Divergent Thinking
Page 6
The school in the series is primarily noted for its “large metal sculpture” (Divergent). There is no shortage of these in Chicago; in The Loop alone, there are roughly twenty! The largest and most recognizable are the “The Picasso” and Calder’s “Flamingo,” both of which are large, metal, and sit in front of buildings. Schools that have statues are a part of Chicago’s landscape as well, such as the the University of Chicago campus, but its main statue is stone—and it sits well outside The Loop area where Tris’ school is suggested to be.
The most likely place for Tris’ school is the Harold Washington Library Center, set in The Loop and flanked by massive copper gargoyles, within spitting distance of the large red metal Flamingo.
The Flamingo, a familiar Chicago landmark that practically begs for some Dauntless climbing.
The Harold Washington Library. Its cornices also include statues of owls, which are symbols of knowledge—ideal for a school!
Even with Abnegation, Candor, and Erudite placed—and of course knowing the locations of landmarks that Tris’ Chicago shares with our own, such as Navy Pier—I wasn’t sure where Dauntless was meant to be. The University of Chicago campus still seemed workable, but just too far south. Maybe mapping out the farthest borders of Tris’ city would help: time to turn to Amity.
I don’t envy the Amity’s commute to school every day! Tris mentions in Allegiant that on the path from Amity’s compound to the outside, Tris’ group of Allegiant walk along Route 90. In Chicago en route to O’Hare Airport, this would mean I-90—locally called the Kennedy Expressway—a highway that, in modern times, is so prone to congestion that it strikes terror in the hearts of commuters. Traffic updates are broadcast on local radio stations and to websites every eight minutes or less, and, despite being a high-speed expressway, speeds average twenty miles per hour or less. (One can only assume that congestion would improve after the population thinned in the “Purity War,” though, so maybe the Amity are luckier than Chicagoans today.) The same Blue Line that would bring Abnegation to the school does follow along the line of the Kennedy Expressway, and is likely the same train that would bring the Amity students to the school and its workers to the Hub when needed.
Of course, the hallmark of Amity’s home is not what road it lies on, but the fact that it is comprised largely of farmland, which means that it needs to lie outside the boundaries of the metropolitan city center. While the outlying areas of Chicagoland abound with forest preserves, orchards, and other areas of agriculture, Tris doesn’t recount passing through any other green spaces on her way to Amity from the other factions or when traveling from the edge of Amity into the fearsome territory outside the fence. Finding a place where Amity might be able to farm and live in space fundamentally different to the city interior—but which still fell along I-90 on the Kennedy—meant that the most likely place for Amity’s meeting hall would be the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, just off the Catherine Chevalier Woods in Rosemont, a near-suburb of the city.
With 8,137 acres of arable natural space that includes the banks of the Des Plaines River (for the hydroponics Tris sees in use while a refugee at the Amity campground) and a floodplain that lends itself to natural regrowth of prairie vegetation, the Catherine Chevalier Woods seem like a fitting place for Amity to have made their home. However, another possible location is a forest preserve and park only five miles up the road, still along the Kennedy Expressway: Caldwell Woods, named for Billy Caldwell, chief of the Potawatomi Indians. Caldwell is known in local Chicago history for saving the lives of an important Chicago political family during the Fort Dearborn Massacre—an act certainly compatible with Amity’s belief in harmony, but perhaps more suited to Abnegation’s altruistic selflessness. Because the Catherine Chevalier Woods are larger and closer to O’Hare Airport, however, they seem a more fitting home for the Amity faction than Caldwell Woods.
Before the revelation that Amity was en route to O’Hare Airport, it seemed likely that their compound actually fell on the other side of the city, where Chicago’s I-90 leads into Indiana. The methods and tenets of Amity seem in line with the idea of the Amish, who have populations in central and southern Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana, but none in Chicago itself or its immediate surrounding area. It’s possible that they are intended to be Quaker or Mennonite in origin as well, but the only Quaker Society of Friends meetinghouses in the city fall on the extreme South Side, far from everywhere else referenced in the series and inaccessible via the train lines the other factions rely on.
So with four out of five factions solidly located, the sticky issue of Dauntless’ overhanging trains and “thirty-minute” distance from The Loop via public transit comes back into play. It seems unlikely that it would be on the far South Side, since that would be a broader net of surveillance for the Bureau, with Amity and Abnegation up North; plus, three of the four other factions are accessible by Blue Line or Red Line. If we assume Dauntless headquarters is similarly located, it narrows the field of possibilities to the areas of Chicagoland north of Congress Parkway and the Eisenhower Expressway and west of State Street. Since Tris recounts passing the Abnegation row houses on her way to Dauntless’ headquarters when she first leaves the Choosing Ceremony, we also know that Dauntless must be located in the north.
There is another line of trains that runs in this quadrant, on a specialized route to somewhere that Veronica Roth may have, in her own life, seen as a symbol of courage: the Purple Line train runs to Northwestern University, where she wrote Divergent.
