Character Analysis
Follow Your Mind… Your Erudition
We can put Cara into the "identity crisis" group of characters populating this novel. Her crisis is a little different from Tris's or Tobias's, though. Cara is mainly confused about her view of the world, not her view of herself, though this makes her wonder exactly where she fits in.
Cara is one of the founding members of the Allegiant, and because of her, everyone gets out of the city. The consequence, though, is that everyone finds out that the outside isn't what the Allegiant thought it would be. This makes Cara feel stupid. She says, "The Bureau made me feel like a fool for fighting for any of it, and for what the Allegiant stood for. And I don't like to feel foolish" (30.18).
That frankness is something we grow to appreciate from Cara during Allegiant. She's as blunt as the candlestick from Clue. If we were still referring to people by faction, we might mistake her for a Candor.
We're not doing that anymore, of course, what with the factions being dismantled. Unfortunately, they're just replaced by one of two categories: genetically pure or genetically damaged. Cara gets put into the second category, and she's not happy about that: "It's the only thing I am. Erudite. And now they've told me that's the result of some kind of flaw in my genetics […] It means I need other words for what I am" (15.90, 15.93).
We have some words for her. Frank. Honest. Smart. She's not a person to hold her tongue, but that's fine: she doesn't have to adhere to one faction anymore. She knows this, too: "Now that I know how large the world is… well, I suppose I have grown too large for my faction" (33.49), she says. In the epilogue, we find out that she works in the lab with Caleb. And we bet she's still the first one to speak her mind, too.