Veronica Roth Identity Essay

Identity. It is how people define and understand you. Your job, body, face, and even your clothes are a way to identify a person. But what if you don’t have a job, look like everyone else, and there is nothing peculiar about you? This is the exact problem Tris is met with in the novel Divergent by Veronica Roth. Having no identity is the crisis which no one wishes to face. Not knowing where you fit in or which faction you belong to can be a life or death situation. Veronica Roth stresses the importance of belonging to a faction and if you go astray from this path you are threat called divergent. People who get this kind of result are..." She looks over her shoulder like she expects someone to appear behind her. "...are called...Divergent." (20 Roth). Tris is told she must choose her own path while Tori’s explicit nervousness shows the fear of someone becoming a divergent. The reason the factionless are outlawed is because “choice” is something …show more content…
Roth goes on to state how some fear is a good thing. When jumping off the train it would be better to stay on and not risk your life. But when Tris does it anyway, she states how she didn’t do it to show she could be Dauntless, but to show how she already was. “I am selfish. I am brave”( 32 Roth). When she was with her parents in Abnegation there was a part of her whose weakness was not being able to express herself. Throughout the novel you are able to see examples of people who succumb and people who triumph over fear. "You're afraid of heights," I say. "How do you survive in the Dauntless compound?" "I ignore my fear," he says. "When I make decisions, I pretend it doesn't exist." I stare at him for a second. I can't help it. To me there's a difference between not being afraid and acting in spite of fear, as he does.” (81 Roth). Even someone as tough as Four isn’t fearless but he rather ignores it, therefore ignoring his