and a marketing counter-effort from Roth and her publicity team” (White). Still, Roth posted an explanation of her choice on her blog, acknowledging the fannish response and

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Movie The movie is fast approaching, with Theo James and Shailene Woodley as the lovestruck pair. “When Shailene (Woodley) and Theo (James) were cast and I saw their screen test together, it was absolutely perfect,” Roth notes (Deutsch). Shailene played in the show The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008), and the film The Descendents. She was actually considered for Katniss. Theo James is a British actor who appeared on Downton Abbey, and in the films Underworld: Awakening (2012), The Inbetweeners Movie (2011) and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010). Neil Burger (Limitless) is directing. Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher are producing, as is Pouya Shahbazian. The production shot in Chicago during Spring 2013 (with lots of real buildings and landmarks rather than CGI), and premieres March 21, 2014. A preview at the beginning of Catching Fire alerted many new fans to the series. In the trailer, fans saw Tris’s leap into Dauntless, her breaking the glass of the water tank, and her stroking Four’s many tattoos, among other scenes. “I was on set the day Shailene was in the tank and it was being filled with water. It was really intense and cool. I also saw the giant green screen room with the chair for the aptitude test. It was cool,” Roth gushed (Rachel). As she added, “I’m looking forward to the fear landscapes. They’re going to be weird and hopefully creepy! I’m excited to see them” (Rachel).

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“I like superhero movies, but I like that Tris isn’t a superhero,” says director Neil Burger. “She takes a beating and then has to figure things out under enormous pressure on all fronts” (Vilkomerson). Though Roth didn’t adapt the script herself, she’s given lots of advice and spent time on set. The scriptwriter described the movie as very close to the book. Evan Daugherty, credited with Snow White and the Huntsman and the internet short film, The Four Players (a gritty take on Super Mario Bros.), among others, explains, “For the movie adaptation and the process of making the movie, we and then the other writer after me and the director were very faithful to the book, but it wasn’t because Veronica was demanding it, Veronica was very hands-off” (Tampubolon). Other cast members include a variety of veterans and new stars: Christina will be played by Zoe Kravitz, the daughter of Lenny Kravitz (Cinna from The Hunger Games). The actress appears in X-Men: First Class and After Earth. Q will play Tori. She’s the star of The CW’s action drama Nikita, and also appeared in the vampire action movie Priest (2011). Ansel Elgort, son of fashion photographer Arthur Elgort, will play Caleb. He’s also in the remake of Carrie. Fans are terribly excited about Kate Winslet’s casting as Jeanine Matthews. Roth feels Winslet is even better than fans expect: “Kate has gone with a very subtle, even well-meaning villain. She’s not a mustache-twirling Disney type,” she says. “She brings the menace in a very quiet way.” (Alexander)

In addition to enduring Dauntless initiation rites like jumping off trains, Tris faces off against a possibly sinister Erudite official played by Kate Winslet. Is acting opposite the Oscar winner akin to leaping from great heights? “When you’re in a scene with someone who is really, really good, they just make you better,” Woodley says (Vilkomerson).

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Future Plans

Elle: Everyone wants to know: What’s next for you? Roth: I am going to take a little break. I’m still planning on writing for the same core audience, but I’m thinking it might take me a while to find the next project that feels similar to Divergent. I don’t want to go for something smaller. I want it to feel the same way that first book did. Elle: What is your dream project? Roth: Man, if I were a mature writer, I would want to set a book in 1980s communist Romania. Because my husband and I lived there for five months, right after we got married. My husband’s uncle and aunt live there, and have for like, 14 years, and they’re working with the art and theatre community there. We met a lot of people there, and heard a lot of stories, and it was so interesting, but I think that’s a project that I’ll put away for a while, because I need to grow into it a little bit. (Codinha)

It’s uncertain whether Roth will really write a Romanian book or will create another young adult series for all her fans (or both of course). Up next (aside from the movie) are short stories from Four’s point of view. “Free Four: Tobias Tells the Divergent Knife-Throwing Scene” and “The Transfer” are already out, with the latter describing Four’s Aptitude test. Coming are “The Traitor,” “The Son,” and “The Initiate,” stories of Four’s life before Tris. “The Initiate” shows Four’s first tattoo and an epic game of late-night Dare; in the other two stories, he uncovers plots and Erudite conspiracies. Roth has informed readers that while the stories will be delayed until July 2014 (at which point 139

CHOOSING TO BE INSURGENT OR ALLEGIANT they’ll be sold as ebooks and also the hardcover Four: A Divergent Collection, with some fun extra content), they’ll be much longer than expected. At about 70 pages each, there will be 280 pages of story – equivalent to a novel. More movies are planned of course, with plenty of young adult book conferences for the fans. With art and fanfiction filling the internet, this sweet and poignant series is following in the footsteps of its more famous young adult cousins.

