Content Note: Rape Culture, VigilantismTwilight
Recap: Bella and Edward have left the nurse's office and are outside talking to Mike.Twilight, Chapter 5: Blood Type
"It's not bleeding anymore," [Mike] muttered. "Are you going back to class?"
"Are you kidding? I'd just have to turn around and come back."
"Yeah, I guess. . . . So are you going this weekend? To the beach?" While he spoke, he flashed another glare toward Edward, who was standing against the cluttered counter, motionless as a sculpture, staring off into space.
Mike, as you will all no doubt remember, is still angling to get into a romance with Bella. He's been stymied by her unwillingness to completely rearrange her plans at his request in order to attend a dance she has no reasonable hope of being able to participate in (due to her chronic falling), but he is still holding out hope by extending her an invitation to join him and the rest of their social group at the beach this weekend.
Bella is in a bit of a situation here. The invitation has been extended to the group at large, and not to her in particular as an obvious romantic gesture. If she turns Mike down, she risks looking anti-social and alienating herself from the group for refusing to spend time with them on the weekends. She's already seen that the school atmosphere hasn't been terribly deferential to the other "city kids", and she lacks the obvious beauty and wealth of the Cullens. If she doesn't want to be a total pariah in her new home, she is going to have to make an effort to spend time with her new school friends.
The problem here, though, is that while Mike extended the offer under the guise of a group invitation, he seems to consider the invitation to also be a romantic opportunity for him. If the offer was framed as a romantic invitation, Bella could politely turn Mike down (or come up with another whooops, out-of-town that day, what're the odds?) and hopefully Mike would finally end his doomed campaign for Bella's romantic interest. But the fact that Mike hasn't been clear and up-front about his intentions with his invitation means that Bella is in a situation: she sort of has to accept the invitation in order to maintain social ties in Forks, and is now trying to accept the invitation tactfully without encouraging Mike on the romance front. Awkward and uncomfortable.
I tried to sound as friendly as possible. "Sure, I said I was in."
"We're meeting at my dad's store, at ten." His eyes flickered to Edward again, wondering if he was giving out too much information. His body language made it clear that it wasn't an open invitation.
What's interesting to me, and frankly a little creepy, is how Mike is structuring his romantic campaign.
Now, don't get me wrong: I was a teenager once too, and I had my share of unrequited crushes. I fully understand crushing on someone who just isn't into you, and I'm not condemning that. But Mike isn't pining from afar, and he's not even going the earnest "but if I'm your Super Best Friend you'll like me then, right?" method of trying to woo an uninterested crush.
No, Mike's method of wooing so far has been almost entirely in direct and forceful opposition to Edward. He cast Meaningful Glances at Edward in Biology when he cornered Bella and demanded to know if she was going to ask him to the dance or not. He had a territorial dispute with Edward in the parking lot over who would escort Bella to the nurse's office, and was rude to Bella both during and after Edward's intervention, as though he were blaming her for being receptive to Edward. And now he's trying to isolate Bella from Edward for the weekend, by reminding her about her previous engagement to the beach and making it clear that Edward is not welcome to come along. I literally cannot separate Mike's "quest for Bella's attention" from Mike's "campaign to beat Edward to the punch" on the same, and Mike seems to have bought into the rather literal interpretation of the phrase "romantic conquest". This disturbs me.
When the chosen method of courtship towards a woman is to isolate her from any and all possible rivals, then the whole relationship is founded on a lot of Unfortunate Implications. The act of isolating a woman from others is a hostile act. Either the suitor doesn't trust the woman to make her own decisions or he doesn't want her to make the best decision for herself if it means not getting what he wants. Furthermore, Mike's overt rivalry with Edward eventually begins to paint a picture of jealousy and competition: a contest where Bella is a symbolic prize to be won and not a person in her own right.
These toxic relationship tactics make me extremely uneasy with the character of Mike, but it's worth pointing out -- from what I can see coming ahead -- that these same toxic tactics will be utilized by Edward once Jacob is introduced as a romantic rival. This leaves me with the uncomfortable impression that Edward doesn't actually disagree with Mike's behavior here, except in as much as it is presumptuous for Mike to try to assert dominance over Edward-freaking-Cullen.