The train doesn’t overhang any of the buildings here, but the Northwestern campus does share features with the rest of Dauntless headquarters’ setting: the dome of the Dearborn Observatory and the cluster of interconnected buildings are certainly enough space to live, work, and play all in one place. It’s entirely possible that Northwestern University is the home of the Dauntless, not because it’s a logistical match to the descriptions in the novels—it isn’t—but because of what the school may have become emblematic of for Roth back when the idea of the factions and the story of the Divergent trilogy were first conceived. When Roth chose to transfer colleges and enter Northwestern’s notoriously rigorous program, when she wrote Divergent over winter break and shopped the manuscript during term—her actions took guts. Perhaps, even, a leap of faith, not unlike Beatrice’s transformation into Tris with a flying jump onto the roof of her unknown new home.
V. Arrow is the author of Smart Pop’s The Panem Companion and an essay about Real Person Fanfiction in the Smart Pop anthology Fic. She sometimes gives speeches and presentations about related topics at conferences, conventions, and schools. The rest of the time, she blogs a lot about boy band and YA lit topics and writes both original young adult fiction and fanfiction. If she lived in Tris’ world, she would probably choose Erudite, minus all of the evil.
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1 Savelli, Lou.“Behavior and Group Dynamics in Gangs.” Gangs Blog Police Magazine. 31 Aug. 2010.
2 Savelli, “Behavior and Group Dynamics in Gangs.”
3 Enright, L. Chicago’s Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book of Murderous Mobsters, Midway Monsters, and Windy City Oddities. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books Inc., 2005.
4 Roth, Veronica. “A Day In the Land of Divergent.” Veronica Roth Blog. 22 June 2010.
5 TUBOWHP. United Blocks of West Humboldt Park. Retrieved October 31, 2013, from United Blocks of West Humboldt Park:
6 Judson Jefferies, “From Gang-Bangers to Urban Revolutionaries: The Young Lords of Chicago.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 96 (2003).
One of the great things about science fiction is its ability to work in metaphor—to take a real-world situation and remake it as something larger than life, rendering it at once both easier to understand and more epic.
Take Divergent’s
Choosing Ceremony. The choice of factions in Tris’ world comes at the same age many teenagers in ours are facing an important decision: what to do after high school graduation. In our world, we express our choice through things like applications rather than ritual bloodletting in front of family and friends, but emotionally, the declaration can feel just as serious, and just as public. Will you go to college, the way an Erudite might? Join the military, like the Dauntless?
Here, mother and daughter Maria V. Snyder and Jenna Snyder discuss college, career, and what the Divergent trilogy has to say about making life’s big choices.
CHOICES CAN BE MADE AGAIN
MARIA V. SNYDER AND JENNA SNYDER
MARIA
Recently, my daughter Jenna turned sixteen, and our household has been discussing her future career choice and where she’d like to attend college. As a high school sophomore, Jenna is facing a big decision just like Divergent’s sixteen-year-old protagonist Tris, who had to choose a faction.
JENNA
In the beginning of Divergent, Tris knows she has to make a huge choice once she turns sixteen: go to the Choosing Ceremony and decide, in front of everyone, which faction she will join. This is similar to my choice of where to attend college after high school and what career to pursue, though mine involves a lot less pressure. I can always pick something else if things don’t work out or if I change my mind. Tris has one chance. She has to make that one choice count, and that’s really scary.
MARIA
Early on in Divergent, Tris takes an aptitude test to discover which of the five factions she belongs in. Her test results indicate an aptitude for multiple factions, though most people in her society are a fit for just one. As a student who has to decide on a career path and college within the next couple years, would you like to be able to take a test and have it decided for you?
JENNA
The idea of being able to take a test and have all my difficult choices decided for me sounds great at first. However, I’ve actually experienced such tests, although they weren’t quite so advanced as the ones in Divergent, and I’ve noticed a number of flaws.
There is a career site, called Career Cruising, my school guidance program uses to help kids decide on a career. It asks you questions about your interests and skills and then generates a list of careers you might be interested in, graded on how well your skills suggest you would do in them. Sounds straightforward, but at the moment I aspire to be a journalist, and although my interests put it on my list, my skill answers ranked it a C. I strongly disagree.
Actually, Career Cruising did not give an A to any of the careers that matched my interests. Is it trying to tell me I won’t be good at any job that I would enjoy? That doesn’t make sense. Some of the careers I scored a B for were market research analyst, translator, and researcher, but I’m not interested in any of them. It’s like how Tris showed aptitude for Abnegation and Erudite in addition to Dauntless. She could have done well in either Abnegation or Erudite, because her skills were a match, but neither would have been a good fit for her, just like researcher wouldn’t be a good fit for me. Neither of us would excel as well as we would in another faction or career because we wouldn’t love it.
