DIVERGENT Movie: Reading FOUR Through NIETZSCHE

Only one time in the movie do we see Four's entire tattoo.

We see it in the scene directly following the one where Four takes Tris into his own Fearscape and Tris sees Four's deepest fear, being beaten with a leather belt and buckle by his father Marcus starting in childhood.

Usually Four stands and calms his breathing and heart rate. (This is standard technique for "flooding" developed by Edna Foa.) Tris however grabs Marcus's belt, punches Marcus and Four protects her from Marcus, thus initiating a new response in Four.

In these two images we have the complete history of Four/Tobias's childhood, in reverse sequence for the viewer.

The Tattoo

The tattoo is a record of his beatings. On a child's skin, a leather belt is going to leave terrible welts, cuts and permanent scars. Not like Patsy's beatings in 12 Years a Slave nor like this slave:

A horrifying explicit vision of Nietzsche's Torturous Inscription of  the Body

But you get the idea. To a child it is a terrible thing to endure beatings that leave permanent markings. 

Down the center of Four's back on his spinal cord are the five faction symbols. 

So with this piece of dialogue we know that every time Tobias displayed curiosity - forbidden in Abnegation - which is linked to intelligence, or bravery, honesty, happiness or kindness Marcus forbid it. And he not only forbid it - the way Beatrice was forbidden - but he was also punished unmercifully for being a curious, kind, intelligent, honest, brave and happy child until he learned never to show any of those feelings. Ever. 

The tattoo clearly shows the lash marks probably covering some scars. It clearly shows all five of the factions, desires, attributes, a well rounded person who was emotionally mature might have. 

But exposing the tattoo reveals both shame and desire.

In revealing what he has concealed to Tris in his Fearscape and on his back he is confessing shame and opening himself to vulnerability. (Badiou:In Praise of Love)

Tris carefully runs her fingers and hand down Four's back touching him tenderly and admiringly
And Four is being touched tenderly for the very first time in his life. He does not wear his tattoo openly nor share it with anyone as he is a very private person.
"Not approachable."

This is an explicit Inscription of the Body - Mind always included in this concept - that Nietzsche details for us in The Genealogy of Morals. 

Four has turned his torture into body art. He has carved the memory of it onto his back to be there forever. 

All you have to do  is look at the lashes as they curve around his arms, neck and rib cage, how the belt falls on his shoulder blades and back to understand this. He never wants to forget it. He never wants to forgive. He always wants to remember the terrified child he was. 

Is this why he keeps going back into his Fearscape? Has it become erotic for him? 

Actually in terms of Behavior Therapy Four chooses flooding - implosion - to confront his fears (Edna Foa). With flooding it is necessary to re-experience the "flooding" on a semi regular basis to keep the fear manageable. It doesn't go away forever. 

Spontaneous recovery is a fact of psychological learning theory.

BTW this works really well to desensitize your dog to thunder and Fourth of July explosions. Tape similar sounds, go to confined room with your dog, play the tape very low (read a book or something) until your dog ignores it. Every time you do  it increase the noise a little bit. Until you can play it as loud as possible and your dog ignores it. You will have to do it semi regularly to condition your dog as Four is conditioning himself.

Back to Four and Nietzsche and The Inscription of the Body/Mind

Four's body/mind is inscripted by Dauntless when we meet him. He is carefully gendered masculine: he walks forcefully into every scene or exits purposefully. All his movements are deliberate. His dialogue is all truth. No extraneous small talk. He exhibits a frightening awareness of being a killer when he acts in that capacity. He is deadly.

Nietzsche on The Inscription of the Body which also includes the Mind.

192 How does one create a memory for the human animal?

192-193 ....there is perhaps nothing more terrible in man's earliest history than his mnemotechnics. "A thing is branded on the memory to make it stay there; only what goes on  hurting will stick"...It is the past - the longest, deepest, hardest of pasts - that seems to surge up....Whenever man has thought it necessary to create a memory for himself, his effort has been attended with torture, blood, sacrifice. ....sacrifice...repulsive mutilations...the cruelest rituals in every religious cult....all these have their origin in that instinct which divined pain to be the the strongest aid to mnemonics.

