Comparing The Belonging Between Book And Movie Divergent
This essay will compare the theme of belonging between the book, and movie adaptation of Veronica Roth’s Divergent. Belonging is one of the main themes throughout the story of Divergent and is vital for character growth. The feeling of belonging is an important part of people’s lives, it allows people to feel motivated and help with stress relief, while giving people a place to feel safe. This essay will include how the faction system in Divergent is viewed in terms of belonging, where the main character Tris feels like she belongs, and her journey to find it, and the comparison of the overall view on belonging between the book and the film.
The faction system provides a work and living place for everyone in the story, the notable exceptions being the factionless. “Faction before blood” This phrase is repeatedly stated by many different characters in both the book, and movie adaptation of Divergent, although less emphasis is put on this phrase in the movie adaptation. The quote explains the populaces view on the faction system and how they fit into it, factions are supposed to be a kind of second chance, to deny ones family and go their own path, to find another place to belong if the person did not already feel like they belonged in their original faction. Immense pressure is placed on people who changed their factions, to forget their original home and force themselves to belong in their new faction. The characters in the story battle to fight the urge to go home and see their family again, as this would be considered. “’Faction before blood’. More than family, our factions are where we belong. Can that possibly be right?” (P43) This quote shows the main characters unease for the phrase. Overall, slightly less emphasis is placed on ‘faction before blood’ in the movie adaptation of divergent, this causes it to be less about belonging than the book.
The main character of Divergent goes through many internal struggles to find where she belongs. The story of divergent could be interpreted as Tris’s struggle to find where she belonged, throughout the story she undergoes many events that change her belief of where she belongs, such as when she first found out that she was divergent and realized why she always felt like she never fit in, when she found Dauntless initiation to be too hard for her and felt like she had picked the wrong faction, or at the end of the story when Tris, Four and everyone else are on the train and she feels like she belongs with them. Tris believes that every other person she encounters has their own place where they belong, “He knows where he belongs, and as far as I know, he always has” Tris (P9) regarding assuming where Caleb belongs, Tris doesn’t yet know why she doesn’t fit with everyone else and longs for the belonging that she feels everyone else has. The movie skips over many struggles than Tris faces in favour of longer more drawn out action sequences, for instance, she doesn’t feel cheated when Christina takes the flag off her during the capture the flag game, and doesn’t get told by Four that she should pretend to be weak to seem like she belongs with the rest of the initiates. Overall the book provides a more in depth look at Tris’s emotions, while the movie skips over most of the characters internal struggles.
The difference in how the book and movie display the importance of belonging is great. Overall, the movie does not focus on belonging as much as the book due to limited runtime and the fact that internal narration in movies does not work and feels out of place. The book version of Divergent regards belonging as a constant battle against the people around characters and how the characters deal with their environment, while the movie version passes belonging off as an issue that comes and goes. These differences while not looking like much on paper, differ drastically from each other and both give different views on the issue. This slight change in the definition of ‘Belonging’ has a different impact on audiences, such as the readers not feeling the mental struggles that Tris overcomes, the movie forsakes this in favour of passive viewing. The book allows us to get inside Tris’s head and directly understand what she is thinking, this lets the reader have an easier time understanding her actions and her struggle to find where she belongs. Overall, the movie places less emphasis on belonging and does not view it in the same light as the book.
Divergence is the main reason that the characters have issues trying to belong somewhere. The faction system is an excellent way to highlight belonging because of how it allows the characters to have to choose where they belong, but the movie does not allow the audience to experience these thoughts, Tris’s character in the movie seems to undergo less struggles to do with belonging, and the story overall is less fixated on themes in the movie than in the book.
