Jenica Christensen
USU 1010 English
Twilight
Once upon a time, in a music class far, far away, I listened to my teacher tell the horrific story of a heavy metal song with only one chord. One guitar riff, over and over again, the same three notes, pounded out in all their glory. It was a lovely chord. I’m certain it has been used in many masterpieces before and since. It was backed up by glorious drums, mind-numbing bass and the melodious shrieking of the vocal artists. Altogether, a piece of work that took hours of effort and mounds of money, and was successful all over the world. She called it: Deathbeams.
As I contemplate Twilight, (Stephenie Meyer,) this memory comes to mind. Deathbeams. I wonder how it became so popular, how so many grew to love it. Meyer’s story contains but one chord: the romance chord. This chord, like any other chord, contains three notes: physical beauty, chemistry, and passion. Drums play as Edward takes Bella to the meadow and shows her how he sparkles. Bass vibrates our souls as Bella begs Edward to change her into a vampire so she can be with him forever. The vocalists scream in all their glory as the adventure to rescue our damsel in distress unfolds.
The next step is to evaluate what the value is in each of these elements. Each of these things; drums, bass, and vocals, affects us in some way. One may give us chills up the spine, while another may give a feeling of power to those listening. The same standard, then, applies to our reading: Some events may leave us with feelings we couldn’t attain otherwise. The song, then, is widely successful for nothing else but its shock value, and the book is hardly different.
The dreams of young girls are fulfilled through Bella. The world teaches us that if by some lucky coincidence a girl meets a guy who will fulfill her every need and always treat her the way she deserves, putting her first in every choice in his life, then good on her. The world also teaches that these men do not exist in any way, shape, or form.
Both are true, and both are false.
There are men in the world who will treat women just the way they should, who will be selfless, and who will protect their woman with all the integrity of the dream man. There are enough of these for every woman who is willing to be a good partner for one. The disclaimer: they are never perfect. They will make mistakes, always, and Edward? He’s perfect. Never does he make a mistake, and never does he put himself before anyone else, even when Bella whines and complains at every bump in the road. This picture puts girls in a paradigm that pushes them to expect more from men than men know how to give. It tells girls that if a relationship doesn’t work, it is the man’s fault, because he didn’t accept her every shortcoming, when in actuality, men have as many faults as women do, and women have just as much need to accept these faults as men.
Twilight perverts this principle. It teaches love in the blind, ‘everlasting’ sense of the word, when in actuality, love in the blind sense does not last, even for a short time. Love is a mindset; love requires work from both parties. For a relationship to truly last forever, as the one between Bella and Edward attempts to exemplify, we require more than one chord. The shock value of love lasts only a moment before a person needs to experience it again, unless the relationship has a firm foundation.
At one point in the story, Edward tells Bella that her blood holds such a temptation for him that, at times, it’s all he can do to resist eating her. I suppose this is translated into deep desire, or something of the sort, and that is why it has an appeal to the audience, but I don’t think I would be all that inclined to fall in love with someone who wanted to eat me, especially one who pushes so hard for physical closeness.
At another time, Bella wakes to find Edward in her bedroom, watching her sleep. This scenario is translated into cute romance. This I don’t understand. Somehow, I think that if I woke up to find an immortal being with a thirst for my blood in my bedroom, watching me sleep, I would be the slightest bit concerned. Or... horrified.
Edward and Bella have enough intense, romantic, electric moments to feed an entire race of romantics, but their relationship has hardly any fun in it. If two people intend on spending their lives together, they must, of course, learn how to play. Twilight is so chock-full of ‘deep’, ‘meaningful’ moments that when you’re done reading, instead of being refreshed and invigorated, you are so emotionally spent that you want to take a long, refreshing nap. And when you wake up, your mind is no longer entwined in the exciting adventure of feelings that it was, and it becomes bored, wishing for more and more of the same, when, in reality, what your mind and heart needs to read about is the simple, everyday play that successful relationships experience. This leaves girls wishing for a relationship like the one between Edward and Bella, which relationship would be one composed of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, and nothing in between. Going home, a girl would collapse into bed, exhausted, and wake up in the morning hungry for more. A vicious cycle, really, which lends itself to the thought of drug use, which is, of course, not healthy, and would never in a decent world be related in any way, shape, or form to a marriage relationship.
They continue with this pattern of secrets and temptations until, at the end of the book, Bella is bitten by another vampire, and Edward is faced with a choice: let her become like him, or drink enough blood to retract the venom. Edward decides to drink the venom from Bella’s veins, and with great mental struggle and physical exertion, succeeds in restraining himself from consuming her completely. The moral: Love conquers all.
This is a message that is true, but incomplete. It is not ‘love’ by itself that conquers all, it’s time, patience, courage, faith... there’s so much more to it than a simple feeling, a simple passion. ‘Love’ does not equal personal commitment, struggle, pain. ‘Love’ itself, the feeling, does not give sufficient motivation to change your life, or, in Edwards’s case, resist temptations that are ingrained into your being. In order to fight the vampire inside of him, Edward would have had to go through immense spiritual, mental, and emotional battles, and had some deep passion fueling his actions besides his ‘love’ for Bella. Meyer doesn’t go into this. She writes only of the power of Edward’s ‘love’, and the fact that he abstained from human consumption in his early vampirehood. In order to have any true, lasting, healthy impact on young minds, Meyer needed to outline the internal struggle and the years of hardship it took Edward to come to the point he is in more than just a short explanation in story form.
In conclusion, I find Twilight unrealistic and senseless; an ode to the world of miserable supermodels and unhappy celebrities who flit from one relationship to the next with the air of a child in a candy store. As we know, when children leave candy stores, no matter how much candy has been consumed, they are miserable, cranky, and oftentimes being dragged out by a tired, and by now irritable mother who wishes she had taken her child anywhere but where they ended up. Twilight, though containing truths and exciting flavors, is a one-chord song, popular for its shock value, which brings no thought or growth to the mind of the consumer. Sorry, Stephanie. I will not waste my time again.