MARIA
I can understand why market research analyst and researcher scored higher for you. You are logical and practical, you like order (except in your room), and you have the spark of creativity needed to bring all those skills together. But I agree, sometimes desire is as important as ability. Maybe that’s why Tris’ city has a Choosing Ceremony, not an Announcing Ceremony. No one is forced to pick the faction he or she shows the most aptitude for. We learn in the side story The Transfer that Tobias’ test showed his aptitude was for Abnegation (though, admittedly, he was able to influence the results thanks to Marcus’ training), yet he chose Dauntless.
And of course, Tris chooses Dauntless. It’s who she wants to be, not her abilities, that ends up being most important to her. Living with the Abnegation all her life, she’s had no experience with jumping on a moving train or leaping off a building. Yet she is determined to do well in her new faction, and she does. She persists and refuses to give up even after being beaten by Peter and almost tossed into the chasm.
Then again, if she hadn’t been any good at being Dauntless, she wouldn’t have made it through initiation, no matter how much she wanted to belong there. Do you worry about not having the right skills or talent to be a journalist and “washing out”?
JENNA
Occasionally I worry that I am not a good enough writer to pursue a career in journalism. There are declining job openings, and it can get quite competitive. I will always have doubts about whether I will be successful, but I know that I work hard in everything that I do and will put forth my best work. I believe these qualities will ultimately lead me to find a great job.
MARIA
In Divergent, Tris’ parents aren’t allowed to discuss the test or the results, and I think there are some benefits to parents not offering their opinion. It means there is no pressure for their children to please them and they can look deep within themselves and discover what their true desires are. But you already know that, when I think of careers for you, I lean toward librarian or teacher.
Would it have been better if I hadn’t offered any advice or opinions? Would you find it helpful to make these kinds of decisions entirely on your own?
JENNA
I know that some kids don’t have the benefit of understanding parents, and some of my friends are not as free to go against their parents’ wishes as I am, but I feel like even if I don’t always agree with you, I value your opinion (most of the time).
You’re right that librarian and teacher would fit me better in some ways, since I’m good at interacting with people. However, neither of those options appeal to me as much as journalism—where being personable would also help in doing interviews—as I would have to work with kids and do clerical work, which I’m not interested in at all.
Even when I disagree with you, I would never make a permanent choice like Tris’ before talking to you and Dad and even some of my friends. In making a big decision like that, I would want to discuss it with my family and friends. And I think not talking about my decisions could lead me to make worse ones. I might be more hesitant to do something that might be beneficial for me just because I’m not totally comfortable with it, like when I considered trying out for the soccer team. I was worried that I’d missed too much of the preseason and that I’d feel left out around the other girls, but after talking with you and my friends, I decided to try out and loved playing (go Bears!).
However, that’s for big decisions. In small everyday choices I make about what clubs to join and how to do my projects, I think I’m better off with my opinion being the only one that matters. And in the end, it’s my life, and if other people always make every decision for you, you will never be truly happy. Luckily, I’m a teenager, and even with your parental advice I still will probably not listen to you all the time and will do things to be different and independent. It’s basically a rite of passage for every teen.
MARIA
Not listen to me all the time? Gasp! (Actually, I’m well aware of that, since you decided to play the screechy violin instead of the soothing cello, which I recommended.)
When Tris is deciding what faction to choose in Divergent, she rules out Erudite right away because that faction had spread vicious rumors about the Abnegation and because her father hates them. Tris feels loyalty for her faction and to her father, which does factor in her decisions. How can it not? She grew up in Abnegation, and her family and friends are all part of the faction. But Tris is still left deciding between Abnegation and Dauntless—two completely different factions. She can’t choose both.
Looking back on my school years, I was torn between two very different options of my own—I was also Divergent. My best grades were in math and science. I especially enjoyed earth science and decided to become a meteorologist when I was in
sixth grade. (Ironically, my grades in English and spelling were horrible and I hated writing. Yes, hated, loathed, avoided—take your pick.) At that time in my life, however, I also played the cello, and I danced, painted, and acted in all the school plays. I daydreamed of becoming a famous actress or dancer. I thought back then that I would have to choose between science and art.
In our society, we tend to view science and art as opposites, even though science suggests that the two are actually closely related; for instance, studies have shown that children who take piano lessons at an early age do better in math than those who don’t. In Tris’ society, they have separated their citizens based on individual aptitudes—intelligence, bravery, honesty, selflessness, and peacefulness. When Tris is debating between Abnegation and Dauntless, she’s torn between selflessness and bravery. As the story progresses, though, she begins to understand that the two aspects are intertwined. Her selflessness, as Four says, makes her brave. By the end of Allegiant, she realizes her Abnegation values and her Dauntless bravery are one and the same.
Back then I chose science because I lacked confidence in my artistic abilities and felt I’d never “make it big.” I worked as a meteorologist for ten years, and while some aspects of the job were interesting and challenging, I wasn’t having much fun—unlike my current career as a fiction author (and essayist—hi, Mom!), where not only am I good at it, I’m having a blast.