The Reason

This blog has been created so that we can have a place to talk about the books that speak to us. Here, we will talk about whether we think books should be challenged or banned in high schools, and we will have a chance to talk with each other about the ideas that we hold as truths in our readings.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Divergent: Challenged


The novel Divergent, by Veronica Roth, should be a challenged book because it glorifies
immoral actions and thoughts without purposes, has characters that can interferes with moral and
intellectual values but it benefits the reader in fell of being more complete after reading.

Immoral actions or thoughts make their appearance in the book encouraging fighting to
benefit one self. In order to be fully excepted as a dauntless, there are many different stages of
initiation. The first stage is fighting against one another. Eric is explaining the rules to this stage
when he says, You [group of initiates] earn more points for improving and more points for
beating someone of a high skill level(Roth, 197). When Eric wants the initiates to “beat
someone” of a “higher skill level” to just benefit themselves, it questions and interferes with our
moral thoughts of what is right and what is wrong. This form of system is an immoral action. It
not only encourages violence, but portrays it to be the only way you will ever survive. The
initiates “earns more points” to benefit their standing in the deciding factor of whether or not they
will become apart of the faction. If they fail, they are factionless. Being factionless is like being
homeless, this encourages the initiates to fight even harder. The form of test is not only just the
way to get in a faction, but really to just survive in the society that they live in. A person living in
this society has to always be on top, they can never be defeated, so they have to beat others to be
on top. Not only is this an immoral action, but the thoughts that run through the peoples minds are
immoral. They are focused on “beating someone”. And most of the time, they do not care that
they are a “higher skill level”, they just want to say that they beat so and so. Not only do they
want to hurt others, the initiates do not care how it affects the other people, they just worry about
themselves.

3 comments:

  1. First of all, what is wrong with your paragraph????? I agree with some of your statements but other I do not. I agree that this book should be challenged and I like how you added the "immoral actions and values." I agree that telling people to beat each other up, isn't exactly the best kind of book. I however, do not agree with your point that the initiates do not care how it affects other people. I think there are many examples in the book of friends from different factions sticking together. I also think that these examples are why the book should be read.

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  2. I have read this book and did my blog on this as well and I see where some of your points are coming from. Even after reading this I still believe that Divergent should be a must read book. You choose to focus on the fighting aspect of the story, true the book does glorify immoral actions but they still have a purpose. Some still refuse to fight even with the thought of being factionless looming over them. Caleb is one of these people who chooses not to fight. Roth uses Caleb to explain how even if it seems like you do not have a choice you still can choose not to turn away form your morals. Because of this I feel that Roth did not glorify immoral actions without a purpose but did actually have a purpose so i feel that Divergent is still a must read book.

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  3. I also read Divergent and I believe that even though a lot of these actions prove to be immoral, the characters recognize the actions as immoral and most of the characters see that what Eric is making them do is wrong. Even so, because the characters recognize these immoral actions it does not encourage them, rather it shows how wrong they are and it showcases the characters overcoming these situations that they have been put into. Also, a book like Divergent with quite a bit of violence does not necessarily give it grounds to be a challenged book. Violence in many cases allows the readers to step outside of their comfort zones and perceive unique situations in a different perspective.

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