Twilight

Rose McKay                                                                                                               808

                 The banned book Twilight by Stephanie Meyer is a gripping dark romance about a love between a human named Bella and a vampire named Edward. Bella moves from Arizona to live in a small, hidden town called Forks in Washington State with her lonely dad. In Forks, Bella goes to a new high school and everyone welcomes her. She meets Edward and eventually falls in love with him. Edward lives with a group of vampires who have made a decision to only drink animal blood. They call themselves “vegetarians”. Edward is 17 and has been 17 for a long time. He has the ability to read people’s minds and yet, he cannot read Bella’s. This makes her intriguing to him. Twilight contains a lot of symbolism that relates to loneliness and yearning.

                  The setting of the book represents Bella’s inner life. The description of Forks is of a gloomy, dark, gray place with not much life to it. This is how Bella feels in the beginning of the book. “Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel the claustrophobia creeping up on me. You would never see the sky here; it was like a cage.” On top of this, Bella’s relationship with her dad is unsatisfying.   She doesn’t feel close to him at all, especially having lived with her mother in bright, sunny Arizona. She comes to Forks with no friends. She is lonely without her mother and doesn’t connect with her father. He is not very talkative which makes him seem gloomy. Maybe living in Forks for his whole life made him this way. Bella doesn’t want to be trapped inside of Forks like her dad who has never left. She feels stuck.

                  Being a vampire symbolizes loneliness.  Vampires don’t age but the humans around them do.  Time stands still for a vampire.  For Edward, the people who he might fall in love with who are not vampires will eventually die. This is really heartbreaking. Twilight shows how lonely it would be to be a vampire.  Not only is it heartbreaking, it is isolating because as a vampire you cannot expose yourself to the human world.  You are always hiding your true identity. In one scene, Edward is talking to Bella about the first night he spied on her. “That was the first night I came here. I wrestled all night, while watching you sleep, with the chasm between what I knew was right, moral, ethical, and what I wanted.” Edward is trying to make a decision. If Edward makes the choice to love Bella, she will eventually grow old and leave him. He doesn’t want this to happen. If she wants to, Edward could turn her into a vampire, but he thinks that is ethically wrong. This dilemma could make someone very lonely. “His fingers were ice-cold, like he’d been holding them in a snowdrift before class. But that wasn’t why I jerked my hand away so quickly. When he touched me, it stung my hand as if an electric current had passed through us.” Bella loves Edward and they have a strong connection. Bella feels close to him more than she does to her own family.

                   Being a vampire also symbolizes a different kind of family. A doctor and his wife, Carlisle and Esme, take in Edward.  Before they were vampires, they were not related. Carlisle and Esme also adopt three vampire couples. These vegetarian vampires have formed an entirely unique way to belong and to exterminate loneliness. This family eventually accepts Bella as one of their own. Even though Bella is not a vampire, she still needs love and a home to feel welcome in. Jasper, one of the shy vampire sons says, “’Bella,’ Jasper said. ‘You have nothing to worry about. You are completely safe here’” This loving family takes care of Bella. They treat her like she is special or meaningful. When Bella first meets Edwards parents, Esme says, “’that’s why I am so happy to see that he’s found you dear.’… ‘He’s been the odd one out for far too long; it’s hurt me to see him alone.’” What Esme is stating is that Edward hadn’t found the right girl yet partly because he is a vampire and partly because he’s had to keep his vampire nature a secret. When Edward finally meets Bella, his family is happy for him, even though Bella is a human.

                  In conclusion, Twilight contains a lot of symbolism. The bad weather symbolizes Bella’s inner life. When she first moves to Forks, she feels trapped and lonely. Twilight also speaks to the themes of love, family, and loneliness. If a vampire falls in love with a human, they are stuck in time and cannot form a relationship with them. This is very sad. The deeper meaning of Twilight is about putting your self in the shoes of Edward. Living your life, watching people die around you and knowing you will never die. But yet, you can create an alternative family with other vampires who you love.