In Veronica Roth’s “Divergent”, power breaks the society into a group of factions designed to live together and build a prosperous society with each playing its role. Trish Prior is the main character and she does not fit neatly into any faction. She is divergent and because of this non-conformity is seen as a threat to be controlled or destroyed. Even when she chooses to join one faction, she still must remain hidden and hide the fact that she is divergent. In Divergent, power is exercised over the subjects through a rigid caste system that places all members of the society in to forced roles.
The four factions in Divergent are: Dauntless, brave; Amity, the peaceful; Abnegation, the self-less; Erudite, the intelligent; Candor, the truthful. All of the members of this society, with the exception of the factionless, are in one of these five factions. This system of control has total control over the lives of its subjects at all times even when outside of normal faction defined work roles; Trish comments
Since power seeks to subject and control society, even idle time must be controlled by power. The individual must conform to the faction, and power must subject all. Even when given the choice to decide on a faction, the faction that the subject is born into and the aptitude test that must be taken exert power’s control over the subject, limiting the behavior of the subject and reinforcing power.
The members of the factions are born and raised into specific factions; However, they later are given an aptitude test to see which faction they are best suited for and can then accept to choose another faction. This choice has massive implications to the tested. Trish comments on her testing day, “And tomorrow, at the Choosing Ceremony, I will decide on a faction; I will decide the rest of my life; I will decide to stay with my family or abandon them.” By making this choice an all or nothing affair, Power seeks to keep the subjects in the positions that they have been in all of their lives. And when they have chosen and passed initiation, they are now forced to follow all of the customs of their faction, and are once again powerless to decide. This is much how the United States’ all volunteer armed forces work. The subject is free to join, and must take an aptitude test, but one initiated, the subject loses most of its freedoms and must now conform to the group.