And once I peer at the text in that light, I'm not sure that I can un-see it: I don't think Edward disapproves of what Mike is doing to Bella here. I think he finds it amusing, in a oh, tiny teenager, you don't know the first thing about real manipulation kind of way, but I don't think he actually disapproves. It's not the fact that he doesn't speak up here that bothers me -- I can't think of anything Edward can say in this conversation that would be constructive -- it's the fact that later when Bella will invite Edward to come to the beach, Edward will reply that they should "not push poor Mike any further this week."
When Edward addresses the issue at all, even if it's just a joke, he approaches the situation as a legitimate territorial dispute, albeit one that Edward will ultimately 'win'. By framing the situation this way, Edward and Mike have reduced Bella to a piece of property, rather than a person who has the right to make her own choice. This is not surprising to me; this is basic Rape Culture 101. No, what is surprising to me is that Edward should know this and -- according to his informed characterization -- he should be rejecting it as much as he possibly can.
Edward Cullen is a telepath. Edward Cullen uniquely knows the evil that lurks in men's hearts. He has used his talent extensively in the past to prey on rapists -- who he sees as a Special Kind of Evil -- as a hungry vigilante vampire. This one fact is meant to redeem him to the reader for years of mass murder, that he 'merely' murdered men who preyed on women, and that Edward's bloody crusade saved countless women. This is such an important character trait that it has been explicitly called out in several of the Twilight movies, and will be the turning point in this novel where Edward saves Bella and comes out to her as a telepath and a vampire. This is not simply an inconvenient character point that can be brushed aside on a whim.
And this is the point: if Edward has been hunting rapists and abusers as his bread-and-butter for a couple of decades of his vampire existence, he should be intimately familiar with how rapists think. He doesn't have the option to just turn his telepathy off -- if he's actively hunting for a rapist to eat, that means digging deeply in the minds of the people around him. Edward knows how rapists think and how they operate. And if he genuinely does care about rape as an issue and not just as a self-righteous guilt-free meal ticket, then he should be using that knowledge to modify his own behavior. Edward Cullen, as a character, should be one of the most educated-on-feminist-issues man on earth because he knows firsthand through brain-mining that 1 in 4 women are rape survivors and 1 in 20 men are rapists.
But he's not. He's right up there with Mike, cheerily practicing abusive relationship tactics and treating Bella like a piece of property he can control. This flabbergasts me.
Of course, there's the obvious possibility that S. Meyer may not have wanted to admit in a fantasy novel that time-honored romance novel techniques like "I love you so much, I won't allow anyone else to interact with you!" carry massive Rape Culture overtones. I guess the fairest thing I can say about that is that not every novel can carry every good message possible to the reader. But when you write your Designated Love Interest as an immortal telepathic vigilante vampire who specializes in hunting rapists and yet still fully buys into and participates in Rape Culture, you are leaving a massive gaping characterization hole for the reader to fill in as best they can.
The only way I can see to resolve this is to write Edward Cullen off as so vehemently non-introspective that he refuses to see that he is ultimately no different from the men he hunted in his youth. He used rape as a convenient issue to excuse his feeding frenzies, but ultimately he cares so little about rape that he refuses to examine his own behavior to see that the pattern of abuse -- stalking, confronting, gaslighting, and isolating -- is not only something he practices, it's something he condones in his romantic rivals.
85 comments:
It might also work with the idea that vampires are stuck at whatever mental age they were when they were turned, and are unable to grow and change. Human Edward believed "rapist" = "man who consciously and deliberately chooses to go around raping women", and never made the connection between abusive behavior and non-pre-meditated rape, therefore Vampire Edward only considers a man a rapist if he picks up a conscious intent to force a woman to have sex against her will. Mike can be reasonably assumed not to have such an intent, at least at this point, and would probably be horrified if someone suggested he'd end up raping Bella, even though he might very well wind up doing so on impulse later on.
I think this may be the most charitable interpretation of Edward here - that he can't grow as a person enough to learn about the relationship between rape and abusive behavior.
