/karen/

Twilight word vomit: Breaking Dawn

Monday, 13 April, 2009

So Breaking Dawn is based on The Merchant of Venice, but here, the resemblance is extremely scant. There is nothing in it about friendship, love, duty, the paying of debts or even (as some would argue) anti-Semitism; it's just that the book ends with a bit of anticlimax as disaster is averted:

Alice tore a page from The Merchant of Venice because the end of Breaking Dawn was going to be somewhat similar: bloodshed appears inevitable, doom approaches, and then the power is reversed and the game is won by some clever verbal strategies; no blood is shed, and the romantic pairings all have a happily ever after. (Source)

The book begins with Bella in the days just before her wedding. She recalls how she and Edward broke the news to Charlie (that was rather amusing) and her mother (less amusing; Renee is very understanding). It moves through Bella's wedding day (and Jacob showing up at the last minute to dance with her, only to be dragged away howling when he realises that Edward and Bella are going to try to consummate their marriage with Bella still human), to what Twilight fans have been waiting for: Edward and Bella's honeymoon. (Flanagan calls the series “a thousand-page treatise on the art of foreplay”.)

Flanagan points out that what makes Meyer unique is that she captures so well how young girls feel about their own sexuality. It struck me that one of the lovely things about the Twilight series is that Bella is ushered into each stage of womanhood (in this instance, a sexual relationship) in a very gentle fashion by someone who loves her and wants the best for her. (Not all of us are so lucky.) Edward's insistence on marriage, although initially resisted by Bella, soon becomes attractive to her. (It's basically what she wants, anyway—eternity with Edward by her side in an exclusive monogamous relationship; it's just she had trouble shaking the stigma that comes with getting married so young. Society thinks there's something wrong with you, and that young marriage is foolish; you ought to see the world and live your life first, or some such nonsense—as if life ends when you get married.) Bella's first time takes place in a beautiful but private location with the man she desires. Even though their first time has its problems, it's striking how much Bella enjoys it. (It's also good that her first time is not completely perfect; that would really give young girls wrong expectations ...) And Edward's perfect and gentlemanly self-control kicks in, so their subsequent times are better. This is sex according to God's design: one woman for one man for life in a one flesh relationship where there is no guilt and no shame. As I said before, Edward and Bella have the “romantic” marriage, so their relationship is all fireworks and passion. Their desire for one another is equal, which is rare (usually the man wants sex more than the woman). So I like that Meyer has presented a very positive view of sex and marriage, moving beyond the “happily ever after” of the wedding day into territory that usually doesn't get covered in much fiction these days: the state of being newlyweds.

Then come the catalyst for most of the plot of Breaking Dawn: Bella gets pregnant. What?! Edward is technically dead; how can she get pregnant? (For that matter, how can a human have sex with a vampire? If you believe Sunshine, sex with a vampire ends in death:

He was a vampire. I was a human. We weren't supposed to have any bonds between us, except straightforward generic ones of murderous antagonism and so on. And, speaking of kinky soap opera, no one ever had an affair with a vampire, not even in Blood Lore, which was always getting prosecuted for one thing or another. The reason why, when you were thirteen or fourteen, you outgrew your fascination with the idea that a vampire couldn't do you unless you let him is that you began to take in the fact that shortly after you'd said, “Come and get me big boy,” you died. (Robin McKinley, Sunshine, Berkeley Books, New York, 2003, p. 243.)

[Incidentally, there are a lot of similarities between Sunshine and the Twilight saga, and not just because they both involve vampires ... I wonder if the former influenced the latter. Sunshine is better though ...])

But anyway, Twilight is a different world and Meyer is reinventing vampire mythology. Bella gets pregnant, but her pregnancy is an odd sort of one because their baby is a vampire/human hybrid. Edward wants her to abort, but Bella refuses and gets Rosalie on her side. She persists with her pregnancy because she loves her baby—the product of her and Edward's love—even though it's killing her.

Here the narrative switches to Jacob's point of view. This is kind of odd because we're not used to looking through Jacob's eyes. I'm not sure why Meyer did that; it could have been because she couldn't convey the information any other way, or because she just imagined it that way and refused to change it for consistency's sake. In any case, Jacob tells us what happens from Bella and Edward's return home to the birth (with lots of werewolf politics thrown in for good measure ... I'm not going to bother recounting that). And of course there's still the unrequited love he feels for Bella ...

