Bristol Ashlock
John Stevens
English 1301
16 September 2014
Divergent
Divergent is a novel and movie based on the search for one’s identity and determining where he or she belongs in society as he or she emerges from childhood to adolescence. Divergent is the first of Veronica Roth’s trilogy. Because of the outstanding success of the novel, director Neil Burger and screenwriter Evan Daugherty decided to take it to the big screen. Though the novel and movie follow the same storyline and are similar in many ways, there are several aspects where the movie diverges from the book.
When it came to casting the characters in the movie, the producers did an excellent job at staying true to the book’s description. For example, the novel describes Tobias, who is a leader in one of the factions, as having a “spare upper lip and full lower lip” as well as “eyes that are so deep set that his eyelashes touch the skin under his eyebrows.” Theo James fits the description perfectly. The director truly gives the movie a sense of authenticity and credibility due to the way the movie’s characters mirror the physical traits as described in the novel. Another way this authenticates the movie is that a loyal reader of the Divergent novel is able to get an accurate vision of the character as described in the novel. However, there are a couple of ways that the movie does not live up to the level of detail in the novel. A love story is always one of the best parts of a book, but when it does not transfer well from paper to film, it can be very disappointing. In the novel, the love story between Tris and Tobias is told from Tris’s point of view. This gives the reader detailed insight into Tris’s inner thoughts and emotions that she experiences when she is around Tobias. Since the movie is not told from a specific point of view, it is difficult to see the romantic tension between the two characters. At one point in the novel, Tris describes the feeling of their skin touching as electricity flowing between the two of them. Because this emotional