Divergent

Divergent is a book about a sixteen-year-old girl named Beatrice Prior. She lives in a future version of Chicago where there are five very different factions. Each faction values one virtue above everything else. The first faction, Dauntless, think bravery is keen. The second faction, Erudite, love knowledge. The third faction, Abnegation, is pro-self-sacrifice. The fourth faction, Amity, values friendship. The fifth faction, Candor, is into honesty. Beatrice grew up in an Abnegation family. When people turn 16 they do a test so that the faction they belong in is determined. When Tris turns 16, her test results show that she is divergent, meaning she doesn’t belong in any faction. This puts her at risk, her test instructor warns her that anyone found to be divergent is killed, so she must keep this a secret. She decides to join Dauntless, because she doesn’t feel selfless enough to be a good Abnegation like her family. She undergoes many challenged throughout the book, and she teaches readers very important lessons about bravery, love, friendship, and sacrifice. Here are a few lessons that I have learned from this book.

Bravery

Bravery and courage are things many people value. Guys are always trying to prove they have them, they think it’s a sign of greatness, a sign of being a man. But bravery isn’t just about having the courage to do risky and dangerous things, the most important forms of bravery are the simple ones. Divergent contained many aspects of bravery, it included doing dangerous things and putting yourself in danger and fighting people. However despite that, the book stresses that the most important forms of bravery are the ordinary ones, such as the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.

The importance of selflessness in all relationships

The second lesson I learned also has to do with selflessness and its importance in relationships. In the book, Tris, has to do many selfless things for the people around her. She put herself in risk to protect the people she loves and her society. She taught me that being selfless and brave aren’t that different because it takes bravery to be selfless. It takes so much to put people around you before yourself. This book taught me the importance of selflessness. If you think about it, most sinful actions can be traced back to selfish motives. Selfishness brings out many bad things in ourselves and it negatively impacts those around us. It’s important for us to consider the people around us before doing anything. Selflessness is necessary in many situations in life. For example, selflessness is a very important factor in love. Sometimes we fall for people, and things just don’t work out. When you really love a person, their happiness comes before anything, and you would be willing to let them go because you care about them and their happiness. Selflessness and sacrifice isn’t only important in romantic relationships, its also important in other relationships. When you care about your relationship with someone, you have to understand that you sometimes have to make sacrifices for those you care about. 

How Qi Ming 
4 Cergas 
20th of April 2014