Nicole Buursma Buursma 1
Mrs. Roskamp
8A, LA
October 21, 2014

Thematic Writing
One of the books that I have recently read is Divergent written by Veronica Roth. This is a story about a 16 year old girl living in Chicago, but its a future Chicago. They are told that after a war they were sealed off through the wall around the city and they split them self into factions to keep the peace, Abnegation, the selfless, Dauntless, the brave, Candor, the honest, Erudite, the intelligent, and Amity, the kind. Tris goes through the drama of choosing to leave her family and join the Dauntless. There she meets Tobias and when they aren’t affected by the controlling of the Dauntless because they are divergent, they stop the Erudite who are trying to overthrow the Abnegation. They make it out side of the wall and find out that it is just a test, a scientific test, that the city was made to “create” more divergent and when they realize that the scientists are trying to re-start the program by wiping everyones memory, they make it so the scientist memory is wiped instead. Anyone can make a difference is the main theme in Divergent, and this theme is shown in many ways throughout this novel.
When Tris is living in the abnegation part of the city it shows how she was just a normal person. All it took for her to begin her journey to saving the city was making the hard decision of becoming dauntless. It was hard for her, it would have been hard for anyone, but being dauntless was what she had always wanted and felt like she could be good at. Also when she is in training and was falling behind she could have just said that she just wasn’t strong enough like every one else falling behind, but she didn’t take no for an answer. She spent every spare time she had training, getting better, until she was near the top of the list.
Also, when the dauntless that are fighting for freedom of people were back in the dauntless “headquarters” the Erudite told them that they would make three people jump and die through mind control every day until a divergent would turn them self in. When Tris decides to turn herself in the theme is shown very well because she didn’t have to but she chose to because she didn’t want anyone
Buursma 2 else to die. When Christina was hanging by the chasm because of Eric and needed a little bit of encouragement Tris took it into her hands and started telling her that she could do it, and thanks to that, Christina got back up!
The theme is shown in so many ways, not just through Tris’s actions but also through a lot of the people around her. Like when Peter takes it into his hands to mess the things instruments being used to kill Tris, he saves her life and all he needed to do is step up. When Tris is headed to the dauntless headquarters and she needs people to come with her to help stop the dauntless being controlled, Marcus, Caleb, and her dad say they will help, and thanks to that most of the abnegation lived.
Anyone can make a difference is the main theme in Divergent, and this theme is shown in many ways throughout this novel. I think that this book is inspirational and encourages people to take a stand. I like how at the beginning of the book Tris is not brave, not strong but because she chose to be thats what she became. To me the way the Tris’s courage is shown and how anyone can do what they decide to do is shown very well done and that it is an amazing book that everyone should read.