Twilight: Bane or Boon?

November 11, 2009

Alex Bolino, staff reporter. Lindsay Vong, asst. a&e editor  

Filed under Opinions

When I was little, I understood that scary things were only cool if you were a boy. Vampires were boy territory; there was too much blood, too much danger, and too much mystery dealing with the undead. Boy was I wrong; it took only two things for my fears to be shattered: one 498-page book called Twilight and a vampire named Edward Cullen.

For the two people in the world who don’t know, Twilight is the first book of a four-part saga written by Stephenie Meyer. It’s a beautiful story about a girl named Bella Swan and her life after falling in love with the most dangerous, attractive, and perfect creature ever described, Edward Cullen. The Twilight craze has swept through the lives of millions of people throughout the world. On our own campus, you can see girls carrying their books from class to class, trying to sneak in just more page, one more paragraph, one more sentence, one more word…

However, contrary to the belief of many critics, this series is not just an outlet for lovesick teenage girls. In fact, the Twilight industry has left a positive impact on our generation and the entertainment industry.

The Twilight Saga has truly reintroduced the beauty and power of reading a good book to many young adults. In today’s society, there is so much new technology to distract and entertain: the Internet, the TV, video games, the car, and the list goes on and on. People hardly ever bother to pick up a good book as a form of entertainment. Find that hard to believe? According to Jerold Jenkins of jenkinsgroupinc.com, one-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives, 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college, 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year, and of the new books purchased, 57 percent are not read to completion. The introduction of the Twilight Saga has definitely encouraged young adults to shatter those statistics. Meyer writes in a way that keeps readers’ eyes glued to the pages of the books, turning page after page, and never getting enough of the vampires, werewolves, and lives of the people in Forks, WA. Even people who’ve never had a knack for reading will find themselves engrossed in the story.

Some people are concerned that the book is poorly written. However, Meyer admits that she did not write these books to become a literary mastermind, but to become a well-known storyteller. She said to Entertainment Weekly, “I want to be a better writer… But I’m going to be a good storyteller.” Therefore, when reading any of the books of the Twilight Saga, you should not focus on trying to find clever uses of metaphors, complex and varied sentence structure, beautiful and elaborate detail or perfect vocabulary. The focus should be on the beauty of the story, the complex relationships between the characters and the ups and downs of their lives.

Like any good storyteller, Meyer has the power to immerse you into her story. Even if you’re not an adolescent, you’re thrown back into the world of awkward relationships, young love and new emotions. You can feel the fear running through your veins as Bella tries to escape death; you are frustrated by the confusion caused by loving an undead and dangerous creature; you can hear the pitter-patter of your heart as it beats in your chest whenever Edward is described. But because Meyer strays away from overly detailed and frivolous descriptions, she allows your mind to take over. Everyone’s perfect Edward is different. She promotes the development of a young imagination, giving young readers the power to envision their perfect world.

The novel also has strong characters that young people can look up to. Though critics may argue against this, Bella is not a weak character, nor is she a bad example for girls to be following. She is a caretaker, always looking out for the people she loves. She grew up as a mother figure to her own mother, watches out for the wellbeing and safety of her father, cares about the impact her relationship with a dangerous creature will have on her friends, and encourages Edward that he is not a monster. She hardly ever puts herself before others because she genuinely cares about them. Also, she teaches girls not to be shallow—look past the outer shell of a person and learn to try to truly understand them. She looks past the stereotypical image of a vampire and understand that Edward is a person with a soul; he does not have to put up façade to be a loving human being.

Boys too can learn from the world of Twilight. Edward is the model of the ideal boyfriend and gentleman. Not only will you love him and his romantic and passionate nature, his intellectual prowess, his musical genius and his chiseled abs, but also your parents and grandparents will approve of him. He upholds his own traditional family values and respects the opinions of the people in Bella’s life. He preaches a message of chastity and therefore does not agree to succumb to pre-marital sex. He believes in “protecting his virtue” until after they get married. This teaches guys everywhere that you can have a strong, loving and successful relationship with someone of the opposite gender without the pressure of sexual relations. No matter what happens, the only thing Edward wants is for Bella to be happy. In the third book to the series, Eclipse, Edward understands Bella’s love for her best friend Jacob, who helped Bella mend her emotional state after Edward disappears from her life. Edward says to her, “I’m not going to make you choose between us. Just be happy, and you can have whatever part of me you want, or none at all, if that’s better” (535). He looks out for her best interests, even if it means he will have to suffer.

