We continue with the saga of Bella and Danger Cullen, brought together by circumstance, they must now defy both fate and adolescence to become…Wuv. Wuv as we’ve never seen it before. Because the only people to hate love also have no friends and wear their hair like that kid from school in grade 5 who no one liked and always sat alone at lunchtime. So there.
Chapter 7 – Nightmare. Or, Bella has a wet dream about Edward and realizes that it’s really his mind and compelling life goals that attract her to him
Bella comes home from camping to Charlie watching basketball like the adorable slightly incompetent father he is. She listens to loud music to try to rattle the thoughts right out of her only slightly pretty head. Oh Bella, I can relate to listening to music and wanting to escape a painful situation. Like any young girl, when things get bad, I put in my Good Charlotte and immediately feel better knowing that nothing is my fault.
She then has a frightening and nto at all obvious dream aout being in the forest and having several men fight over her and try to protect her, a situation which is clearly distressing and is not the secret desire of young girls everywhere. But protect her from who? A potentially half naked and glowing Edward! *squee!* Who needs protection from that?
Bella wakes as Jacob, in a nightmarish Freudian vision, becomes a frightening yet manly man-wolf. Edward, whose normal state of manly perfection is marred by shockingly manly fangs, smiles at Bella.
Edward: I am not the face of your repressed sexual urges
Bella: NO JACOB!
Jacob: I certainly also do not embody both boyish charm and manly savagery. Hey Edward. Say hello to my little friend.
Bella: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEDWARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD
All those thoughts she’s been trying with (surprisingly easy) success to repress suddenly surface! Edward is a Cold One, an otherworldly, beautiful manfully conflicted man-thing. What is a not-so-pretty yet modern heroine to do?
Because Stephanie Meyer wants us to experience Bella’s intense internal struggle, she describes in riveting detail Bella’s emotional conflict.
Bella: Time to dry my hair/make my bed/eat some cereal/turn on the computer/dry the bowl and spoon used for the cereal/drag my feet up the stairs/pick up my CD player(where it was on the floor 2.5 metres from the southwest wall)/put it away( in the drawer, Bella’s favourite drawer)/close all the popup windows on the computer screen while sitting on my hard folding chair that makes me think of this one time at camp, and search ‘vampire’ at a surely worthy and reputable site called Vampires A-C.
Because Bella is modern and hip, she uses the internets. She also hates dialup. Oh Bella! The horror of modems! The strain must be terrible! You’re such a trooper, Bella. I wish I could be you.
What internet skills! Vampires A-Z (so promising!) is simply designed (black and white text with popup windows for Telus, PartyPoker, Playstation III, Aren’t We Naughty, Pro-Life Coalition, Jelly Belly Jellybeans and Canadian Tire) and thusly chock full of academic credibility! Oh Bella! Black and white are academic colours! I could never have found such a website.
Bella is upset about finding out about a vampire called the stregoni benifici. It’s supposed to be…a good vampire? How can this be? What an emotional conundrum! Vampires don’t have to be evil? Edward has a…choice? And isn’t bound at all by any burdens of vampirism whatsoever?
Bella: LIFE IS HARD.
She can’t cope with the burden of this knowledge so she runs into the forest.
Bella: WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy….
She proceeds to be crushed by bone-crushing despair.
Then it hits her! Bella realizes that in her dream, she wanted to protect Edward from Jacob, and realizes in a bright flash of light that this means she’s in wuv. Because protectiveness is the highest form of expressing one’s wuv. She feels content with this decision: The decision to wuv. She looks around at the unforgiving eternalness of the forest, and decides to take a risky and roguish chance…on a man. Who wants to eat her.
Ah Bella, making the tough choices. She’s my role model.
Great Decisions Having Been Made, Bella skips to school.
Bella: Edward! EdwardEdwardEdwardEdward! Hey, NotEdward!
Mike: Bella, like every male in this book, I desire you
Bella: cools. So how’s your essay?
Mike: Time to make an observation about the highlights in your hair and tuck it behind your ear. Because this is so much creepier than being in love with a controlling, 108 year old man who has never left high school.
Bella: Dirty Forks boys.
Mike: So what’s your essay on?
Bella: MISOGYNY, ANDROID OF THE PATRIARCHY!
Mike: Bella…you’re just so smart. Thanks for deigning to speak to me today whilst entertaining thoughts of RealEdward.
Bella: No probz
Oh Bella! I see it now! The chains of patriarchy were dissolved long ago and you are free to love whomever and whatever you choose, especially if they’re dark and primordial, manly, square jawed, and tragically conflicted.
Bella: Empowerment, yay!
She continues with her day, a day dismal without the sun or the sight of Danger Cullen to light her way. Eventually she comes home to sleep, reads some Jane Austen. Because Bella isn’t just slightly-pretty, she’s smart. She’s a real outsider.
