Four By Veronica Roth: Summary

Four: A Divergent Collection was written by Veronica Roth and published in 2014. Also written by Veronica Roth are the other books in the Divergent series, Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant, as well as The Shards and Ashes series of short stories. The major protagonist is Tobias "Four" Eaton, formerly of the Abnegation faction and now residing in Dauntless, and the main antagonists are Max and Eric, leaders of Dauntless, Marcus Eaton, leader of Abnegation, and Jeanine Matthews, leader of the Erudite. The story takes place in a futuristic Chicago, where society has been divided into five factions (three of which are Dauntless, Erudite, and Abnegation) who each value a different personality trait. The atmosphere of Four and the rest of the …show more content…
Tobias makes it out of the simulation with only four fears, a Dauntless record. That night, Tobias asserts his place in Dauntless by standing up to his fellow initiates who are used to pushing the Abnegation around and gives himself a new nickname: Four. The next story deals with Four's experiences in initiation. Used to being isolated in Abnegation, Four has been avoiding his other initiates and has not been successful with making friends, instead spending all his time in the training room, even though he is currently ranked top of his initiation class. Amar, the initiation instructor, invites Four to join the Dauntless in a game of Dare that night. During the game, Four is dared to get a tattoo, something the Abnegation never do, and gets a large tattoo of flames, the Dauntless logo, over his ribcage, where the scars of his last beating are fading. The next morning, Four is very worn out and in pain after his tattooing, but as part of initiation, he has to fight Eric, his major opponent in training and someone Four has not gotten along with. Four manages to beat Eric, and throughout the rest of initiation, manages to stay on top and graduates at the top of his initiation class. However, shortly after graduation, Four …show more content…
Tobias has many reasons to despise the Abnegation, for suppressing his inner spark as a child, for his abusive father, and for covering up his mother leaving the faction when he was young. In spite of this, he still knows that destroying an entire group of people isn't right, and still feels a twinge of loyalty towards his former home. This contradicts with the unspoken rule in the world of Divergent, "faction before blood," which means that you are to be loyal to your faction, even if it's not the one you came from. However, Four isn't breaking his loyalty to his faction by warning the Abnegation, he's actually upholding a long-forgotten Dauntless principle that calls for ordinary acts of bravery, standing up for those who can't stand up for themselves. This theme is summarized in the following quote, "...if loyalty is impossible, what should I strive for instead?" which is found on page