I think this may be the most charitable interpretation of Edward here - that he can't grow as a person enough to learn about the relationship between rape and abusive behavior.
True, but can we reconcile that with the apparent fact that his views on murder and vigilantism have evolved over time and circumstances?
I usually see it as vampires can't continue to develop and mature, though they can change their minds about specific things. Edward will always have the black-and-white hormone-ruled mentality of a teenager, never maturing in his opinions, but he can change his mind about what is evil and what is good (but can't admit to a middle ground).
At which point the biggest problem is that it makes the narrative a tragedy: Bella will forever be stuck as a judgmental, depressive, and short-sighted person, never growing into a mature woman, because she was short-sighted enough to miss the warning signs and go for the immediate satisfaction rather than waiting until later in life when she might have more to bring to the vampire table. She ought to have waited, gone to college, really figured out who she was before she threw away the chance to grow and change.
This looks like a textbook-perfect case of Jenkins Syndrome:
SMeyers set out to write a character who is a champion and defender of women, who turns a horrible curse into a force for justice in the world. What, in fact, comes out in the text is a dead ringer for an abusive, stalker, rapist, rape-culture-errday sort of guy (on top of being absolutely consistent in his douchey-ness.) So we know the authors' intent and we know the final product, but the question you (and most people) keep asking is 'how did she frak it all up so badly? is she really just clueless?'
My theory? Yes. Yes she is, when it comes to feminism and womens' issues and rape culture. She just doesn't have a single Gods-damned clue. Thus, like Jerry B. Jenkins, nationally-celebrated author of the cultural goldmine that is the Left Behind series, having no clue what things like 'justice' mean leads them to sing, but sing badly, and horribly, and grate on the ears of us normal people.
Characters cannot act upon mindsets that their authors are entirely unfamiliar with. If Edward cannot see what's wrong with Mike's behavior as a category, it is likely because as the above poster said, the author is just that clueless.
Just like it would be an extremely bad idea for me to write of the troubles of a black youth living through slave times, it appears to be a bad idea for Meyers to write about rapey villians. For they simply serve to show how rapey her supposed good guys are.
Honestly, the "Guilt-free meal" argument almost seems the most logical. He hunts rapists, yet supports the rape culture that generates and allows these people to act down to his own actions. He's nursing his own food supply, the clever jerk.
I'd argue that it's simply a writ-large version of the basic fact that behaviour from someone you find attractive is different from the same behaviour you find unattractive. For instance, getting into your body space and making a suggestive remark, from a desired partner, is titillating; from an undesired partner, it's unwelcome, and if they don't respond to your 'no' signals it becomes outright threatening.
The books' basic thesis seems to be that men are much alike in their treatment of women they find attractive, and the difference between Edward and the others is mostly that he's the one Bella wants. The way men treat their desired women is not, in real world terms, very good; I think you could tie into into the theory that some romantic fiction appeals precisely because it gives nice fictional reasons for real-world nasty behaviour. But from what I can see from the first book and the movies I've seen (which isn't all of them), male courtship behaviour almost always consists of intrusive pursuit and aggression towards rivals, followed, if successful in getting Bella's romantic interest, by a mixture of controlling behaviour and a lot of talk about the possibility of hurting her if the guy 'lost control' of his animal nature. In the movie, at least, Jacob seemed to become almost identical to Edward once Bella started dating him, and all courtship seems to be as much about cracking antlers with other stags as about relating to the doe...
In the movie, at least, Jacob seemed to become almost identical to Edward once Bella started dating him, and all courtship seems to be as much about cracking antlers with other stags as about relating to the doe...
This seems right to me, as well, though whether that's the *point* of the fantasy or not I confess to still being flummoxed. I wonder, though: what do you think (in your opinion) is the thing that sets Edward apart as the one Bella wants in a sea of identically aggressive and controlling suitors? I've been going the "otherkin route" where Bella is ultimately choosing what she wants to be, but I think a case could be made for Edward having the prettiest face or the bestest family or the wealthiest island-ownership. Is Edward different from the other suitors in a personality-based way or just in terms of what he brings to the table? (Thinking out loud here, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.)