Bella: Oh Ponyboy…I mean, what? Oh whatever. I’m just going to sun myself outside and be a part of an obvious metaphor for sexual desire.
“I would think of nothing but the warmth on my skin, I told myself severely. I pulled all my hair over my head, letting it fan out on the quilt above me, and focused on the heat that touched my eyelids, my cheekbones, my nose, my lips, my neck, soaked through my light shirt…” (p. 148)
Because not-all-that-pretty girls with little-to-no self-esteem never love to think that while they slumber, some beautiful man will stop, observe and desire them while they are in a perfect pose of passive feminine desire. This is also, clearly, not a metaphor for Bella’s budding relationship with The Man In The Boat or her Little Jumping Bean.
So Charlie comes home and they watch a show that neither of them enjoy but Bella notes that he seems happy that they can do something together. Again, she is happy knowing that he is happy. Because Bella is selfless and heroic and we should all try to be as empowered as she is.
Next: Will the real Mary Sue please stand up? Why rape as a plot device is both hip, modern, and never used before as a way to demonstrate one’s character’s Undying Wuv for another.
More. ^_^
You know, I think this would make a really good essay on female identity and gender roles in literature. I wonder if there are any publications on Women’s Studies out there on the internets.
I’m not sure, really. There probably are, I just don’t know where. I just hate the gender role-ing in Twilight, it drives me up the wall. I mean, aside from its general mediochrity the nasty nasty gender roles make me so angry. I mean, why isn’t there a logical breakdown of why Twilight is bad out there already? It’s not just TWILIGHT SUKX there are completely logical, rational reasons why it is a terrible and offensive novel. It stuns me that there isn’t an academic breakdown of it somewhere.
I’ve searched some stuff for ‘twilight sucks’ and I’ve found some funny and decently intelligent articles, but there should be MORE.
lol This will be hard, but can you think of more women in literature who are as useless and moronic as Bella? She probably isn’t the WORST one out there, just the most RECENT. And the one trying the hardest to be hip and ‘normal’, which at times annoys me more than the OH EDWARD I WUV YOUR CONTROLLING PROTECTIVENESS crap.
lol I read Wuthering Heights the other day, you know what that may or may not be just as stupid as Twilight. Hated it. Just hated it. Catherine is such a dumb, useless piece of shit, and the whole book is full of abusive, obessive passionate wuv that transcends generations and omg the colour of my puke is BLOOD.
I always wanted to take Wuthering Heights and tear it in half, because the first half of the book is really all you need. The next generation is just a repeat of the first. I thought the Lawrence Olivier movie version was actually better than the book (and I usually don’t draw those conclusions). Don’t you think the book would have been more interesting if Catherine went along with Heathcliff’s idea of maintaining their relationship despite her marriage to Linton?
Ironically, the more useless heroines that come to mind are in anime. Miaka from Fushigi Yuugi for instance. If anything, Bella reminds me of the typical anime heroine, even though usually even in those shows, at least the girls are more powerful than Bella….
Hmm, never saw that movie, maybe it would calm my feelings of anger towards the novel. I know! The second generation repeats the first, in a terrible cycle of unrelenting horrible, self-destructive love. I shudder. Oooh, the poetic idea that my love with a self destructive angry/abusive piece of shit is destined to happen over and over! Love me that karma cycle!
Yes, it would have meant that Catherine had more backbone of any sort if she’d tried to at least be an ass and cheat rather than lay back and literally DIE instead. Oh, my love deserts me! I shall now…*dies*
And then Heathcliff, who started out the story okay, and I felt sympathy towards him, he was the underdog, he gets angry, and then when Catherine remains a useless sack of crap, he gets all angry and crazy. Linton, I kind of just wanted to die. He just complained. What a whiner.
Yes, actually, Bella does remind me of a lot of pathetic shojo heroines who can’t tie their own shoes unless their angry and angsty boyfriend is standing over them saying THE BUNNY RUNS INTO ITS BURROW STUPID.
But Bella…somehow infuriates me more, simply because she’s being painted not only as a useless girlie heroine, but because she’s so clearly supposed to be ‘hip’. Hip in that I’m a whiny teenager who has just discovered cynicism kind of way. Her character is a celebration of Not Trying, I think that’s what infuriates me the most. What are your thoughts?
Yeah , but I like those Shoujo heroines more because they’re obviously just meant to be that way!
While Bella is SUPPOSED to be a modern, smart,… blah blah teen.
I really like your take on things!
I mean obviously Stephanie’s logic can’t be beat in her own little universe, but guess what?
This is the REAL world, so please stop thinking like a teen!
You’re a author, you’re supposed to ACT like you’re a teen in order to portray them.
Not seriously write like a fanfiction artist!
That’s just wrong …
anyways I have to admit I did enjoy the series, but once past the “magic” of the moment.
And once you start to use your brains while reading
, the story in general… doesn’t really make any sense…