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Characters of the Series Name Faction of Selected Played by Origin Faction Teens Beatrice Shailene Div, Prior Abnegation Dauntless Woodley GP (Tris) Tobias Div, Eaton Abnegation Dauntless Theo James GD (Four) Albert Christian Candor Dauntless (Al) Madsen Cara Erudite Erudite Christina Candor Dauntless Zoe Kravitz Drew Candor Dauntless Dauntless/ Edward Ben Lamb Factionless Ezekiel Pedrad Dauntless Dauntless (Zeke) Fernando Erudite Hector Dauntless Marlene Dauntless Dauntless Chicago Outside Matthew area World Molly Amy Candor Dauntless Atwood Newbold Dauntless/ Myra Erudite Factionless Peter Candor Dauntless Miles Teller Hayes Robert Abnegation Amity Black Susan Abnegation Abnegation Black 141

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Uriah Dauntless Dauntless Div Pedrad Will Erudite Dauntless Adults Dauntless/ Amar Div Bureau Edith Chicago Abnegation Prior area Andrew Tony Erudite Abnegation Prior Goldwyn Caleb Abnegation Erudite Ansel Elgort Prior Chicago David Bureau GP area Eric Erudite Dauntless Jai Courtney Evelyn Abnegation Erudite Johnson Factionless George Dauntless/ Erudite Div Wu Bureau Jeanine Erudite Erudite Kate Winslet Matthews Johanna Candor Amity Reyes Justine Lauren Dauntless Wachsberger Marcus Ray Abnegation Abnegation Div Eaton Stevenson Dauntless/ Natalie Chicago Abnegation Ashley Judd Div Prior area Nita Indianapolis Bureau GD Tori Wu Erudite Dauntless Maggie Q Div

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Works Cited

Primary Sources Condie, Ally. Crossed. USA: Dutton Books, 2011. Collins, Suzanne. Catching Fire. New York: Scholastic Press, 2009. – . The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Press, 2008. – . Mockingjay. New York: Scholastic Press, 2010. Huxley, Alduous. Brave New World. New York: Harper and Row, 1989. L’Engle, Madeline. A Wrinkle in Time. USA: Macmillian, 2010. Oliver, Lauren. Delirium. USA: Harper, 2011. – . Pandemonium. USA: Harper, 2012. –. Requiem. USA: Harper, 2013. Orwell, George. Nineteen-Eighty-Four. USA: Knopf, 1992. Pierce, Tamora. The Woman who Rides Like a Man. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989. Roth, Veronica. “About the End of Allegiant (SPOILERS).” Veronica Roth’s Blog 28 Oct 2013. http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com/2013/10/about-end- of-allegiant-spoilers.html –. Allegiant. New York: HarperCollins, 2013. –. Divergent. New York: HarperCollins, 2011. –. “FAQs: Four and The Names We Choose” Veronica Roth’s Blog 20 Mar 2012. http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com/2012/03/faqs- tobiasfour-and-names-we-choose.html – . Insurgent. New York: HarperCollins, 2011. – . “The Transfer.” New York: HarperCollins, 2013. –. The World of Divergent: The Path to Allegiant. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. Tolkien, J.R.R. The Return of the King. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994. Westerfeld, Scott. Uglies. New York: Simon Pulse, 2005.

