Character Analysis: The Heroine Tris Prior

Good Choice/ Typical Hero

In my opinion, the title “typical hero” and the dauntless heroine Tris Prior are definitely unrelated based on her personality and uniqueness. As she is a Divergent to her society, she is also an outcast to the typical heroes that we all know and love. With that being said, it is no surprise that the recognition of Tris’ uniqueness and distinctiveness makes her a “non-typical hero”. In particular, we see many heroines with protagonist characters; however, how many typical heroes have the abnormal personality that we find with Tris, showing both antagonistic and protagonist attributes? We may find quite a few amounts of heroes having negative components, since most heroes are strictly protagonists, yet none compares

to Tris. In addition, we see the typical hero’s personalities as having generically caring attitudes and obtaining outstanding intuition, like Superman or Ghandi. However, Tris is different from them; she’s much more like a warrior-like and since she's dauntless. For instance, on page 25, Tris is seen struggling with herself to give to the poor. Yet on page 26, she had no problems thinking about hitting him and running away, which seemed almost like her first instinct. Generally, most heroes have phenomenal characteristics, such as: selflessness, bravery, and kindness effortlessly, unlike them, Tris constantly struggles with herself to have such characteristic, but her effort adds to our likeness of her. Also, on page 74-75, Tris is found struggling to feel sorry for Al. “Al sobs again. I almost feel the sound grave in my own throat. He is just inches away from me-I should touch him. No! I put my head down and roll onto my side, facing the wall. No one has to know I don’t want to help him.” (Roth 74-75). As can be seen in this passage, even though she saw him crying every night, Tris didn’t offer Al at all help, she just tried to block out the noise he was making. Additionally, on page 464, we see Tris shooting Peter in the arm without a decent reason, not because it was a necessity. Her hostility to Peter was unneeded, and her judgement from right from wrong is contrasting to the average hero, yet when she was put to the truth test, she didn't fail.In most scenarios, heroes are those who are found helping the general public, and saving them from evil threats, in this context Tris is found struggling to help others, and continually fought to forgive others. Yet, she was still able to shut down the drones and saved many from Abnegation. Personally, I don’t find Tris as a typical hero, but she is typically heroic.

Being the first jumper wasn't enough for my hero Tris Prior, she proved that she was very much more capable of doing above an beyond what people thought she could to. In Divergent, Tris was found continually saving others, you'd think that was a great thing since the Dauntless “objective” was to protect others from evil, but it wasn't, and it put her into a great deal of danger. My heroine is a good choice for a hero because she always puts her life into danger in order to help others. By taking his place, Tris potentially saved Al's life, since he knew he wasn't brave enough to stand on the target. “I look from Al's wide, dark eyes to his shaking hands to the determined set of Four's jaw. Anger bubbles in my chest, and bursts out from my mouth.”Stop it.””(page 162). Here, Tris' heart saddens when she see's her friend in an uncomfortable situation, she couldn't stop herself from stopping the torment of Eric. Knowing Al and his personality, Tris knew he would in fact flinch and become Fractionless. Instead of taking a chance, or even hesitating, Tris immediately went and stood up for her friend Al. The feeling of getting stabbed in the ear was painful, but seeing her friend suffer would hurt her more. Moreover, Tris was the first person to stand up to Eric, she showed him how the title “Dauntless” was nothing but a name because the dauntless had no courageous or brave attributes.She interpreted bravery to him in a way he could understand, by helping Al. Also, Tris is found persevering to do what was right even when it was hard. Additionally, Tris proved that she could in fact be altruistic towards others. During the Initiation she was given a gun and asked to kill her family. After looking at their innocent faces, she came to the conclusion that she couldn't kill her family or innocent people, she would much rather kill herself. “I release the trigger of the gun and drop it. Before I can lose the nerve, I turn and press my forehead to the barrel of the gun behind me. Shoot me instead.” This selfless action showed that Tris could also be caring and loving to others. Lastly, my hero Tris greatest action was saving Abnegation. One would think that having many Dauntless soldiers against her, and having a hand shot from a gun would be enough of a threat to stop someone from pushing on, but Tris saw it as a motivation. Tris taught all of us a valuable lesson,to push forward and do what we think is right, no matter what. If what Tris did wasn't enough for her to be classified a a good choice of a hero, I don't know what will.

During their teenage years, youngsters strive to be “normal” they don't realize that normality is nothing but a word, my hero Tris Prior teaches us to embrace our abnormalities and by taking pride in ourselves.

In this novel, Tris shows us that being “normal” is in fact impossible since there is no “normal”. As a child, Tris felt out of place and outcasted in Abnegation because she knew she didn't belong in there. Changing fractions didn't allow it to be easier for her to fit in at any place at all, she was a deviation to society and didn't belong anywhere. But that didn't stop her from finding her friends Christina and Al, and it certainly didn't stop her from finding her love Tobias Eaton. Initially, Tris tried to pretend she was dauntless by getting tattoos and wearing tight clothing. Eventually, she changed her entire sense of style into something she wasn't used to in order to fit in. Us teenagers, also dress based on how the media and society says teenagers dress, and we're all willing to spend $1000 on the newest iPhone not since we need it, but since we want it. The truth is we're not much different from Tris Prior, in a way all of us just want to be in the crowd, our own motives are personal but our objective isn't. Closer to the end, we find Tris stop following what the commoners do, she knew if she actually was one of them, she would also be under simulation and unable to control herself. In time, her divergence became her greatest power once she used it as a weapon. We all found Tris fighting in the end to save Abnegation, even though both parents were dead. Any logical person would leave and save themselves while they could, but Tris wasn't them, she was totally different. In conclusion, Tris saved the lives of so many innocent people and that was enough for her, Tris showed us how little we could accomplish if we were similar to everyone else. She also showed us how much more we could achieve if we decided to fully embrace

ourselves.