Guilt of Tris
Contains Spoilers from
Divergent and Insurgent!
Imagine
a world that is peaceful and perfect, and then suddenly there is a war to
eliminate a large society completely. Tris, the
main character lives in a utopia where there are five factions that represent a
part of society. Abnegation runs the government and focuses on selflessness,
Dauntless focus on protection, strength and bravery, and Erudite focus on education,
science and facts. In the books, Erudite leads an attack against Abnegation using
a mind control serum on the Dauntless. Only Divergent cannot be controlled by
the serum, and Tris is Divergent. During the attack of Abnegation, in order to
save the faction, she was forced to kill her fellow faction members and even witnessed
her parents sacrificing themselves to save her. One horrific thing Tris
experienced was her forced action to shoot Will, a good friend of hers. Why
would she do this? In the world, organisms have two choices. If the environment
is comfortable, the organism will thrive, but if the environment is
uninhabitable or violent, the organism’s instinct will take over so the
organism can survive. This is exactly what Tris experienced. Her instincts took
over and she shot Will, because he was trying to kill her. Now Tris holds the
guilt of murdering her best friend’s boyfriend.
In book 2, it always refers to Tris’ flashbacks to the
attack and everyone dying. She can’t fire a gun without freezing and
remembering that she shot Will. When she looks at a dead body, she immediately
remembers her dead parents or the dead Abnegation members. There is no way that
she can break the spell. Even though she believes she is never going to shoot
anyone ever again she was still able to attack and stab a traitor of the
Dauntless faction multiple times without a second thought. This makes me think
that she can leave her guilt behind, focus on reality and let go of all those
things that happened in the past. I know forgetting your dead family may seem
impossible and wrong, but there is no way to bring them back and the best to do
is to move on. Tris is carrying a burden that can crushing her inside, she
needs to let go and live freely like she wanted when she was still in Abnegation.
One
of the things Tris always reminds herself is that her parents are dead. The reason
they are dead is because they sacrificed themselves to keep Tris and her
brother Caleb safe. They also died so
Tris would be able to end the stimulation and save the rest of Abnegation. I don’t know right now why Tris is throwing
her life away, but it might do something with her parents sacrifice. Her boyfriend
Tobias says: “Sensibly risking your life...” and I 100% agree with him. I do
not think it is a good idea to throw your life away like that, because your
instincts are to survive, not die. This is something that shows her self-image.
She doesn’t want to be leader of Dauntless nor a hero, but her actions about
going to Erudite and turn herself in is a Divergent. That is heroic but stupid.
I would create a plan that might give an advantage to the non-traitor
Dauntless. The plan would consist of retrieving the divergent, and destroying
every serum that can mind control.
Tris
has changed a lot between book one and two and I disagree with her actions in
many ways. Before, she used to let her instincts take over so she can survive,
but know she doesn’t seem to care about her life. I think that she should
forget what happened in the past and live for today.
