Everyone is Divergent
Identity is the sense of self. It is the person you see in the mirror, past
the eyes, to the inside. When you do
look into that mirror, you do not just see a face. You see everything about yourself at once.
What about other people, what do they see?
For Tris Prior, her past life only allowed her to glimpse into the
mirror, to peer at an identity she was told she did not deserve to see.
In a world that is constantly
trying to tell you what your identity is, finding out for yourself can be one
of the hardest journeys. In Divergent
by Veronica Roth, this is the biggest challenge Tris faces: coming to terms
with who she is, and standing up to an overbearing society. I believe that everyone faces this, and personally,
I am learning to understand my own divergence, the way that society has told me
I am different.
Tris came
from Abnegation, the community dedicated to selflessness and service to
others. Following that background came a
reputation, as clean and sharp as the lines in her plain, gray clothing. She was expected to be quiet, to keep to
herself, almost nonexistent, the gray in the background. She was always taught to be extremely modest,
to never show herself off. The day that
she chose the Dauntless faction over her home in Abnegation was the day the perfect
lines got wrinkled.
“Stiff!”-“What a goody-
two-shoes!” Tris and I have been called
our fair share of names. When Tris first
arrives at Dauntless initiation, with many people from other factions, everyone
sees her as the “stiff” from Abnegation, small, tense and as insignificant as a
mouse, when her heart roars like a lion. She finds it difficult to show her
true self because she has spent her whole life trapped behind a wall of
insufficiency. Their first impression is
that she is boring, two-dimensional in the flat, monotone garb.
Like Tris, the place I come from
suggests that I am rigid, a major goody-two shoes, but unlike Tris, everyone
expects me to be perfect; to get perfect grades, be pretty, to never swear, to
never sweat. They tell me that things
should not be hard for me, that everything is handed to me without any work,
but they only see my reflection, and nothing more. Tris never identified with the place she came
from and the expectations that came with it.
Like Tris, I don’t see that girl in the mirror.
Her problems don’t end there: Tris
is Divergent, and divergents threaten the system. Tris is in danger because she is not just
selfless or just brave or just wise, but all three. Tris knows humility, love, sacrifice, and
friendship. She is many things and has
many parts to her personality. She is
unlimited, undefined, and you cannot sort her, put her neatly into a file
cabinet with a fancy label. Her society tells her that it cannot run
efficiently unless she fits herself into that box, under a faction name. The society is scared of the “Divergents” of
the world.
Today, society is much the same,
though not as extreme. It is scared of
the people who cannot be labeled. The truth is, everyone is a million different
things, and should never yield to such an awful principle as trying to be just
one. Just because you are one thing
doesn’t mean you aren’t another. It is a
gift, a privilege, to be selfless, to be peaceful, honest, brave and wise.
For Tris and I, it is time to stand
in front of that mirror, scrutinizing, observing, and examining, until we
recognize ourselves. She must break the
board, for she is no longer, and never was, “stiff”. As for me, I am growing
out of my two shoes; they never really fit me anyway. It is time to stop being
afraid, and to realize that everyone is special, everyone is different, and
everyone is divergent.