Nietzsche says more and he says pages about punishment. Festinger's work has showed that the stronger the initiation procedures, the more adherence to the group. Is this the rule for punitive families also?

Engraving your back is not  pleasurable. And culturally now, tattooing has become a wide practice. These people are engraving their body/minds. This is a surface Inscription of the Body. Ask anyone who wants to tell you why they have this one, where they got it, how they chose it, what it means, when they got it, who was the artist who did it. Each one is a MEMORY.

Going through a reading of Badiou it is only Love that opens him to vulnerability. 

DIVERGENT REVIEW: Marcus Deconstructed by Vanessa Taylor's Screenplay in 4 Sentences

Vanessa Taylor - Screenplay for Divergent

Marcus Eaton

Our first look at Marcus is as the camera pans over in the beginning with Beatrice's voiceover with a slight lisp. He is sitting in the central governmental position next to Andrew.

He first speaks at the Choosing Ceremony:

After today you will no longer be dependents but full-fledged members of our society.

We see his tightened lips as Caleb chooses Erudite and Andrew's astonished and disbelieving face.

Marcus in Four's Fearscape with Tris

Marcus: Tobias! I'm trying to help you.To make you better. (In other words I'm beating you for your own good.)
______________________________________________________________________________

We next see him when Tris does, after Tobias has been taken from her, and after Natalie has been shot and killed. She enters the place Natalie told her her father was. Inside is her father, Caleb, Marcus, et al.

Your mother?

Tris tells her father that her mother saved her and they hold each other and cry.

Marcus: (immediately while they are consoling each other) We need to leave here. Are there soldiers outside?

Tris: No, it's clear (looking at him with contempt and distaste).

Caleb: (comes up to her) I should have listened to you. I didn't know what was going on. Why are Dauntless fighting?

Tris: They don't know what they're doing. They're under simulation. I need to wake them up. I have to get into Dauntless.

Marcus: It's a fortress in there. Not gonna happen.

Tris: I can get us in.

Marcus at the Choosing Ceremony speaks in what linguistics calls "performative speech." He has a beautiful seductive voice. Persuasive. 

In the above sequence Marcus is attempting to dominate the group and especially Tris. She is a girl, approximately the same age as his son Tobias and he is not taking orders. He thinks. But this is the power of the screenplay. In four speaking lines Vanessa Taylor has given us the character of Marcus, his essence. His desire to control and dominate presented in language. There is no legislation that will protect you from this. It is a form of speech you will have to recognize and assert yourself in response. There will be consequences usually.

We need to leave here. This is a super ego communication. A parent to child communication. It's purpose is to dominate. 

It's a fortress in there. Not gonna happen. (Marcus immediately shoots down Tris's I need to get into Dauntless and wake them.

I can get us in. Tris asserts herself, takes command, leads the group and Marcus is forced to follow.

In the psychoanalytic transference we see all that we need to know of Tobias's childhood with this man. Any idea of his own, any assertion, any creativity, any solutions, etc ALL were shot down, DOMINATED by Marcus. And Tobias was beaten unmercifully for any disobedience, verbal or active. Passive endurance was his defense. 

You will see this in the supermarket every day if you wake up, listen and see. 

______________________________________________________________________________

Inside Dauntless Tris sees Peter who knows where the Control Room of Simulations is. She has to shoot him to prove to him she is serious.

Marcus: Did you really have to shoot him? (menacing and contemptuous, disgusted)

Tris: Every minute we waste an Abnegation dies and a Dauntless becomes a murderer. 

Here he is trying to induce guilt in a former Abnegation member but Tris isn't buying it.Marcus is still trying to dominate and now with guilt.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Ready to Shoot Train Run

Marcus is too out of shape to run and grab onto the train, pull himself up. He shouts.

Marcus: Tobias! (asking for help;remaining in the city is death for him,)

Four/Tobias is conflicted. He wants to leave him there but also feels he should rescue him from death so he does. 

Vanessa Taylor's screenplay is ADULT. It is asking and demanding you to attend to what is said, what is meant by what is said. It is clear that Vanessa Taylor knows exactly what she is saying, what it means and what it does. It appears Taylor has read Foucault and/or knows his work. This is an intelligent screenplay not often seen (Dark Knight Rises an Exception also) in a movie intended for commercial consumption. Neil Burger has created a film that is art as well as commercial.

