Divergent Thinking (7 page)

In other words, for what Divergent's world must be, Chicago is the perfect setting.

Like Veronica Roth, I'm from Chicagoland, that network of commuter suburbs surrounding the city, so I had some idea of the geography the story deals with, and some preconceptions from my casual initial reads of the series: I thought Amity might exist in Lake Forest, a suburb just outside the city on the shore of Lake Michigan; Candor would fit well with a headquarters at the Dirksen Courthouse on Dearborn, where the famed mafia trials “Operation Family Secrets” took place in the 1970s. Abnegation seemed to me to fit Andersonville, an area of the city that is quaint and less overtly urban, with deep Swedish and German Lutheran roots. Because Chicago is a city with so much culture and such deep intellectual roots, there were a myriad of places that I thought Erudite might fit—the current-day campus of the University of Chicago; the Museum Campus, home to the Field Museum, Adler Planetarium, and the Shedd Aquarium; maybe the Museum of Science and Industry; or even Northwestern University, also in a suburb off the lake. A closer reading was definitely needed.

And of course, I had to figure out the location of the Dauntless headquarters. For them, I had no idea.

An idea integral to envisioning a map of Divergent's Chicago is that, despite the factions and their alleged rigidity, faction members were, except during their initiation phases, allowed to travel more or less freely through the city: Tris, Uriah, and other Dauntless travel from Dauntless headquarters to go zip-lining, Tris is able to visit Caleb at the Erudite compound, and all five factions attend the same school until they are sixteen. Such a large range of movement is characteristic of Chicago and sets it apart from many other cities even today: while most native New Yorkers, for example, live their entire lives within ten square blocks, Chicago and its citizens are hugely motile, with most workers within the city commuting from outer suburbs every day by car, train, bus, and sometimes, within the city, water taxis. One thing that Tris' Chicago certainly inherited from our own is a sense of movement and a need for working transportation lines: in
Insurgent
, we learn that even the factionless depend on the trains. This reliance on and ability to freely use transit sets Divergent apart from other popular dystopian series, where people live in small radii, and traveling into, or even near, the bases of other disenfranchised groups is tantamount to treason.

The only place we see any kind of “turf” rigidity in the Divergent series is in the barring of Abnegation from Erudite land in the first book—their mutual disdain precludes them from allowing anyone wearing the other faction's colors to pass through unnoticed and unscathed. And given Chicago's deep history with gangs—one of the most notorious aspects of the city, and one that plagues its citizenry every day in tragic, tangible consequences—their movements and rivalries seemed like a useful model for understanding how the different factions might be mapped out.

As of 2012, over 400 gangs were active in Chicago proper, with more operating within the soft limits of “Chicagoland.” It would be almost impossible to create a social system like the factions and base it in Chicago without drawing comparisons to gang culture: the idea of “faction before blood”; the restrictions of colors, tattoos, and even hairstyles and naming conventions available to each faction, used not only to mark brethren, but to differentiate them from outsiders; and of course, the catastrophic violence when members of these alliances clash.

When we think about the Divergent trilogy as fiction, we might guess that Roth's upbringing in Chicago's suburbs, and the clouding proximity of gang culture in the area, may have influenced her in creating Divergent's factions (even if indirectly). Similarly, if we think of the trilogy and Tris' city as real, we might guess that being located in what was originally Chicago, with its strong gang presence, may have influenced its development—in particular, the idea that factions might be a useful way of controlling its people's behavior at all. At the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, David tells Tris that Chicago was the first city to have factions—a way to modulate and enforce standards of behavior. The factions certainly seem to function according to research on gang member psychology: “Sociologists believe that a gang will take on the morals, or lack of morals, of the worst members . . . this behavior can be explained as ‘group dynamics,'” writes Lou Savelli of
Police Magazine.
¹
This seems to mirror the extent of Jeanine's hold over the Erudite, particularly over the low-level informant and new recruit Caleb, and the way that she and the Dauntless leaders, such as Eric, build their own codes of ethics into the workings of the factions under their control. Tobias, in
Divergent
, noted that with Eric—a ruthless bully—as one of the leaders of the Dauntless, the Dauntless as a whole had become meaner, more lawless, and more violent.

While the Bureau may have seen the factions as a way to encourage docile behavior through nurture, eventually the behavior modification became less an act of nurture within the factions and more of a way to define the factions' inherent, and enacted, differences: Tris becomes accustomed to jumping from trains, to getting tattoos, to eating Dauntless food and thinking “selfishly.” Likewise, she notices changes in Caleb after only a few months with the Erudite; he dons glasses with false lenses to appear more in line with his new faction's aims, and he eventually takes his desire to fit in among the Erudite to the extreme by selling Tris out to Jeanine. This is deeply emblematic of gang brainwashing, or the hivemind, wherein “the activities of the gang become their normal functions. Others are viewed as outsiders and, at times, enemies. There is a lack of empathy toward others.”
²

Finding parallels between the factions and
specific
gangs within today's Chicago is, unsurprisingly, not as easy. With so many active gangs in Chicagoland, looking at gang territories to determine faction homes was like picking through a real-life consequential haystack to find a fictional dystopian needle. There are crews all over the city who wear the Dauntless colors—black—and more who wear Erudite's blue, Amity's red and yellow, and even Abnegation's gray (Candor's black and white suits were not represented). And there was also no guarantee real-world gang colors had any influence on the factions' to begin with.

