Divergent -Obstacles-

I read a book called “Divergent” by Veronica Roth. This book has 489 pages.

Throughout the book, Tris Prior encountered many obstacles that interfered and changed her life, as well as her understanding of what’s right and what’s wrong.  These obstacles became part of her life and growing up.  These obstacles include her parents’ death, Jeanine Mathews’s plan to overthrow the faction in power and change the order in the society and Dauntless Initiation.

The main obstacle that changed Tris and her parent’s lives is the conspiracy plot of Erudite and their leader Jeanine Mathews to overthrow the faction in power (Abnegation) and change the order in the society by Erudite making alliances with the Dauntless leaders. The plan involved using the Simulation Serum in order to overcome the enemy and speed up their defeat.  Tris finds out about this threat to the society and feels responsible to help. She knows that her actions can save the people and the society she once knew as her home. Therefore, she decides that she must stop the Simulation Serum and defeat Jeanine Mathews’s plan.

Another obstacle in Tris’s life, on a more personal level, was the tragic death of her parents, which itself came as a result of Erudite plan to overthrow the government. For the purpose of defeating Jeanine Mathews and Erudite and for the purpose of saving the society, Tris’s father and mother both sacrificed their lives.  This was a personal loss and defeat of Tris and had a huge impact on her life. The main issue for her was whether her parents’ life was worth less than the society.  

The final obstacle that she encounters is the envy of another initiate that she encounters when she commits herself to Dauntless as her new faction. After choosing Dauntless as her new faction, Tris and the other initiates started Dauntless initiation training to become stronger fighters. As soon as Tris became better and higher ranked on the Dauntless score board, Peter, another initiate from Candor, became jealous of her and worried that he would get outranked by her. He immediately turned against her and tried to make her life miserable. This is an obstacle for Tris because aside from Jeanine’s plan and surviving Dauntless initiation, Tris has to save herself from Peter. An example of Peter’s actions against Tris would be when he and his gang of friends attacked her and tried to throw her off a chasm, in the hopes of killing her and becoming top of the score board. This is an obstacle for her on a personal level, since she became aware that aside from fighting the external enemy she had to fear and fight the enemy from her own faction.