I wonder, though: what do you think (in your opinion) is the thing that sets Edward apart as the one Bella wants in a sea of identically aggressive and controlling suitors?
I was talking to a teenage cousin who is a Twilight-fan earlier this week and all she could say was "But he's so pretty!" (occasionally interspersed with "but he's so tortured!") in response to all criticism. This conversation lasted far longer than it ought and was rather exhausting by the end of it. No doubt to her as well.
So by that logic, he's set apart because he's so pretty.
So by that logic, he's set apart because he's so pretty.
Interesting. This is a fair point, as women are rarely allowed in fiction to win THE HAWT GUY because we're supposed to be attracted to emotions and feelings and stuff first. And we're all familiar with the Sexy Wife, Schlubby Husband trope in sitcoms.
But it seemed to me that when I was doing my research for my Twilight Parents post waaaaaaaaay back in the day that there were some age-dividing lines where the Mothers (on average) seemed to prefer Edward and the Daughters (on average) seemed to prefer Jacob. Since in some ways the two boys seem to be very similar, I'm curious as to what prompts a preference.
'Course, for me, I'm "Team Jacob" (if I must pick between the two) because he seems (so far! but he's not in this book yet! so there's that!) slightly less toxic than Edward. But that is probably not the reasoning of a true Twilight fan.
I've had the "why Team Jacob" conversation before, and basically got the same response as I give when asked why I don't write fanfic for anything I find completely satisfactory -- because there's less to empathise with in Edward's supposed perfection than in Jacob's flawed characterisation.
Team Edward is about what the text is about -- a "perfect" relationship with Bella's choice of partner, with all the conflict coming from outside the relationship itself (that is, everything that tears them apart is because he's a vampire, or people try to kill them, or whatever, not because their feelings for each other are ever truly shaken, nor even seriously challenged.)
Jacob, in a lot of ways, is easier to fantasize about because he's more accessible, more sympathetic. He's closer to human. He's also the lover a reader can fantasize about in the classic First Fanfic plot of ninety percent of the writers I know -- most of us start out by imagining how awesome it would be if we could be a character in that world, and get to have a Great Romance and be best friends with all the main characters, and Jacob is positioned perfectly for that role. (Most of us do not ever bother writing this down, much less publishing it, but I run in a lot of fanfic-friendly circles, and if you get people drunk they will confess that they wrote it in their heads when they first started writing.) He's the guy readers would choose to be with, and he'd put Bella in less danger over-all than dating Edward does.
So that's one possible reasoning, at least if you accept that we root for the characters we'd most like to be able to write happy endings for.
I have put some thought into rape and Edith and Ben. I'm definitely not going to have a part of the story where a gang of random people try to rape Ben, not because he's male but because I'm not about to use rape as a throwaway plot point. But Edith, having been reading people's minds for decades, must have a lot of experience with rape. I think she probably generally handles it in combination with Jasmine.
Edith interrupts to prevent the rape from taking place, Jasmine hits the rapist with negative emotions. They repeat as necessary. Hopefully this causes the rapist to reevaluate things*, realize that what was being done was wrong, and decide never to do that again. Failing that Edith and Jasmine hope to create a Pavlovian aversion to rape within the would-be rapist.
-
* "Why do I feel so guilty? I was just going to... oh."
Is Edward different from the other suitors in a personality-based way or just in terms of what he brings to the table? (Thinking out loud here, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.)
Personal view? Well, it's actually difficult to answer usefully because I think we read books in such different ways.
From what I know of Meyer's process, Edward appeared in a dream and Jacob was initially added as a plot convenience, a source of information who became progressively more useful as a character as the series went on. Nothing wrong with that, of course. It does mean, though, that Edward is effectively destined to be the perfect love before Meyer ever set pen to paper or fingers to keyboard; all other suitors existed only to highlight the desirability of either Bella, by courting her, or Edward, by being less attractive than him.
And I think the book revolves around that. Edward isn't primarily a personality-driven character; he's driven by his narrative function. The same applies to Bella. And I think that's why their personalities are, to some extent, beside the point; Bella may be catty and negative, Edward insulting and demeaning, but the readers can, if they choose, ignore that and simply enjoy the drama of two characters having a grand romance without really caring about what sort of people they are.