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Interviews “A Q&A with Author Veronica Roth.” Amazon Review. http://www.amazon.com/Divergent-Series-Veronica- Roth/dp/0062024035/ “A Q&A with Author Veronica Roth.” Bonus Materials. Divergent. New York: HarperCollins, 2011. Alexander, Bryan. “On Set of ‘Divergent,’ Kate Winslet is Pregnant and Mean.” USA Today 16 July 2013. http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2013/07/16/ divergent-kate-winslet-pregnant/2507183/ Baird-Hardy, Elizabeth. “10 Questions with Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent Trilogy: Part 2 – Elizabeth Baird- Hardy’s Questions” Hogwarts Professor: Thoughts for Serious Readers. 5 Mar 2013. Blog Post. http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com. Carpenter, Susan. “Interview: Veronica Roth on her Book ‘Insurgent’ and Feminism.” LA Times 30 April 2012. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com Chase, Serena. “Interview: Veronica Roth, author of 'Insurgent'” USA Today 19 June 2012. http://books.usatoday.com/happyeverafter/post/2012-06- 18/veronica-roth-interview-insurgent/718819/1 Codinha, Cotton. “The New Roth.” Elle 20 Aug 2013. http://www.elle.com/pop-culture/best/divergent-author- veronica-roth-interview Deutsch, Lindsay. “Cool Fall Author: Veronica Roth.” USA Today 4 Sept 2013 http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/09/04/ veronica-roth-allegiant-interview/2760099 Dobbins, Amanda. “Chasing Katniss: Divergent Author Veronica Roth Builds Her Dystopian Empire.” Vulture 6 Oct 2013. http://www.vulture.com/2013/10/divergent-author- veronica-roth-builds-empire.html Fry, Erin. “Veronica Roth.” Publishers Weekly 258.25 (2011): 25. Academic Search Complete. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. Granger, John. “10 Questions with Veronica Roth, Author of the Divergent Trilogy: Part 3 – Did You Plan These Books? 144

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No? Really?” Hogwarts Professor: Thoughts for Serious Readers. 6 Mar 2013. Blog Post. http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com. Hudson, Hannah Trierweiler. “Sit Down with Suzanne Collins.” Instructor 120.2 (2010): 51-53. Rachel. “Veronica Roth Interview with BuzzFeed: 19 Things You Should Know About Divergent” Divergents UK 28 Oct 2013. http://divergentsuk.com/2013/10/28/veronica-roth- interview-with-buzzfeed-19-things-you-should-know-about- divergent Tampubolon, Rama. “Screenwriter Evan Daugherty Talks To Me About Divergent.” Rama’s Screen 22 Nov 2013. http://www.ramascreen.com/exclusive-screenwriter-evan- daugherty-talks-to-me-about-divergent-and-his-collabo- with-veronica-roth Truitt, Brian. “Exclusive Trailer and Interview: 'Insurgent' by Veronica Roth” USA Today 29 Mar 2012. http://books.usatoday.com/bookbuzz/post/2012-03- 29/exclusive-trailer-and-q38a-insurgent-by-veronica- roth/659768/1

Secondary Sources Barber, Nigel. “The Human Beast.” Psychology Today 13 July 2010. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human- beast/201007/pity-the-poor-murderer-his-genes-made-him- do-it Barnes, Jennifer Lynn. “Team Katniss.” Wilson 13-27. Bethune, Brian. “Dystopia Now.” Maclean’s 125.13/14 (9 April 2012): 84-88. Bolen, Jean Shinoda. Goddesses in Everywoman. New York: Quill, 2004. Borsellino, Mary. “Your Heart is a Weapon the Size of your Fist.” Wilson 29-40. C. J. “Veronica Roth: Finding Her Faction.” Publishers Weekly 259.32 (2012): 13. Academic Search Complete. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. Campbell, Joseph with Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. Ed. Betty Sue Flowers. New York: Doubleday, 1988. 145

