Chapter Six

The first stage of Dauntless initiation begins with jumping on a moving train, something that an Erudite boy is unable to do. Roth uses short sentences when discussing the Factionless, leaving a sort of uneasy staccato feel with the reader. Just little things like that help flesh out the factions in a subconscious way. She uses similar blunt descriptions with the Candor, and rather bland ones with the Abnegation. Of course, since Beatrice has always admired the Dauntless she uses more illustrative language to explain them, and I think it leads a lot of readers to have an inclination toward them. Several people wanted to be Dauntless in our class,  for example, while fewer wanted to be in Abnegation (minus our invariably kind students, bless their hearts) and none wanted to be Candor. In Divergent the Candor don't play a huge role, and she doesn't speak about them much, so I this it discerns the reader in caring too much for them. 

As someone who's read the second book, the Candor are pretty cool in my opinion! And their leader is a total bro, just FYI. (He is also Korean, but that's besides the point, of course).

Anyway, getting off the tangent, through this stage of initiation we meet Christina and Will for the first time, though the latter lacks a name. They're all faction transfers so they sort of polarize to one another and the hop out onto the roof. Another one bites the dust, and Beatrice must witness death for the first time. She handles it fairly well with a counting method that returns later on, logical and detached--awfully Erudite of her. Peter's first act of bullying comes, and a budding rivalry comes to play.

Beatrice doesn't fight back with words, though called a "stiff" and instead shows him with actions that she's brave. Beatrice jumps first, of a three or more story building with only a few moments of hesitation. She leaves behind her over shirt, exposing her skin, and she also leaves behind her name. In that moment, she becomes Tris, the protagonist that we have all come to know and love. She plunges--quite literally--into Dauntless life, and the fall itself represent new beginnings.

We also meet Four for the first time and Beatrice makes observation of his eyes--also a dark blue, but this one isn't strange to her, instead it is dreamy, sleepy, and curious. Fancy how a young girl can observe two of the same and prefer it in a handsome young man, but no judgement of course.

Moving back to Caleb, like I so often do, Beatrice makes a comment, 

"The thought of it makes me sick to my stomach, because even though I left them too, at least I was no good at pretending. At least they knew I wasn't selfless. I close my eyes and imagine my mother and father at the dinner table in silence. It is a lingering hint of selflessness that makes my throat tighten at the thought of them, or is it selfishness because I know I will never be their daughter again?"

Broken down, we see Beatrice's first feelings of resentment toward her brother, whom she previously idolized, something that becomes prevalent later on, and how devoutly she believed her father about the Erudite. She views Caleb as a traitor, and also feels betrayed; or so she thinks. I would argue that the scope of human emotion has been skewed in its teaching in this world. Rather than simply missing her family, or feel sorry out of love, she feels it out of "selflessness" and "selfishness" which are words inappropriately placed. I figure it's the same for the other factions--Candor or otherwise--as they all have some sort of blinders on their vision. I'm sure Caleb had lingering attachments as well that he deemed logical and illogical, and that Christina felt proud of her honest choice, but also guilty for living a life of lies. 

The fact of the matter is their perception of human emotion is shaped almost entirely by their faction affiliation  but I suppose it makes sense, after all, "Faction before blood."