Allegiant

Identity plays a central role in the novel and is important to several characters. The factions establish most characters’ initial identity, as they are the identification group most characters experience first. Evelyn feels the faction system is faulty and demonstrates an immoral sense of control over Chicago’s citizens when many characters look to the factions as the foundation of who they are. After Evelyn dissolves the factions, Tris thinks, “I’m not sure how Dauntless I really am, anyway, now that the factions are gone” (53). Tris is one of the more self-assured characters in her identity, yet once Dauntless no longer governs her actions and behaviors, she questions her identity and how it fits with her new reality. Later, when Tris learns that being Divergent is only an issue of genetic makeup, she feels less important and less unique. Tris believes being Divergent gave her a certain power that few possessed, and she is disappointed when that is taken from her.

Tobias’s identity is likewise challenged when he learns he is not Divergent but is labeled as genetically damaged. He has difficulty overcoming this new identity because he briefly buys into the Bureau’s idea that genetic damage means he’s less of a person. Tobias also struggles with how his father’s abuse will affect his personality and identity in the long term. When Tobias continues to see Marcus in his fear landscape, he reflects, “I was still afraid of him, I knew, but in a different way—I was no longer a child, afraid of the threat my terrifying father posed to my safety. I was a man, afraid of the threat he posed to my character, to my future, to my identity” (73). This illustrates that Tobias’s identity shifts and changes in time and that these changes can be challenging to understand and adapt to.

The novel illustrates the importance of identity and what happens when a person’s identity is challenged or changed. The characters see the flaws in the faction system, yet they also know how the factions give the characters a sense of belonging and family. The characters look to the factions as something they can rely on, so they struggle to find a new sense of identity and belonging when that security is eliminated. However, some characters, such as Tris’s group of friends, can help one another remember who they are, with or without the factions and despite any genetic information. Ultimately, Tris teaches the reader that she doesn’t belong to Dauntless, Abnegation, the Bureau, the fringe, or an experiment. She learns that she belongs to herself and Tobias, and her love and loyalty form who she is more than any institution will.