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Chocano, Carina. “Tough, Cold, Terse, Taciturn and Prone to Not Saying Goodbye When They Hang Up the Phone” The New York Times 1 July 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/magazine/a-plague-of- strong-female-characters.html?_r=0 Craig, Amanda. “The Hunger Games and the Teenage Craze for Dystopian Fiction.” The Telegraph 14 Mar 2012 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9143409/The- Hunger-Games-and-the-teenage-craze-for-dystopian- fiction.html Dominus, Susan. “Choose Wisely.” New York Times 15 May 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/books/review/you ng-adult-books-divergent-by-veronica-roth.html?_r=2& Flood, Alison. “Coverflip: Author Maureen Johnson Turns Tables on Gendered Book Covers.” The Guardian 9 May 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/09/coverflip- maureen-johnson-gender-book Frankel, Valerie Estelle. Buffy and the Heroine’s Journey. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2012. –. From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine’s Journey through Myth and Legend. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2010. –. Katniss the Cattail: An Unauthorized Guide to Names and Symbols in The Hunger Games. USA: LitCrit Press, 2012. Freeman, Louise. “Did Roth Miss the Epigenetic Boat?” Hogwarts Professor: Thoughts for Serious Readers. 28 Oct 2013. Blog Post. http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com. –. “A Dip in the OCEAN: Divergent Factions and the Big Five Personality Factors.” Hogwarts Professor: Thoughts for Serious Readers. 17 Aug 2012. Blog Post. http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com. –. “A Dip in the OCEAN II: Double Dipping Dauntless: Can the Neurotic be Brave?” Hogwarts Professor: Thoughts for Serious Readers. 19 Aug 2012. Blog Post. http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com. Granger, John. “Unlocking ‘Mockingjay’: Katniss’ Apotheosis”

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Hogwarts Professor: Thoughts for Serious Readers. 9 Sept 2010. Blog Post. http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com. Grossman, Lev. “Love among the Ruins.” Time 179.10 (2012): 100-102. Academic Search Premiere. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. Johnson, Allan G. The Gender Knot: Unraveling our Patriarchal Legacy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005. Lem, Ellyn and Holly Hassel. “‘Killer’ Katniss and ‘Lover Boy’ Peeta: Suzanne Collins’s Defiance of Gender-Genred Reading.” Pharr and Clark 118-127. Margolis, Rick. “The Last Battle.” School Library Journal 56.8 (2010): 24-27. Academic Search Premiere. Matthews, G., Deary, I. J., & Whiteman, M. C. Personality Traits. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 24. Matthews, Paul R. “The MBTI is a Flawed Measure of Personality.” British Medical Journal 21 May 2004. http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/30/mbti- flawed-measure-personality Miller, Laura. “The Hunger Games” vs. “Twilight.” Salon.com 5 Sept. 2010. http://www.salon.com/2010/09/05/hunger_games_twilight. Molano, Isaiah Mary. “ The Christlike Sacrificial Deaths of Tris and Harry.” Hogwarts Professor: Thoughts for Serious Readers. 31 Oct 2013. Blog Post. http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com. Murphy, Sarah Outterson. “The Child Soldier and the Self in Ender’s Game and The Hunger Games.” Pharr and Clark 199- 208. Myers, Isabel Briggs with Peter B. Myers. Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type. Mountain View, CA: Davies- Black Publishing, 1995. Nettle, Daniel. “Personality: A User Guide.” Open Learn 1 Oct 2003. http://www.open.edu/openlearn/body- mind/psychology/personality-user-guide. Nolan, Abby McGanney. “Hell’s Belles.” American Prospect 23.2 (2012): 58-59. Academic Search Premiere. Pharr, Mary F. and Leisa A. Clark, Eds. Of Bread, Blood and The Hunger Games: Critical Essays on the Suzanne Collins Trilogy. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2012. 147

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Sales, Leila. “The Ol’ Dead Dad Syndrome.” Publishers Weekly 257.37 (2010): 68. Academic Search Premiere. Singer, P.W. Children at War. New York: Pantheon Books, 2005. Springen, Karen. “Apocalypse Now.” Publishers Weekly 257.7 (2010): 21-24. Academic Search Premiere. Tieger, P.D., and Barron-Tieger, B. “Personality Typing: A First Step to a Satisfying Career.” Journal of Career Planning and Employment, 53 (1993): 50-56. Vilkomerson, Sara. “Divergent.” Entertainment Weekly 1268 (2013): 45. Academic Search Premiere. Walker, Barbara G. The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects. San Francisco: Harper, 1988. Wesley, Christine. “Literary Alchemy in Allegiant – Rubedo.” Hogwarts Professor: Thoughts for Serious Readers. 17 Sept 2013. Blog Post. http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com. –. “Literary Alchemy in ‘Divergent’ – Nigredo.” Hogwarts Professor: Thoughts for Serious Readers. 1 Sept 2013. Blog Post. http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com. –. Literary Alchemy in ‘Insurgent’ – Albedo.” Hogwarts Professor: Thoughts for Serious Readers. 2 Sept 2013. Blog Post. http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com. White, Caitlin. “Veronica Roth Addresses ‘Allegiant’ Ending Backlash.” Bustle Oct 2013. http://www.bustle.com/articles/8648-veronica-roth- addresses-allegiant-ending-backlash Wilson, Leah, Ed. The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games Trilogy. Dallas, TX: SmartPop, 2011.

