Divergent: Chapter 23 Summary & Analysis

Tris decides not to go back to the dorms—that would be suicidal. Instead, she sleeps in Four’s bed while Four sleeps on the floor. She can smell his scent on his pillow, and it smells “distinctly male.” Tris thinks to herself that she likes Four—he’s not kind, but he’s smart and courageous.

Tris wakes up and prepares to face her peers. She’s in pain all over: her side aches and her face has a vicious bruise, but she’s full of adrenaline. In the dining hall, Tris chooses to sit next to Will. She notices that Al isn’t in the room. Tris, Will, Christina, and Uriah eat their meal together, and discuss what happened the night before. Tris reveals that Peter, Drew, and Al tried to hurt her. Christina is especially shocked that Al tried to hurt Tris. Tris also notices Drew sitting in the dining hall: he’s covered with bruises, and there’s a massive cut down his eyebrow.

Uriah proposes that Tris and her friends do something to avenge Tris’s attack. Uriah clarifies: he’s not talking about beating up Peter and his gang. Instead, they’ll have to defeat Peter in the most humiliating way: by beating him in the rankings.

The recruits proceed with their training. As Christina and Tris walk to their latest assignment, Christina apologizes for claiming the flag during the capture the flag game—she admits that it was selfish.

The recruits arrive in a large, dark room. Four explains that the Dauntless government has been gathering information on the recruits’ greatest fears. Here in the room, recruits will face different manifestations of people’s fears, using the combat training they learned in phase one and the emotional conditioning they picked up in phase two. The recruits will be given one chance to maneuver their ways through a “fear landscape.” Their success with this challenge will determine their rankings for phase three of training. As Four explains, Peter asks if it’s “fair” for some recruits to have more fears than others. Four laughs and says that Peter doesn’t know the meaning of the word “fair”—he’s clearly frightened of a tiny girl from Abnegation. Christina and Will laugh.

Back in the dormitory, Tris finds Al. Al asks if he could talk to Tris alone, and Will angrily says that Al will never get near Tris again. Al nods, tearfully, and tells Tris that he’s sorry for what he tried to do to her. Tris contemplates forgiving Al for what he did. But then she realizes that she’s not a forgiving person: whatever forgiveness she learned from Abnegation, she’s lost forever. With this in mind she tells Al that she’ll kill him if he ever comes near her again.