A Specter of Communism: Divergent

This paper strives to illuminate the social discrimination and the conflict between different classes of society in Veronica Roth’s novel, Divergent and aims to explore how the plot of the book coincides with the philosophy of Marxism. This book proves the theory Marx makes in The Communist Manifesto. In this political document, Marx maintains that the capitalists, or the bourgeoisie, exploit and oppress the working class, or the proletariat. Marxism addresses its rallying cry to the working class and declares how the proletariat must lead a class war to revolt the bourgeoisie of its power and establish a new social order. In Divergent which takes place in the post-apocalyptic Chicago, society has been divided into five factions based on aptitude. The proletariat is represented by Abnegation. The bourgeoisie is reflected by Erudite who controlled Dauntless under simulation to attack Abnegation in order to take the authority of the government. In the end, we see the revolution of the oppressed class against the oppressing class which was reflected by the protagonist, Tris Prior, along with some others to stop the simulation.

Keywords:

Divergent , Marxism , Marxist criticism , class struggle