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Index

1984, 24, 26, 27 Bureau, 35, 45, 57, 75, 100, Abnegation, 11, 15, 17, 18, 115, 119, 131, 142 23, 26, 38, 40, 41, 44-50, Caleb Prior, 49, 53, 64, 75, 53, 56-58, 62, 65, 75, 76, 78, 99, 109, 119, 120, 131, 92, 96, 104-107, 114, 116- 138, 142 119, 124, 127-132, 141, cameras, 26, 35, 36, 73 142 Campbell, Joseph, 55, 58, 64, abuse, 26, 93, 105, 106, 113, 67, 145 116 Candor, 11, 16, 18, 29, 41, Al, 32, 47, 56, 58, 60, 61, 97, 44, 48-51, 53, 56, 104, 105, 119, 122, 141 124, 128-130, 141, 142 Amar, 105, 123, 142 capture the flag, 60, 62 Amity, 11, 15, 18, 29, 37, 39, Cara, 45, 53, 118, 141 41, 44, 48, 50-53, 66, 81, cars, 25 88, 104, 118, 128, 129, Catching Fire, 35, 56, 112, 137, 130, 142 143 Andrew Prior see father chasm, 44, 60, 61, 105, 121 Animal Farm, 73 cheese, 44 Animus, 61, 64, 76, 91 Chemical Garden, see Wither apples, 118 Chicago, 11, 28, 95, 127-132, Beatrice Prior see Tris 137, 141, 142 Bible, 24, 49, 59, 117-120 choice, 14, 19, 25, 32, 44, 56- bird, 37, 42, 46, 77 59, 75, 78, 84, 104, 112, black, 16, 18, 25, 38-41, 43, 123-125, 134 46, 59, 60, 131 Choosing Ceremony, 13, 26, black dress, 40 31, 44, 58, 104, 114, 131 Blood Red Road, 28 Christianity, 48-49 blue, 18, 36, 38-41, 45, 87 Christina, 16, 40, 57, 60, 61, brain, 17, 53, 69-71, 77, 95, 79, 81, 86, 97, 104, 109, 98-100, 115 121, 138, 141 Brave New World, 24, 29, 143 Collins, Suzanne, 21, 23, 36, bravery, 14, 18, 21, 50, 62, 110, 143, 145, 147, 148 64, 65, 80, 81, 96, 123 colors see black, blue, green, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 61, grey, red 67, 84, 88, 91, 92, 146, 156

conferences, 12, 133, 134, epiphany, 23 140 Eric, 32, 57, 62, 97, 109, 113, courage, 12, 13, 30, 56, 60, 116, 121, 142 61, 62, 65, 66, 76, 92, 100, Erudite, 11, 15, 17, 18, 23, 105, 121-123 29, 39, 41, 44, 45, 48-54, coward, 62, 122 59, 65, 66, 68-73, 81, 103, Crossed, 38, 40, 113, 143 105, 107, 109, 113-115, crows, 27, 47, 96 118, 124, 128-131, 138- Dante, 49 142 Dauntless, 11, 15, 18, 23, 31, Evelyn Johnson, 16, 19, 33, 40, 44-69, 72, 75, 78, 82, 34, 45, 52, 73, 74, 86, 87, 86, 87, 92, 95, 97, 104- 124, 125, 142 107, 119, 121-124, 128- execution, 68, 71, 72, 75, 119 132, 134, 137, 138, 141, exposure therapy, 95- 96 142, 146 Ezekiel Pedrad, 121, 141 David, 22, 36, 75, 76, 120, factionless, 13, 15, 16, 19, 33, 142 41, 48, 52, 115, 124, 130, death, 25, 37, 40, 43, 46, 47, 141 54, 55, 60, 61, 64-68, 71, Factions, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 72, 75-78, 81, 87, 91, 93, 21, 29, 32, 50, 52, 53, 103, 105, 106, 112, 119, 123, 105, 114, 146 134 family, 13, 17, 27, 28, 29, 32, Delirium, 39, 40, 80, 109, 112, 46-48, 56-58, 64, 65, 72, 113, 143 75, 90, 96, 99, 113, 116, Demeter, 55 117 Detergent, 11 fandom, 12, 133-135 Divergence, 14, 17, 45, 48 father, 45, 55, 99, 105, 111, dresses, 15, 35, 86 113, 118 Dune, 24, 25 fear landscape, 35, 45, 49, 60, dystopia, 11-12, 21-28, 30, 105, 123 32, 38, 40, 52, 77, 80, 87, fears, 24, 27, 47, 49-53, 56, 109-110, 113, 116, 119, 67, 74, 90, 95, 103, 112, 132, 146 117, 122 Eden, 29, 118 femininity, 40, 48, 65, 81, 85, Edith Prior, 26, 49, 68, 142, 86, 90 see also mother feminist, 81, 85 electricity, 46, 73 film, 11, 39, 69, 132-133, elements, 44 137- 139 Ender’s Game, 18, 24, 28, 55, filming, 132 111, 147