The same doesn't apply to supporting characters in the same way. The more minor boys are also driven by narrative function; it's just that their function is limited to showing that Bella's attractive and providing padding in scenes where she views Edward from a distance. (Of course, characters in any books have narrative functions, but Twilight is extremely functional in how it deploys its characters.) So they act fairly similarly, because as long as they ask Bella out, their function is served, and there's no point furthered by distinguishing them that much.
Jacob, I think, occupies a slightly different position; he reads like a character who grew in the writing as Meyer saw more and more potential for storylines she could generate with him. I don't know if that's actually what happened, of course, but that's how he comes across: as a character who develops in the telling.
But I think he becomes similar to Edward when he becomes an almost-boyfriend because there's only one model of romance in Twilight. As long as he's not occupying Edward's role, he doesn't have to fulfill Edward's function, but because Twilight is a book that depends on two important premises - sex before marriage cannot happen, and a young man isn't attractive unless he's potentially dangerous - there really isn't much he can do once he's dating Bella except act like Edward. Edward's narrative function of destined one and only love shuts down all plotlines that might lead to a full relationship, and in the scenario set up - Jacob's a werewolf - how else are you going to keep them out of bed? To remain attractive - which he has to be, otherwise he'll block Bella's function of providing wish fulfillment - Jacob has to remain dangerous yet conscientious; that's just what 'attractive' means in this worldview. It's a book with a very definite 'type'.
So as I read books, I don't think I can really answer the question, because I don't think that personalities are what drives Twilight. They're fairly shadowy and sketched-in, and can be safely ignored - indeed, I think are happily ignored by many of the most devoted fans. Edward's different from the other suitors because he occupies a different place in the plot, and everything else is secondary to that.
there were some age-dividing lines where the Mothers (on average) seemed to prefer Edward and the Daughters (on average) seemed to prefer Jacob. Since in some ways the two boys seem to be very similar, I'm curious as to what prompts a preference.
My guess? The mothers are tired. They've had relationships with the normal guy. They've done the 'live the human life' experience. They've done 'stay connected to your family' and 'be part of your community, not above it' and 'have sex as part of a relationship, not as a mysterious prize.' Jacob offers a relationship in which Bella has to grow up, and mothers have done that.
Edward, on the other hand, offers an escape from adulthood. He makes the decisions so you don't have to. He provides the money so you never have to worry about bills. He takes your sexual safety seriously. He provides eternal youth and beauty, not wrinkles and stretch marks. He organises childcare. He's perfect ... and perfection is in short supply.
For girls, though, adult relationships are what's in short supply. The chance to grow up is appealing; they're in the middle of trying to do it. Someone who loves you and wants to be with you in a more real-world way can be hard to come by when you're a teenager. Arrogant, unattainable guys to fantasise about are ten-a-penny, but a nice, normal guy? Those don't usually come along until you're in your twenties at the youngest. Jacob, in his imperfections, offers an escape from the constraints of adolescent perfectionism.
I'd say the symbolic difference between Edward and Jacob is that Edward represents 'true love' and Jacob represents 'real love'. Edward is status and perfection and freedom from responsibility; Jacob is community and humanity and an active share of responsibility. Wish fulfillment fantasies tend to be about what we haven't got.
From what I know of Meyer's process, Edward appeared in a dream and Jacob was initially added as a plot convenience, a source of information who became progressively more useful as a character as the series went on.
This is my understanding too, from the interviews in the complete illustrated guide.
I'm so glad you replied, though, because I love what you just wrote about Edward/Jacob relationships. I grok Team Jacob (and Fluffy_goddess, that is a point of genius there that he is perfectly positioned for fan-ficcing, all one has to do is get rid of the Reneesmee imprint which is already problematic and therefore easy to excise), but it's nice to see an explanation for why Edward is appealing that DOESN'T boil down to "because all girls want stalkers".
