Divergent: End

I have received zero comments on any of my posts to this point, and therefore I also have no Blog Best Friends. I thought I could count on you guys, but apparently I’m all on my own now.

My post should be much shorter this time, considering I don’t have to explain the premise of the story. I will talk about the conclusion of the story a little bit sooo… START SPOILER ALERT. As I correctly predicted, with a little assistance from doing my mid-point blog post when I was 4/5ths through the book, there was a greater mission awaiting our protagonist, Tris, to take on. END SPOLIER. The plotline reminded me of the first two chapters we read from How to Read Literature like a Professor where the knight or hero is initially given a quest, and along the way realizes a larger task at hand for them to conquer. The example given was a guy in high school is sent to buy bread and milk by his mom. On the way there, he sees the girl he likes with a guy he hates. His initial task was to buy milk and bread, but he realized his quest to be to win the girl over.

MORE SPOILS FOR A WHILE. Tris’s initial task is presented after she choose Dauntless. There are a total of 20 16 year-olds who chose Dauntless, and only the top ten of them (determined by rank through the initiation process) will be accepted. The others become faction-less, which is essential as bad as being homeless. Her version of going to the store is to be accepted into the Dauntless faction by outperforming her peers. She goes about initiation, gradually becoming better, finding her inner strength. I have mentioned before that I get disappointed at how much this book is alike to the Percy Jackson and Hunger Games series before, Tris’s character is very comparable to Percy and Katniss. Tris goes on to realize her larger mission, that the leaders of Dauntless and Erudite are planning a war against the government-leading faction of Abnegation, Tris’s old home. END SPOILER.

The climax, falling action, and resolution all occur in a move-like fashion of <50 pages. The ending was completely unsatisfying to me. There are several topics that go unexplored, which I guess is a cliffhanger to the next one in the series. I suppose I’ll go on to read the rest of the series since it looks to be turning out as the next blockbuster teen book-turned-movie series. I mentioned last time the great imagery in the story. The other aspect that makes the book a worthwhile read is the insight into Tris’s thoughts. She is in a simulation of her worst fears where she has to kill her family, or be killed herself, “My worst fear: that my family will die, and that I will be responsible… I can do it. I can shoot them. They understand. They’re asking me to. They aren’t even real. This is all a simulation… What did Tobias tell me? Selflessness and bravery aren’t that different… Shoot me instead” (395-6). This passage shows an example of how Tris is Divergent, she doesn’t think just one way, and she relates 2 faction ideals. I think later in the series she will end the divide of society through factions, and everyone will think the way she does.