fire, 27, 36, 37, 38, 41, 44-45, 87, 109, 110, 112, 138, 52, 76, 89, 101, 112 143, 146-148, 156 flowers, 15, 35, 36 intelligence, 51, 100 food, 23, 25, 32, 34, 47, 104, Jeanine Matthews, 17, 30, 33, 112, 117, 132 34, 44, 53, 57, 68-73, 86, four (number), 49 87, 99, 105, 138, 142 Four as animus 62-64; and Johanna Reyes, 37, 68, 88, mom 124-125; and 114, 121, 142 romance 80, 92-93; Joshua, 49, 120 symbols of 49 Juliet, 24, 28 "Free Four", 139 Jung, Carl, 47, 101-102 freedom, 21, 25, 46, 51, 67, Kate Winslet, 69, 138, 142, 112, 122 144 funeral, 60, 102, 122 kiss, 44, 66, 80 Game of Thrones, 78, 83, 85, knife, 44, 56, 62, 86 156 Legend, 28 GD's, 23, 99, 115 Lord of the Rings, 55, 84, 88, gender, 66, 79, 82, 86, 146 89, 90 genetics, 34, 56 love, 14, 17, 18, 23, 27, 28, The Giver, 24 29, 35, 51, 53, 56-58, 63, God, 15, 49, 59, 77, 116, 64, 66, 68, 74-76, 80, 81, 118-121 85-93, 101, 110, 112-113, goddesses, 73, 84 119-120, 124-125, 128 Gone, 111 love triangle, 63, 81 green, 38, 39, 137 Marcus Eaton, 26, 49, 99, grey, 18, 23, 38-40, 44, 57, 105, 113, 142 59, 114, 129 Marlene, 106 gun, 56, 60, 66, 77, 82, 106, masculinity, 61, 76, 80, 82, 117-119 85, 86, 87, 91 hallucination, 30, 47, 95 Matched, 23, 25, 38, 41, 109 Harry Potter, 12-13, 18, 24, 41, The Matrix, 29, 60 55, 58-59, 67, 77, 110, Matthew, 67, 115, 117, 118, 134, 156 141 hawk, 43, 44, 46 memories, 24, 37, 124 Hector, 106 Merchandise Mart, 128-130 heights, 96, 138 Milgram’s experiment, 97 Hub, 31, 131 Millennium Park, 129, 131 humility, 17, 44 mirror, 26, 39, 43, 59, 99, 114 Hunger Games, 11-12, 21, 24, Mockingjay, 33-38, 42, 74, 81, 27-36, 73, 81, 82, 84, 86, 88, 90, 143, 146

