Okay, now I'd like to pose a question:
When I first read Twilight, the main thing that made me want to toss it across the room had to do with Bella's urgent desire for Edward to turn her. Into a vampire. Who drinks blood and can't go out in public in the sunlight. Or live a normal life. It struck me as a perfect reflection of Bella's immaturity and short-sightedness that she would effectively fuck up the rest of her life without grappling with the consequences.
Am I just a bigot who needs to open up to vampire lifestyles or is it as gross as my instincts told me?
Addendum: the begging to be turned thing also seemed like a thinly veiled and effed up virginity metaphor, was I reading too much between the lines?
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I think you're right that Bella asking to be turned into a vampire speaks to her immaturity. She doesn't think about the consequences and she's quick to give up people like her dad or Jesse who seem to have a legitimate interest in her well-being. It's selfish and a youthful mistake. Albeit, she's young, but like you said you can't have a real 16-year-old like girl and a crusty old vampire. If he must be older, and he almost always is, she needs to have a wisdom or spirit about her that makes her his equivalent. Bella and Edward don't fit that bill.
ReplyDeleteI am guessing that Meyer has Bella beg to be turned to set up one of the later books, but I think she also does it to show Bella's desire to be close to Edward. I think its a strategy to show that she truly loves him more than herself. But this is how I know that this book was written for teenagers. As semi-adults we recognize the negatives and the selfishness required in even asking such a thing, but at 16 I don't know that I would have felt the same (although my mind has thought like a 50 year old woman's).
As for the virginity metaphor...I didn't really read it as such, but it makes sense. I'm not sure that's what Meyer was going for but at the end of Twilight the issue of their physical relationship lies at the surface and is about to boil over, I think. Vampires tend to be very sexual creatures in lore and literature, so perhaps that is what she meant! Ew.