Kylie Uy
10 - A

English Term Paper

The first main conflict of Divergent is man vs himself which is the struggle of Tris with her inner self. Since she is Divergent she cannot be selfless like her faction, she posses the traits of Dauntless, Abnegation and Erudite; therefore she cannot be in either of the five factions because she is incompatible. The second conflict was man vs man which is the conflict between Tris and Eric. Tris is not capable of being a fighter because she is not properly trained to be a fighter and Eric can see that; since Eric can see Tris being ever so vulnerable he takes this opportunity to attack her in a emotional and physical way. The third conflict is man vs society; for instance at the age of 16 everyone needs to undergo a certain test to help them figure out which faction they belong to, and if you cannot sustain the certain standards of the chosen faction you’ve chosen, it can result you to being factionless. Factionless is considered the least favored social class in this story.
I believe that Tris being divergent is an example of inner conflict. Because she struggles within her inner peace, she cannot be classified as Abnegation; her test results were Dauntless, Erudite and Abnegation. Since she possesses three of these traits, she cannot live in a specific faction because she has other traits that conflict with the faction’s standards.
In my opinion, I believe that she was not proactive because she chose Dauntless instead of Abnegation simply because she was fascinated by their nation. Although her choosing Dauntless was a good move, however in my opinion this just resulted to an even more complicated problem thus resulting into a more complex conflict within herself.
If I were Tris I would choose Erudite simply because it is much more safer than choosing Dauntless. Since I dont want to play safe and I want to explore the world, I would just choose Erudite, and I will be able to stop their attacks on Abnegation as well since I’m from Erudite.
These literary text provide an example on how to deal with our inner conflicts; for instance the story “God sees the truth but waits” is an example of how Aksionov responded to his inner conflicts. When he suspects Semyonich of being the murder of the merchant, he simply does not attack him, he simply just lived on until Semyonich eventually told him that he was the killer.