Edward is status and perfection and freedom from responsibility; Jacob is community and humanity and an active share of responsibility. Wish fulfillment fantasies tend to be about what we haven't got.
Possibly there's also an element of "I can make it work with anyone as long as they're trying". One thing that my marriage has made me feel is that TRUE LOVE is somewhat less important for me than just getting out of bed every morning and doing my best to be polite and civil and having someone else doing the same in return. If a woman is convinced that she can make it work equally well with Devoted Edward and Adoring Jacob, and one of those guys comes with money and status and perfection and the other one comes with relatives who can accidentally hurt or kill you if they "wolf out" at the wrong moment, then I guess the choice is a little easier to make...?
I have another possible interpretation for Edward v. Mike in this sequence, but it's not charitable to anybody.
I suspect Ed's okay with the possessive and controlling tactics precisely because he's been hunting people whose mindset he becomes intimately familiar with - a little bit of "the abyss staring back", but I think Edward ultimately is okay with Mike's teenage tactics, and his own tactics, because he believes they are right.
There's plenty of indication to me that Edward believes in the very core of his being that he is superior to humans. He doesn't have to treat anyone as an equal because he's a freaking vampire, and that includes Bella. When you think that you're superior, you believe that you know best for everyone around you, which makes for all sorts of advice and behavior, usually unwarranted, where you try to steer, force, or otherwise get people to do what's best for them, even if they don't believe that's true.
So I think Edward approves of Mike's methods, even if he chuckles at Mike's obvious (to him) inability to force anyone to do his bidding. "Maybe in another lifetime, kid." So when Edward turns it on Bella, he succeeds (and she likes it because he succeeds - Bella can already see the holes in the fantasy of Mike controlling her) because of what he is.
So why would Edward hunt rapists? Because they're failures. And inferior failures can't be tolerated, lest they give the superior beings and their methods a bad name. Too much investigation into the presence and methods of the inferior emulators might expose the vampires who use the same tactics much more successfully.
So, yeah, Ed's different, because he's the one being in the Twilight-verse that can successfully use those Rape Culture tactics to control and conquer - everyone else is a pale or dark-skinned imitation thereof. (Did I cross all the way into that Darkest Sketch territory again?)
TW: Discussion of rape culture and general references to rape
And this is the point: if Edward has been hunting rapists and abusers as his bread-and-butter for a couple of decades of his vampire existence, he should be intimately familiar with how rapists think. He doesn't have the option to just turn his telepathy off -- if he's actively hunting for a rapist to eat, that means digging deeply in the minds of the people around him. Edward knows how rapists think and how they operate. And if he genuinely does care about rape as an issue and not just as a self-righteous guilt-free meal ticket, then he should be using that knowledge to modify his own behavior. Edward Cullen, as a character, should be one of the most educated-on-feminist-issues man on earth because he knows firsthand through brain-mining that 1 in 4 women are rape survivors and 1 in 20 men are rapists.
That contradiction is valid in the real world, but the Twilight Universe is a product of rape culture. Nathaniel above is on the right track, but I don't think it's necessary to actually say anything about the view of S. Meyer[1].
The twilightverse is fictional. Unlike real life where rape culture is a product of anti-feminist thought, patriarchy, devaluation of women, and demonization of unapproved sex, it's assumed as a fictional premise of the universe. Edward doesn't have to care that his behaviour, in objective terms, is creepy, abusive, and rape-y; by definition rape in Twilight is something that happens violently, in a dark alley. Acquaintance rape simply doesn't exist in this universe by author fiat, so the Creepy Implications of Mike and Edward treating Bella as a piece of property to fight over simply don't apply.
With Edward eating rapists, this basis rape culture comes in on the flipside; since normal people don't rape, rapists are therefore the Evil Psychopath Monsters that rape culture imagines them to be. Not only is Edward doing a good and noble deed for which he should be getting cookies, it's also "not really murder" since Evil Psychopath Monsters aren't really human.
As for what this means, I don't think there's too much conclusion to be drawn. Twilight clearly isn't a feminist work, and it's as much a product of the patriarchal culture as anything else. It's unfortunate that Twilight is helping to reinforce notions of rape culture in the popular consciousness, but aside from the popularity there's no unique fail here. (In fact, the popularity can be a good staring point for discussions that challenge rape culture, like this blog. So... go us?)