But despite Bella's quick and extremely painful pregnancy, Bella is ushered into motherhood is a similar gentle fashion as she was ushered into a sexual relationship—cared for and supported by people who love her and want the best for her. (I guess “gentle” is arguable because the birth results in her death and Edward's changing of her into a vampire at last, but let's not quibble.) What I mean is that she comes to terms with motherhood naturally. She doesn't fight it. She doesn't think, “Oh my goodness, I still have a lot of living left to do; I can't possibly have children now!” She embraces motherhood.

Of course, Renesmee (her daughter) makes it easy for her by developing at a fairly rapid pace. And the rest of the Cullens pitch in for feeding and childcare duties so Edward and Bella are spared the drama and sleeplessness of new parenthood (not that they sleep anyway ...) And the problem of Jacob the third wheel is solved when he imprints upon Renesmee (also very amusing). And Bella takes to vampire-hood as if she were born for it ...

(Aro says later, “In truth, young Bella, immortality does become you most extraordinarily ... It is as if you were designed for this life.”—Breaking Dawn, p. 696.)

Life after death

I think I said in my first post that the vampires are like the gods on earth. The metaphor isn't perfect because not all vampires are like the Cullens. What I find interesting is that Meyer is almost putting forward a case for vampirism as the afterlife—as heaven. Everything is better for Bella as a vampire. All her senses are sharper—her eyes:

The brilliant light overhead was still blinding-bright, and yet I could plainly see the glowing strands of the filaments inside the bulb. I could see each color of the rainbow in the white light, and, at the very edge of the spectrum, an eighth color I had no name for.

Behind the light, I could distinguish the individual grains in the dark wood ceiling above. In front of it, I could see the dust motes in the air, the sides the light touched, and the dark sides, distinct and separate. They spun like little planets, moving around each other in a celestial dance. (Breaking Dawn, Little Brown, New York, 2008, p. 387.)

—her tongue

I could taste the room around me—taste the lovely dust motes, the mix of the stagnant air mingling with the flow of slightly cooler air from the open door. Taste a lush whiff of silk. Taste a faint hint of something warm and desirable, something that should be moist, but wasn't ... (Breaking Dawn, p. 388)

—her ears:

The TV downstairs had been muted, and I heard someone—Rosalie?—shift her weight on the first floor.

I also heard a faint, thudding rhythm, with a voice shouting angrily to the beat. Rap music? I was mystified for a moment, and then the sound faded away like a car passing by with the windows rolled down.

With a start, I realized that this could be exactly right. Could I hear all the way to the freeway?

And so on.

It's like, in dying, Bella becomes truly alive. Like a radio, she suddenly becomes tuned to Edward's frequency. As a vampire, to her, he is no longer stone and cold; he is soft and warm, and she is stronger than he is. As a vampire, everything is more alive and more exciting—so much so, it's hard not to be distracted by it. As a vampire, Bella is no longer the clumsy adolescent, so uncoordinated, she's practically disabled; now, she is sleek, agile, fast and graceful.

Unsurprisingly, sex is also better in the “after life”:

I should have guessed, after a day like today, that it would be better.

I could really appreciate him now—could properly see every beautiful line of his perfect face, of his long, flawless body with my strong new eyes, every angle and every plane of him. I could taste his pure, vivid scent on my tongue and feel the unbelievable silkiness of his marble skin under my sensitive fingertips.

My skin was so sensitive under his hands too.

He was all new, a different person as our bodies tangled gracefully into one on the sand-pale floor. No caution, no restraint. No fear—especially not that. We could love together—both active participants now. Finally equals.

Like our kisses before, every touch was more than I was used to. So much of himself he'd been holding back. Necessary at that time, but I couldn't believe how much I'd been missing.

I tried to keep in mind that I was stronger than he was, but it was hard to focus on anything with sensations so intense, pulling my attention to a million different places in my body every second; if I hurt him, he didn't complain.

