Divergent is a novel by Veronica Roth that takes place in future Chicago. The city is divided into five factions based on personality traits: Abnegation for selflessness, Erudite for intelligence, Candor for honesty, Dauntless for bravery, and Amity for peacefulness. Once a year, all sixteen-year-olds take a personality test to determine which faction they belong to. After receiving their results, they must decide whether to remain with their family or join a new faction.
Beatrice Prior is 16 and was born into an Abnegation family. However, selflessness does not match her personality as it does her brother Caleb’s. During Beatrice’s aptitude test, the results are strange: instead of neatly matching into one faction, she shows equal scores for three factions – Abnegation, Erudite, and Dauntless. This makes her Divergent,” and she is warned never to reveal this information to anyone because it could result in her death. Even for a Divergent, having results that match with three factions is very rare.
When she is on her way home from the test, Tris runs into a factionless man who grabs her hand and scares her. She starts to feel nervous because she doesn’t want to end up like him and is worried about risking her normal life and failing. On Choosing Day, Beatrice surprises everyone by making the decision to leave Abnegation and join Dauntless, while her brother Caleb chooses Erudite. Tris instantly leaves to join Dauntless and renames herself Tris when she reaches the Dauntless compound so as not to sound like such a “good girl”. She becomes good friends with other transfers, Christina, Al, and Will.
During initiation in Dauntless, Peter immediately starts antagonizing Tris, believing she isn’t good enough to be in the faction. To remain in Dauntless and avoid becoming factionless, they must rank within the top ten at the end of initiation. Initiation is divided into three stages: learning how to handle guns and knives, hand-to-hand combat, and facing fears. Despite being physically weaker than most initiates, Tris finishes sixth overall in stage one. However, Peter is envious of Edward’s first-place finish and seeks revenge by stabbing him in the eye with a knife.
Tris is ranked just after Molly, due to an incident where Peter pulled off Tris’s towel and made fun of her when she first arrived at the dorm. Tris wanted to fight Peter, but instead fought Molly and quickly defeated her. However, Tris’s anger towards Molly for tormenting her caused her to continue fighting until she almost beat Molly to death. Meanwhile, the Erudite faction is causing tension among the factions by spreading false reports about the Abnegation leaders who govern the city.
Peter, Molly, and Drew give Tris a hard time because she came from Abnegation. According to reports, Tris and Caleb’s parents raised them incorrectly by switching factions. Abnegation was known for giving away the city’s food to the factionless. Despite this, Tris begins to make friends with Uriah, Lynn, and Marlene – Dauntless-born initiates. During stage two of their training, initiates are put into simulations that test their ability to calm down quickly when confronted with their worst fears.
Tris is Divergent, which enables her to perceive that she is in a simulation while others cannot. She can also manipulate the system. However, she is cautioned not to disclose her Divergence because faction leaders execute anyone who possesses it. Tris emerges as the top initiate at the end of the stage, surpassing all others.
That night, Peter, Drew, and Al assault Tris and attempt to hurl her into Dauntless headquarters’ abyss. Fortunately, Four intervenes just in time and saves her life. Al implores Tris for forgiveness but she declines his apology causing him to commit suicide by jumping into the chasm.
Tris enters her fear landscape for her final test. She has to face seven fears: getting eaten alive by crows, drowning while trapped in a glass tank, drowning in the ocean, being burned at the stake by Peter, being kidnapped by bad guys, having sex with Tobias thinking that he only wants her because of her body and being forced to shoot her own family. After completing the test successfully, Tris is given a shot of a new serum that tracks people in case they go missing. The final rankings are then posted and Tris is ranked first.
During the celebration, Tris realizes that the serum is how the Erudite will force the Dauntless to attack Abnegation. The plan is executed that night, and all of the Dauntless become mindless soldiers under hypnosis, attacking Abnegation. However, Tris and Tobias remain unaffected due to their Divergent status. They attempt to escape but are eventually caught and brought before Jeanine, the leader of Erudite. She injects Tobias with a new serum that affects Divergents.
During the attack, Tris is sent to her death by someone she trusted. Meanwhile, Tobias is taken back to the control room due to his exceptional computer skills. Tris finds herself trapped in a glass tank similar to the one in her fear landscape. Fortunately, her mother – a former Dauntless who is also Divergent – comes to her rescue. Sadly, Tris’s mother loses her life while helping them escape. Later on, Will attacks Tris under the influence of the simulation and she is forced to kill him in self-defense. In their quest to stop the simulation, Tris reunites with Caleb and Marcus after finding them with a group of others from Dauntless.
Tris finds the control room despite her father being killed along the way. She encounters Tobias who is under the influence of a simulation that causes him to attack her. Although Tris cannot overpower Tobias, she refuses to kill him and surrenders. This action breaks through Four’s simulation, allowing them to shut down the Erudite simulation and free the remaining Dauntless from their mind control.
The group reunites with Caleb and Marcus, as well as Peter who had helped Tris find the control room in exchange for his safety. They all board a train to the Amity sector in search of other Abnegation survivors.