[1] -- Unlike LaHaye and Jenkins, so far as I know Meyer isn't using her fame as a starting point for poltiical or social lobbying. We can justly speculate that LaHaye and Jenkins believe the world-view that Left Behind espouses since they confirm it in the remainder of their activities, but we cannot safely do the same for Meyer.
Silver Adept's comment (and a history with cheap romance novels and period dramas) gets me thinking of Edward less as a modern-day protagonist as an old-fashioned one. Which, hey, wasn't he supposedly born pre-WWI? So I'll let myself run with that for a minute.
Edward is, in a lot of ways, the ultimate alpha in a highly hierarchical novel, even more than Carlisle. Carlisle *gave* him that status, when he turned him into a vampire, gave him wealth, gave him education, etc. Basically, he's The Adopted Heir of the Local Lord: he's got all the powers and priviledges of a not-much-post-feudal-Lord, but he wasn't born to the nobility, so he ends up marrying outside of it as well. Carlisle's less of an alpha because he's not the protagonist -- if this were actually Pride and Prejudice, he'd be Lady Catherine or one of her contemporaries.
Since the vampires aren't open about what they are, all this power has to be exercised more subtly, but it does sort of explain why Edward is so supremely unthreatened by anyone else. (Jacob, as a romantic rival, is a bit like positing Wickham as a romantic rival to Darcy -- kind of a stretch, if you've been paying attention while you read. And the human rivals are basically multiple Mr. Collins stand-ins.) It also explains how he can simultaneously view rapists as Evil Prey and rape-culture as acceptable: because as the guy on the top of the heap, it's his job to make those calls. He's not technically a magistrate, but he does mete out justice where *he* sees wrongdoing. So he can condemn men who attack women he deems worthy of protection, whilst seeing nothing wrong with other men putting women in uncomfortable and threatening situations, because he knows better than they do how it's all going to turn out. His telepathy lets him sort out the "real" criminals from those who just act like criminals, and his position of power means he gets to act on his own judgement.
And now I'm picturing him in one of those awful white-powdered wigs with very severe English barristers' robes. Gah. Brain. Breaking....
And now I'm picturing him in one of those awful white-powdered wigs
Hey, my dad wore one of those to work! Leave them alone! :-(
But I love love love the idea that if there is an "age divide" between the Teams, the difference is not the age so much as the relative Haves and Have Nots of the Teams.
I think it's going to have variations, of course. For instance: I'm basically on Team These Books Are An Interesting Cultural Phenomenon, but if I had to pick a character I preferred, I'd go for Jacob. (As a character rather than as a mate for Bella, because identifying with Bella isn't something I do as a reader.) And I'm a married mother. I'm in a happy relationship with a nice man, and because I have a child I'm definitely tired.
So you'd think Edward would appeal to me. And in a way, he does - or at least, the stuff he can offer appeals. Eternal youth and beauty and no money worries ever again? Yes please. Not having to do the thinking? Well, yes please some of the time. But I just couldn't enjoy a man's company if he was like Edward, which to me is the most important thing in a relationship, so Edward himself is out. The flip side of his masterful nature is that he really doesn't respect Bella's intelligence, and when you spend a lot of your days stacking blocks and pushing swings and reciting The Gruffalo for the millionth time, then however much you love your child and however clever your child is (and my son is both loveable and bright, no complaints about him there), you're necessarily relating on an intellectual level that you yourself outgrew many years ago. It's not the kid's fault, just one of those things, and it's interesting in its own way - fascinating, sometimes - but your intelligence is mostly directed towards helping somebody else develop their intelligence. So to me, Edward's lack of interest in Bella's brain is a serious off-puttant because while youth, beauty and money are things I could do with more of, lack of intellectual respect is not something I could survive less of.*
I don't want to suggest that which character people prefer is always going to be dictated by what their life could do with more of, because doubtless there's more to it than that. It's probably one among several elements.