People know what they say.

They even frequently know why they say what they say.

But what they don't know is what they say does. - Michel Foucault

DIVERGENT REVIEW on Nietzsche's INSCRIPTION OF THE BODY (Baudrillard, Deleuze,Foucault)

Tris sees Four's tattoo for the first time right after she has been in Four's Fearscape - and so do we

We have seen Marcus come at Four with his leather belt to beat him in multiple selves - a nice wave to The Matrix. We now know that Marcus has beaten Tobias/Four since a young child and Four is paralyzed with fear of him as he regresses to a young child when confronted by him in his Fearscape - (my new word for it.) 

We are not told any more details, but the scene is allowed to resonate in our minds.When you are beaten your body/mind is inscribed as the two are inseparable, in a relation with each other.

We know Tobias's back was beaten because the welts and wounds would not be visible there.The tattoo is announcing the beatings to the world if the world sees.The beatings are revealed and concealed.The belt sliced around to his arms where the tattoo becomes stripes.

A tattoo such as this INSCRIBES the body/mind again. The MEMORY of the constant beatings is inscribed. The memory produces CONSCIOUSNESS of the original inscription. As repetition reinforced the memory of the pain, the tattoo reinforces the memory of what it emotionally and mentally means to you. 

Tris begins to touch the tattoo

The understanding and resonance of touch. Abnegation foregoes touch except in rather indifferent ways. Tris is taught that touch means something. By experiencing the lack of touch, the desire for it and its importance to you increases your awareness of it. Tris is aware of every time Four has touched her in coaching her. His touch is indifferent. Her reception of it is eroticized. She touches Four's tattoo with great tenderness and curiosity. Why all of the factions?

Because Four does not just want to be one person but all of them. We can imagine the child wanting to be imaginative, intelligent, brave, honest, happy and selfless and being beaten for showing any of those indications. His will to knowledge/power has been stifled with beatings. Tris's will to knowledge/power has been snuffed out by her family and her love for them, also an effective way to drive them underground. To repress them in the Inscription of the Body. And Tris's Body/Mind has been reinscribed at Dauntless to be sure. Abnegation, just as all of the other factions, is about Obedience. Staying inside the Dominating Discourse.

For Tris to touch Four with such awe and tenderness is the awakening of eroticism for Four. He turns and kisses her and touches her wanting more. It is then Tris stops him and says, "I don't want to go too fast."

Woman is not equal to man except in the Order of Production. In the Symbolic Order of Seduction, woman is OTHER. Tris does not have a fear of intimacy. That is a clinical term that belongs in the Order of Production. We know she is a virgin and has had Four in her imagination since she met him at the net. She has been unknowingly seducing him. SEDUCTION cannot be produced. It does not figure in the Order of Production - Baudrillard.

Reading through Lacan DESIRE/LACK is a relation. Tris wants to experience desire, not sexual satisfaction. And she wants Four to experience desire. Does she know this? Doubtful. But intuitively she does. This is where that philosophical term the unknown/knowns intercedes, that term Rumsfeld so befuddled himself with. It means that there are knowns you know which you are unaware that you know. Without Lack, there is no Desire.

By going slower Tris will experience longing, desire, waiting, and contemplation of the beloved object and the deepening of self-awareness. Badiou says that love is a challenge, a risk, a jump into the unknown. This is Tris turned into a lovely metaphor. This was Twilight. This is not Hunger Games.

But by going slower Four will also experience these deeper feelings. This is where Four resonates with Dante and his beloved Beatrice, his lifetime muse, whom he only saw once or twice on the street and whom he never knew. An apparition sort of who guided him through the circles of hell. Four's Beatrice will rescue Four from the dungeons of hell.

Step back: the pattern in the tapestry

won’t tell itself till more of it is made.

Although it’s eighty-seven in the shade,

we have to work this hard making the hist-

ory we need till, trusting it, we’re free

to kiss each other better than when we

imagined kissing when we hadn’t kissed.

Marilyn Hacker in Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons 

I would say the same is true on waiting to experience sex.