Chapter Five

I really love this chapter. The Choosing Ceremony is here and Beatrice has to make her choice. Caleb is in line before Beatrice, so he will go first. There are five bowls representing each faction. In order to choose the faction, you must cut your hand and drip the blood into that bowl...okay dystopian fiction I'm just going to go with it.

Marcus Eaton, an Abnegation leader, is conducting the ceremony this year. I still haven't decided how I feel about Marcus. The speech before the choosing begins tells us how the factions came to be.

"Decades ago our ancestors realized that it is not political ideology, religious belief, race, or nationalism that is to blame for a warring world. Rather, they determined that it was the fault of human personality-of humankind's inclination toward's evil in whatever form that is." - Marcus Eaton

So, because of this, the factions were based off of the qualities they sought to eradicate for causing the pugnacious world. Since there are five factions, wouldn't the qualities one was trying to erase still prevail in the others? Maybe it's just me, but that seems like a flawed plan from the get go. Kind of like the Treaty of Versailles.

Also, the faction motto is faction before blood. Basically you are supposed to choose the faction you belong to, putting that ahead of staying with your family. I'm all for being yourself, and i think you always should, except for the fact that in this case you never get to associate yourself with your family again.

"I think of the motto I read in my Faction History textbook: Faction before blood. More than family, our factions are where we belong. Can that possibly be right?" - Beatrice Prior

Can it?

Caleb goes up and I am expecting him to go to Erudite and that's exactly what he does, although Beatrice is completely taken aback along with the crowd. The Abnegation and Erudite have had a long feud with each other so the fact that Caleb transferred at all let alone to Erudite is appalling to his faction, but most importantly, to his parents.

When Beatrice goes up and her decision I had no clue about, but I am intrigued by how it plays out. You see, she know she is going with either Abnegation or Dauntless, but as she cuts her hand not knowing what to pick, her blood spills between those two bowls as she runs to put it over the Dauntless bowl.

"I am selfish. I am brave." - Beatrice Prior

Ultimately her decision was Dauntless, but I have a feeling that her blood spilling between the two bowls is foreshadowing her true faction.

Divergent.