In the words of senior Erin Kelm, “Twilight is so good you can’t even explain how good it is.” So go out and pick up a copy of any of the books in the Twilight Saga and be sure catch a showing of the upcoming movie, New Moon, to immerse yourself in the worlds of Bella and Edward. Because who wants to be a helpless princess when you can be an indomitable vampire?

Bane:

As you are walking through the halls you hear a conversation among your fellow Presentation students, “Why would you like Jacob? He’s immature; Edward is much better for Bella!” Sadly enough, the names are all you need to know to realize that those girls are discussing the Twilight saga, which has become a juggernaut in popular culture.

The book is written through the perspective of Bella Swan, who falls in love with the mystifying vampire named Edward Cullen. On the surface, it is a clichéd, although seemingly harmless, love story between a tortured “bad boy” figure and the innocent protagonist. But if you were to think about the content, you would see that young, impressionable girls should not be reading these books.

When Bella Swan first arrives at Forks High School, she is welcomed by many, but chooses to ignore them. Instead of making an effort to meet people, she feels that her stay in Forks is pointless and miserable until she sets her eyes on the illustrious Edward Cullen. From the beginning, their relationship is based solely on sexual attraction. Bella doesn’t speak to Edward the first day; nonetheless, he envelops her thoughts for the rest of the series.

Stephanie Meyer is quoted saying that she loves novels by Jane Austen, Emily Bronte and Charlotte Bronte, but instead of emulating their strong, independent female leads, she has created a character that is incapable of being without a man.

Throughout the novel, Bella is constantly playing the role of damsel in distress. In fact, without Edward saving her, Bella would have been hit by a truck in the school parking lot shortly after arriving in Forks. If that didn’t kill her, she would have been raped by a group of scary men while on a shopping trip with friends. Apparently, this protagonist is not smart enough to stay out of dark alleyways or walk away from a group of drunks.

On one of the rare occasion that she does decide to make her own decisions in Twilight, Bella ends up leaving Edward’s family, her only source of protection against a bad vampire, to confront said vampire on her own. Putting your own life at risk to make a deal with a vampire you know is evil is not the best idea. In fact, this is yet another situation where Bella ends up needing Edward to rescue her.

As the relationship between Edward and Bella evolves, it becomes more abusive than loving. He displays almost all of the signs of an abusive relationship including jealousy, possessiveness, a need for control, isolating her from her friends, losing his temper, claiming she is responsible for his emotional state and earning the disapproval of her family.

When Edward breaks up with Bella at the beginning of New Moon, four months pass before Bella can function. Her relationship with Edward has left her without any friends. As soon as they started going out, Bella was solely devoted to him. After finding out the he craves her blood, Bella was willing to go deep into the forest, alone with him. She even thought, “What was my other choice—to cut him out of my life? Intolerable. Besides, since I’d come to Forks, it really seemed like my life was about him” (251). She was willing to risk her life to spend a romantic afternoon with a boy she barely knew.

When Bella wants to continue her friendship Jacob in Eclipse, Edward goes as far as to take the engine out of her car to stop her from visiting him. He claims that he was protecting her from werewolves that cannot be trusted. However, his own brother, who tried to attack her in the previous book, is allowed to be around her. When she wants to comfort Jacob, Edward says, “You know it’s out of the question for you to be around a werewolf unprotected, Bella. And it would break the treaty if any of us cross over onto their land. Do you want us to start a war?” (27). He is making her feel guilty so she will cut off all relations with her only remaining friend.

She doesn’t even recognize that she has been completely cut off from friends and family. When her dad tries to warn her about Edward saying, “I want you to stay away from him, Bella. I don’t trust him. He’s rotten for you. I won’t let him mess you up like that again” (545), she continues by telling him that she will move out if he makes her break up with Edward. This is sending the message to young girls that you shouldn’t listen to your parents if they warn you about your boyfriend. Bella didn’t listen to her dad and she’s now a happily married vampire.

She “loves” Edward so much in New Moon that she even said, “You can have my soul. I don’t want it without you—it’s yours already!” (69). She is begging him to turn her into a vampire, so that she can leave her family and friends and be with him forever. They had known each other about a year and had not yet had a deep conversation, except of course, when he explained that she was his brand of heroin. These novels are telling girls that this toxic relationship is what they should be striving for. Instead, they need to learn that contrary to what pop culture shows us; true love doesn’t involve addiction and rehab.

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Tags: Stephanie Meyer, Twilight