mother, 16, 19, 25, 32, 34, revolution, 24-25, 31, 34, 38, 43, 47-48, 53, 55-58, 64- 41, 87, 115 66, 74, 76-77, 91, 99, 106, river, 61, 129, 131 112-113, 115, 122-124, role model, 80 127 sacrifice, 12, 31, 50, 53, 56, movie see film 57, 61, 64-68, 75-77, 81, murder, 30, 67, 98, 100, 105, 106, 119, 125 113 Sears Tower, 31, 131 Myers-Briggs test, 100-103 secrets, 16, 18, 58, 104 Narnia, 73, 86, 119 selfless, 14, 18, 39, 50, 56-60, Navy Pier, 129, 132 65-68, 76, 98, 117-118, Nita, 35, 115, 142 119 O’Hare Airport, 34, 131 serum, 15, 16, 29, 53, 71, 75, obedience, 34, 97, 124 76, 99, 104, 118, 125 OCEAN, 103, 146 shadow, 47, 53, 67, 68, 70, 72 outside world, 14, 25, 29, 30, Shailene Woodley, 137, 141 34, 41, 49, 81, 102, 115 simulation, 28-30, 47, 52-53, parents, 55, 57, 58, 63, 64, 57, 61, 64, 66, 71, 95, 98, 66, 68, 78, 86, 100, 104, 100, 106, 124 106, 109, 111-113, 116, Song of the Lioness Quartet, 84, 131 90, see also Pierce passive, 18, 50, 79 spiritual, 17, 44, 77, 116 Peter Hayes, 15, 27, 45, 47, stiff, 39, 82 60-62, 67, 68, 70, 75, 109, strength, 30, 32, 49, 54, 56- 141, 147 62, 68, 72, 80, 82, 86, 91, Pierce, Tamora, 84, 90, 91, 93 143 sun, 44, 89 power, 21, 26, 27, 29, 30, 41, Susan, 49, 141, 144, 146 44, 47, 52, 57, 61, 65-66, tattoos, 14, 15, 18, 34, 43, 46, 71, 73, 77, 81, 82, 85-87, 47, 134, 137, 139 110, 112, 114, 122, 124 technology, 25, 35, 76, 99, prejudice, 12, 22, 45, 114, 100, 132 115 teen, 12, 18, 21, 22, 25, 27, Pretties, 38, 40 32, 56, 57, 68, 69, 81, 87, PTSD, 33, 93, 106 106-111, 113, 115, 117 raven, 46-47 Theo James, 137, 141 Reached, 38 three, 48, 50 red, 16-17, 36, 38, 41, 43, 65, Tobias see Four 129 Tori, 14, 34, 43, 44, 46, 53, 72, 114, 138, 142

totalitarian, 21, 22, 29, 70, 73 violence, 22, 29, 31, 72, 85, train, 16, 27, 29, 59, 119, 128, 99, 106, 107, 110, 111, 132 114, 118 "The Transfer", 44, 92, 128, virtues, 14-16, 18, 44, 53-54, 139 117 Tris and clothes 15, 38-41; vocabulary, 12 and courage 121-123; and warrior, 62, 64, 72, 80-92, 98, factions 13-19; and gender 120 79, 82; on heroines water, 18, 25, 44, 45, 61, 65, journey 55-78; as 137 protector 56-57; and Weasley, Christine (critic), romance 80, 92-93; 14, 17, 53, 60, 61, 66, 68, symbols of 43-47, 48; vs 73, 74 adults 109-110 Will, 16, 53, 56, 60, 68, 95, Tumblr, 12, 133 97, 106, 109, 137, 142 Twilight, 11, 12, 28, 81, 82, wisdom, 43, 47, 61, 65, 74 147 Wither, 25, 78, 80, 111 Twitter, 12, 83, 133 The Wizard of Oz, 55, 86, 113 Uglies, 38, 40, 109, 143 A Wrinkle in Time, 24, 55, 70, "Ulysses", 30 86, 143 Uriah Pedrad, 120, 142 zipline, 46, 60, 96 utopian, 21, 22

About the Author Valerie Estelle Frankel has won a Dream Realm Award, an Indie Excellence Award, and a USA Book News National Best Book Award for her Henry Potty parodies. She’s the author of many books on pop culture, including From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine’s Journey in Myth and Legend, Buffy and the Heroine’s Journey, Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters and their Agendas, Katniss the Cattail: An Unauthorized Guide to Names and Symbols in The Hunger Games, An Unexpected Parody, Teaching with Harry Potter, Harry Potter: Still Recruiting, and Doctor Who and the Hero’s Journey. Once a lecturer at San Jose State University, she’s a frequent speaker on fantasy, myth, and pop culture. Come explore her latest research at VEFrankel.com.