A very, very small part of my head considered the interesting conundrum presented in this situation. I was never going to get tired, and neither was he. We didn't have to catch our breath or rest or eat or even use the bathroom; we had no more mundane human needs. He had the most beautiful, perfect body in the world and I had him all to myself, and it didn't feel like I was ever going to find a point where I would think, Now I've had enough for one day. I was always going to want more. And the day was never going to end. So, in a situation, how did we ever stop?

It didn't other me at all that I had no answer. (Breaking Dawn, pp. 482-83)

Life is so much more than Bella could have ever imagined it; it's just that her old body did not have the capacity to take it in: “My old mind hadn't been capable of holding this much love. My old heart had not been strong enough to bear it.” (Breaking Dawn, p. 426).

It's interesting that Meyer's view of the afterlife is so ... worldly. It involves eternal life, but it's eternal youth, eternal beauty, physical perfection, the peak of human ability. It's about having fast cars, designer clothes and nice houses—wealth, possessions, leisure—especially leisure: all the time in the world to do whatever you wish. There are some echoes of the heaven of the Bible, but the crucial element is missing: fellowship with God and the family of his people forever and ever. Bella thinks she's found the happily ever after—

Edward had always thought that he belonged to the world of horror stories. Of course, I'd known he was dead wrong. It was obvious that he belonged here. In a fairy tale.

And now I was in the story with him. (Breaking Dawn, p. 479)

—the celestial marriage (which includes children) that surpasses time and space and mortality—but I can't help thinking that all this is a very human way to think. The eternal life Jesus promised is so much more than this.

(I realise I haven't dealt here with the other mentions of an afterlife for vampires—how Edward believes he's damned, how Carlisle believes that this could not be for such a one as Edward, how Edward believes for a second that Carlisle was right [at the end of New Moon]. It's an imperfect metaphor; I don't believe Meyer has a very firm grasp of her material, and prefers that the parallels remain fuzzy. I said in my first post that the divine does not figure in Twilight; that is maintained throughout the rest of the book. It seems to me that Meyer is a nominal Mormon; if she had more of a sense of God, surely the presence of some sort of divine being greater than the vampires would be more prominent in these books ...)

Superhuman

As a vampire, it's like Bella reaches her full potential. Unlike other vampire new-borns, her thoughts are not filled with bloodlust; she completely skips the teething period and launches into fully-fledged maturity. She discovers that her “‘superpower’ [is] no more than exceptional self-control ...” (Breaking Dawn, p. 466), and says of herself,

As a human, I'd never been best at anything. I was okay at dealing with Renée, but probably lots of people could have done better; Phil seemed to be holding his own. I was a good student, but never top of the class. Obviously, I could be counted out of anything athletic. Not artistic or musical, no particular talents to brag of. Nobody ever gave away a trophy for reading books. After eighteen years of mediocrity, I was pretty used to being average. I realized now that I'd long ago given up any aspirations of shining at anything. I just did the best with what I had, never quite fitting into my world.

So this was really different. I was amazing now—to them and to myself. It was like I had been born to be a vampire. The idea made me want to laugh, but it also made me want to sing. I had found my true place in the world, the place I fit, the place I shined. (Breaking Dawn, pp. 523-24.)

I really wasn't expecting that. It's quite an interesting choice for a superpower, and I think it shows some of Bella's maturity because, now being a wife, mother and vampire, she is no longer subject to the self-centred desires that dominated the earlier books—the desires that drove her obsession with Edward, her manipulation of her friends and her abominable behaviour with Jacob. I actually started to like Bella more and more in Breaking Dawn as she becomes a lot more other-person-centred—focusing outwards first on her daughter and then on the rest of the Cullens (her adopted “family”), Jacob and the werewolves, Charlie, René, Phil—everyone she has ever loved—and even the “good” vampires who come to stand with the Cullens when the Volturi arrive to destroy them. You can see it in the metaphor of her protective shield—how she eventually learns to manipulate it and project it beyond her own skin so that it will encompass and protect others.

At the end of Breaking Dawn, Meyer hits the note of “happily ever after”, with Bella and Edward, Renesmee and Jacob immortal, eternally young and rich, bound in relationships of love and harmony. And Bella has crossed the threshold from girl-dom to womanhood.

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