Aptitude In Insurgent

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Chicago, once known for its beautiful buildings and friendly people, is now a site of ruined structures, bordered by a fence that prevent citizens from making contact with the outside world in Veronica Roth’s novel, Insurgent. Despite lacking knowledge of why the citizens are fenced inside the border, the leaders of the city develop a faction system to maintain peace and control within their society— one’s place in the system is determined by one’s aptitude. However, the system also contains defects, which contribute to its erosion. Firstly, not every person in the city conforms to a faction: This is either due to their low social position and poor aptitude, such as the Factionless, or due to their possession of more than one aptitude, such…show more content…
Although the goal of the faction system is to allow everyone to be categorized into five factions based on their aptitude, not everyone can be categorized into an appropriate faction: The majority of people are born within their parents’ factions, but due to the harsh realities of having an incongruous aptitude, some are isolated from the system — Factionless and Divergents — and are demoralized because of who they are. The Factionless are poor vagrants who do not belong to any faction either because they have been kicked out or because they have been born and raised with parents who are also Factionless. They are described by Edward, one of the members of the Factionless as, “[Those], who are supposed to be scattered, isolated and without community…are together inside. Are together, like a faction” (94). In Edward’s description, the Factionless’ marginalization is emphasized, and yet they are still unified by their exclusion. Also, those with more than one aptitude, known as the Divergents, are viewed by the Erudite faction, the leading faction, as dangerous individuals who threaten the entire faction system. The Erudites try to demoralize the Divergents by imprisoning and killing them, all in order to keep the system pure and uphold the rule of one aptitude. Tris describes how the Erudites lie about the Divergents and attempt to eliminate them from the system: “My mother said people feared Divergents because we couldn’t be controlled. That may be true, but fear of the uncontrollable is not a concrete enough reason to give Jack Kang (Leader of Candor) for the Erudite wanting us dead” (220). Most divergents within the five factions are considered an oppressed minority and hide themselves from horrific fate if they are discovered. In a contemporary frame, sexual orientation is a parallel to the Factionless and the Divergents. Those who are seen as ‘beyond’ sexual norms, like the LGBTQ community,
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