Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Divergent, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity, Choice, and Divergence
Strength, Selfishness, and Selflessness
Competition, Groups, and Rivalries
Fear, Bravery, and Maturity
Women and Sexuality
Summary
Analysis
Tris remembers the Abnegation initiation ceremony. Every year the initiates, who’ve been spending their time performing community service, listen to the Abnegation manifesto, and then share a meal.
The Abnegation ceremony is painfully simple—the emphasis on simplicity and modesty is so great that it becomes oppressive to human happiness and freedom.
Themes
The Dauntless initiation ceremony is about to begin. As Tris prepares for the ceremony, she thinks to herself that she really is Abnegation through and through—perhaps she chose the wrong faction after all. Nevertheless, Tris tries to focus on her final challenge: the fear landscape.
Tris has changed her mind about Dauntless so many times already that the point is clear: she doesn’t have any one clear, defined identity. Instead, she moves back and forth between Abnegation, Amity, Dauntless, etc.—just like the Divergent (that is, complex and real) person she is.
Themes
At the ceremony, Tris and her peers prepare to go through their final challenge. Eric tells everyone that Tris will be going last, since she fell to the bottom of the standings following her embarrassing performance in the previous fear landscape. There are only six transfer recruits left in the program: Will, Christina, Drew, Peter, Molly, and Tris.
The stage is set for more action and drama, as Tris now has to compete against her friends and peers for an elite position in the rankings.
Themes
It’s Tris’s turn to go through the challenge. Eric injects her with an orange liquid that’ll make her hallucinate, and asks her if she’s ready.
It’s daunting that Eric is the one administering Tris’s test: Four isn’t around to protect her.
Themes
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