Let's Talk About Tris

So one of my favorite Dystopian novels is a little book called "Divergent". As you may know, a lot of things have been happening recently regarding the Divergent series. The movie is coming out in March of 2014 and there have been some really awesome trailers:

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And the newest (and also last) book in the series came out not too long ago:

So I thought this may be a good book to talk about. I'm only going to be talking about the first novel though, not Insurgent or Allegiant.

Now obviously if you haven't read the book Divergent there will be SPOILERS in this blog post.

Let's talk about Tris and whether or not she is a feminist character.

So Tris is definitely one of my favorite characters in modern literature. She grew up in the faction Abnegation, which is all about being selfless and putting others before yourself. Because of this, Tris is a very selfless character. This is an admirable quality, but also a common quality of female characters in literature. However, before Tris even decides to join Dauntless, she demonstrates the idea that she is not a completely selfless character. She constantly wants to act selfishly, but as someone is stuck in the faction of Abnegation, she knows she can't. A lot of people kind of make fun of the Abnegation for being such push-overs. So when Tris does decide to join the Dauntless, she surprises everyone by becoming a total badass. She kicks butt physically, mentally, and emotionally. Not to mention she also qualifies for the Erudite faction, which means she is smart too.

That's right. A female character who is intelligent, selfless, and brave. I mean, that's kind of the point of the whole "divergent" thing, right?

Something I love about this book is that it really makes a point of showing the reader that people are complicated. By that, I mean that you can't fit a person in a box. There are five factions in the novel: Dauntless (bravery), Abnegation (selflessness), Erudite (intelligence), Candor (honesty), and Amity (kindness). And in this world in the novel, people are supposed to only qualify for one of these factions. However, when Tris takes her test to decide which faction she belongs in, she qualifies for three of the five factions, making her Divergent. And also, in trouble.

Tris, along with some other characters, can't be fit into a box. People are complicated and have many layers and dimensions, and sometimes they make mistakes and sometimes they don't.

It's pretty common to see female characters who are selfless. We've seen it time and time again where a woman sacrifices herself for a man, making her a hero. But Tris doesn't do that. We see many instances in the novel where she does demonstrate selflessness, but we also see some instances where she chooses herself over others.

One of the biggest examples of this is the end of the novel. Everybody is basically walking around acting like killing zombies because that bitch that's the head of the Erudite faction implanted something in all of their brains that would cause them to walk around and shoot their friends. Tris is awake for all of this, since she is Divergent and this thing doesn't effect Divergent people, and so she is trying to defend herself from her zombie friends. One of her best friends, Will, tries to kill Tris. And instead of trying to sacrifice for herself for him or something, she kills him.

Does Tris feel immensely guilty after this happens? Yes. But she had to make a decision, and she had to make it quickly, and she chose herself over her friend, as I'm sure many, many people would have done in the same situation. If you ask me, that's pretty refreshing to see a female character do that in literature.

I think that's a good place to stop. I'll be talking about Tris's relationship with Tobias and feminism in a later blog post.

Thanks for reading!

These are a few of my favorite books...

The title of this blog post is dedicated to the wonderfully talented Julie Andrews and the song "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. (This has nothing to do with the rest of the post, I just thought it was funny).

I, unfortunately, have not been able to start, let alone finish, reading or re-reading one of the dystopian novels I wanted to talk about on this blog. Hopefully my next post will be dedicated to just that. However, because I feel that I have read a good amount of dystopian novels, written by and starring women, I thought I would dedicate this post to mentioning a few. I will probably at some point discuss all of the following novels in greater detail on this blog, but for now here is a short list of my top three favorite dystopian YA novels...

3.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

One of the most recently popular dystopian novels that will soon be turned into a movie. The best way to sum this up (without any spoilers) is to say that this book is about a teenage girl who goes through an identity crisis, as most teenage girls do. Of course, in this world, your identity is everything. This book is filled with lots of action, adventure, romance, and all kinds of interesting perspectives on the politics of this world. This novel is definitely one of my favorites, mostly because it's one of the few books I've read that doesn't have any "boring" parts. No long paragraphs about the main character making a sandwich, setting up a tent, blah blah blah. I was engaged the entire time! Which makes everything much more fun and exciting. 

2. 

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

If you haven't heard of this novel I am SHOCKED. However, you may have heard of it without actually reading it. In which case, why haven't you read it yet? I get it, I get it. Things that are really hyped up and talked about can turn people off. That's how I was with Harry Potter for years and of course, once I read all of the books I immediately regretted that. I can't guarantee that Hunger Games will be your favorite book ever and that it will completely live up to your expectations--but if you like Dystopian Young Adult novels, you'll probably dig this one.

1.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Well for one thing, my name is ALSO Lauren (so me loving this novel was just meant to be) and the cover is gorgeous! But moving past that, this is seriously one of my favorite books of any genre I have ever read. Now, I'm a hopeless romantic, and that's what this book is all about--love. But more than that, this book is about family, friendship, freedom, fighting for what is right! Imagine a world where falling in love was considered to be a DISEASE. My mind was blown when the friend that loaned this to me told me that was what it was about. Imagine the possibilities! Well, Lauren Oliver definitely explores those possibilities in the breath-taking novel and I highly recommend to pick it up sometime.

*Sorry I have been terrible at posting anything other than the introduction I made over a month ago, I promise I'll start posting on here more often! Thanks for reading!

**Also, the three images I got were just from googling the book titles, I do not own them :)

An Introduction

Today in my Women's Lit class we were assigned to create our blogs for the semester. I don't know if we are supposed to post anything yet but I thought an introduction (for my teacher, my classmates, and anyone else who may be reading this) would be a nice way to start the blog. The theme of this blog, as you can probably tell from the title, is women in dystopian novels. Specifically, for now, I am going to focus on novels that meet the following requirements:

-Young Adult, so the protagonist will most likely be a young adult herself and the target audience will be young adults.

-Contemporary, written in the last ten years or so.

-Female, the protagonist must be female and in most cases the book should be written by a female. There may be exceptions to both of these requirements as long as one of them is met.

-Dystopian, this one's a given, but I would also like to talk about what the definition of dystopian is and where is the line drawn between dystopian and other similar genres?

The last two requirements on this list are there for obvious reasons, but you may be wondering why I want to focus on contemporary young adult novels. I would be open to exploring older dystopian novels and also novels written for both older and younger crowds in the future, but there is a reason I would like to focus on this for now.

Ever since The Hunger Games became popular, YA dystopian novels have become one of the most popular genres in YA fiction. Five years ago when I went to a bookstore I saw an entire shelf dedicated to vampire books, due to the popularity of Twilight at the time. I personally was never a huge fan of "paranormal romance" novels, but I could kind of see the appeal. Dark, mysterious, handsome men (of the un-human variety) sweeping a young girl off of her feet and introducing her to a whole new world. Girls thought of it as passionate, exciting, dark, and romantic. And while there are plenty of romantic elements in dystopian novels, the female protagonists seem to be far more independent and feministic. I want to explore why that is what most teenage girls are reading today and if it is a positive or negative thing.

Looking forward to the future of this blog, hope you enjoy!