Instead, I looked to what concrete detail the books themselves provide, and Candor proved the easiest place to begin. Though we see the least of this faction in the novels, Candor helpfully provides us with some logistical truth (as their faction members would be proud to do): a set of directions in
Allegiant
from the Erudite compound to the Candor HQ. “We run in a pack down the alley towards Monroe Street,” Tris narrates in
Allegiant.
“[W]e're on State Street [where it's] safe to talk . . . I use my watch light to see the words written on my arm. ‘Randolph Street!'”

Of course, those directions could lead to dozens of buildings. Chicago's a big city. But that's where Candor's preference for suits and truth comes in, and so does a bit more of Chicago's sordid history—because Chicago isn't called the Windy City for the weather; instead, it refers to the reputation of the city's politicians for being “windbags”—their lack of candor (ahem), one might say. From the corruption of Senator William “Blond Boss” Lorimer in 1912 to the 1933 mob assassination of Mayor Anton Cermak to the fifty-year Daley Dynasty (during which the popular Chicago phrase “vote early and often” first came into use), Chicago has been a national hotbed of dirty politics for over a hundred years—probably a century more by Tris' lifetime. Where better for the faction dedicated to radical honesty to live than the Richard J. Daley Cultural Center, located on a convenient walking path from Monroe to State to Randolph, right across the river from the “Merciless Mart”?

The idea of Candor—anyone of candor—living under the name of Daley may even qualify as a Chicagoland inside joke, a nod to the deep corruption of Chicago's political past. The Daleys were a Democratic dynasty that ran the city from the early 1950s until 2011, at the time of
Divergent
's release. While neither Mayor Daley—Richard J. or his son Richard M. Daley, who followed him to the mayoral seat—were officially charged with corruption themselves, many in their administration faced charges, as did other Illinois and Chicago-area officials during their reign. Not only does a shadow of dishonesty hang over the memory of Richard J. Daley, but the man was also known for his terrible habit of spoonerisms, mixing up his words in speeches and rallies. Indeed, quite contrary to Candor's beliefs, one aide to Daley is claimed to have told a reporter, “Report what he means, not what he says!”
³

Reversing the directions from Candor headquarters that Uriah gives Tris during
Allegiant
leads back to Erudite's: a building that, we learn in
Divergent
, backs onto an alley on Monroe Street, less than a mile from Union Station, where the “Erudite live in large stone buildings that overlook the marsh.” Tris tells us, “Across from Erudite headquarters is what used to be a park. Now we just call it ‘Millennium.'” While on the trek to the Capture the Flag game, Tris can see the Bean and the other mammoth, electric-interactive statues. From Navy Pier, she can see Erudite's lights at night.

Given that Erudite's ideology revolves around the acquisition and retention of knowledge, the first place that seemed possible as a headquarters was the Museum Campus, a cluster of stone buildings on the lakeshore that includes the Field Museum, the Adler Planetarium, and the Shedd Aquarium. The campus is, however, almost six miles from Union Station if Monroe, State, and Randolph are involved in travel—too far away from the other locations, such as Navy Pier and the Magnificent Mile, identified in the book. The Bean is also invisible from the campus' stone bridge. So where else in the city is a haven for learning?

Many places. Chicago is a cultural center in the United States, and Erudite might live in the Newberry Library, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry . . . or the Art Institute, a million-square-foot behemoth that includes its own affiliated school of the arts, permanent installations of artworks, and the capacity to hold 100,000 museum visitors. Located right on the edge of Millennium Park on Michigan and Monroe Avenues, right off the Red Line train, the Art Institute seemed the perfect place for Jeanine to conduct her research.

Further evidence the Art Institute may be Erudite headquarters? Describing a photo she posted on her blog in 2010, Veronica Roth wrote: “[I]n front of the lion statue in front of the Art Institute of Chicago. You may not have heard, but the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup this year, and we're all very excited about it. Hence the huge Blackhawks helmet on the lion's head . . . So there you have it. A short tour through Chicago, and by proxy, through some of the scenes in DIVERGENT.”
⁴

That run from Erudite to Candor in
Allegiant
is one of the only times in the series that Tris gets around Chicago purely by walking rather than taking the train. Since Chicago is the metropolitan center of the heartland, over 1,300 trains run through Chicago every day! From the longdistance Amtrak trains that seem likely to have been abandoned in Tris' fractured world to the suburban commuter train line of the Metra, trains are one of Chicago's most wide-ranging ways to travel.

Tris' trains, though, are almost certainly the el: a system of eight rapid-transit trains that spider through Chicago like the spokes of a wheel, with The Loop—home to Divergent's “Hub,” the massive skyscraper at the center of the city that Tris tells us in
Divergent
is the Willis (Sears) Tower—as its center. The rest of Tris' world is so dependent on these trains—the paths between the factions running on train lines and the route to landmarks like the Hub and school accessible by train—that to make any further judgments of locations, the lines of the el needed to be added to the map.