Divergent, Describing the Dystopian Society

A dystopian society is described as one that is dehumanizing and as unpleasant as possible. It is the exact opposite of a utopian, a perfectly formed society. A society characterized by human misery and destruction. The movie we watched in class, Divergent, is a perfect example of a dystopian society. The people are divided into five factions based on their personality. However, the peace and balance eventually collapses, causing a chaotic lifestyle where no one can be trusted.

The fraction system seems like the perfect society.

Everyone is separated based on their beliefs and personality. No one disagrees and everyone gets along. The system was designed to keep the peace so no war would break out. Along with the separation into factions, there were some rules that went along with it. Once you choose your faction, there is no going back. You pick the faction that you think best fits you. If you don’t “fit in” then you are cut from the faction and you become factionless.

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The factionless are not welcome into any faction and some consider suffering as a factionless to be worse than death.

The main character in this movie is Beatrice Prior, later known as Tris. There are very few “special” people within the faction who could belong to many different factions. They are rare and it just so happens that the main character, Tris, is one of these few, a divergent. The Divergent cause conflict within the faction system and are feared by the leaders because they could fit into any and all of the factions.

They aren’t controlled by the faction system like the rest of society is. Because divergents are such a threat, Tris tries to keep it a secret that she is a divergent. If people were to find out she would be in danger. While training in Dauntless, her supervisor, Tobias Eaton, also known as Four, starts to notice the peculiar traits Tris portrays. In phase two of training he decides that she is indeed a divergent. We later find out in the movie that not only does he know Tris is a divergent he is one as well. In order for no one else to become aware of their true identities, Four trains Tris to respond to her fears like a Dauntless would instead of a Divergent. However, even with all their preparation, they weren’t expecting the Erudite leader to produce a serum that would work on everyone except divergents. Wanting to help the others, they were soon exposed as divergents and taken to the Erudite leader who ordered for Tris to be dead and Four was going to be put under her control.

As a result of their “perfect society” everyone soon turned against each other and a war broke out. The factions hated each other more than ever. The peace that once stood between the factions no longer existed and their perfect utopia turned to a dystopia. The world around them was pure chaos and it seemed to be up to the divergents to fix it.

Sometimes we see it can be better to allow people to have a little bit of freedom. With the faction system is seemed as though your every move was controlled which is why their perfect society only lasted so long. This is why the movie Divergent is a great example of a dystopian society. When Erudite had control over all Dauntless members and attempted to kill the people of Abnegation, we saw how their society now portrayed environmental destruction, dehumanization, and was not “perfect or ideal”, a dystopia.