*I should state, in case I sound like there's a lack of intellectual respect in my life that my husband doesn't fulfill, that my husband does indeed give me intellectual respect. But he works very hard and has a long commute and I don't see him nearly as much as I want to.
This makes a lot of sense. As an aside, I'm always very grateful when you share parenting stories like this, as it's something that we often don't see in our baby-saturated media over here -- I think a lot of people would feel unsafe saying this about intellectual stimulation because they'd be afraid it sounds like "I don't love my baby" or some such. There's that "perfect mother" pressure you've talked about.
It also explains how he can simultaneously view rapists as Evil Prey and rape-culture as acceptable: because as the guy on the top of the heap, it's his job to make those calls.
Judge-Jury-and-Executioner syndrome? Makes sense, but if so then he's vastly hypocritical. (Shocker!)
Jacob’s potential healthiness is a very, very harsh juxtaposition to Edward’s realistic unhealthiness.
I love this sentence. Do you think (as I've seen some people argue) that's why Jacob turns so toxic later in the books with th forced kiss? That there was a bit of in-text backlash against the Jacob popularity?
*There's plenty of indication to me that Edward believes in the very core of his being that he is superior to humans.*
Meyer has come right out and SAID that in an interview, something along the lines of "I'm not anti-feminist, I'm anti-HUMAN" (should be easy enough to find the exact phrase). So we can take all that vampire smugness at face value. They ARE the splendid sparkly beings who matter, and the best a pathetic specimen like Bella can hope for is to join him in the occasional snicker at the Jessicas and Mikes and school nurses of the world.
In her human state, anyway.
This struck me: **by definition rape in Twilight is something that happens violently, in a dark alley. Acquaintance rape simply doesn't exist in this universe by author fiat.**
Absolutely, yes.
I think Meyer has no idea that Mike's behavior is stalky and rapey. And although Anna posits some good reasons for Bella's continuing evasiveness about telling Mike to cool his jets, I don't think they are Meyer's reasons. Rape culture permeates all of the scenes of Mike cornering Bella and trying to guilt or pressure her into being his girlfriend, and rape culture is the reason Bella placates his hostility with indirection and little white lies.
IMO, Meyer is BOTH anti-feminist AND anti-human.
The "poor Mikes" (I think it's said twice in this chapter) put me over the edge for this reason. Again the bedrock assumption that Mike's thwarted desires are to be coddled and treated with sympathy. Poor Mike! Wanted possession and control of a woman and had it wrested away from him by a bigger fish! Well, the least Bella can do to make up for his hurt feelings is accept, and offer, a few more invitations, so the signals she is giving will be mixed and ambiguous.
Her deference is an Interesting contrast to the inner snarking that is Bella's response to Jessica's romantic disappointments. Does Bella ever murmur "Poor Jessica?" But Jessica, as we've seen, is among the People Who Don't Matter. Mike is in there too, but male privilege allows him to matter just a little bit more.
I think a lot of people would feel unsafe saying this about intellectual stimulation because they'd be afraid it sounds like "I don't love my baby" or some such.
Well, I felt I had to put in a lot of provisos - not because strangers would judge my parenting, because if people are going to do that they'll do it no matter what I say - but because I wouldn't want my son to look me up on the Internet ten years from now and get his feelings hurt. So I should stress that he's actually a very interesting little guy, and I'm pretty sure he's intelligent too. Once he gets chatting I'm really looking forward to hearing what he has to say. It's just that there are certain forms of brainpower I enjoy using that are not required in parenting a toddler, and I feel happier if I have some other outlets for them.
--
Meyer has come right out and SAID that in an interview, something along the lines of "I'm not anti-feminist, I'm anti-HUMAN" (should be easy enough to find the exact phrase). So we can take all that vampire smugness at face value. They ARE the splendid sparkly beings who matter, and the best a pathetic specimen like Bella can hope for is to join him in the occasional snicker at the Jessicas and Mikes and school nurses of the world.
I think I read that comment, but I have to say that in my view it gets over-interpreted. She was saying it in response to the allegation that she was anti-woman because Bella is physically weak compared with the vampires; 'anti-human' was perhaps not the best way of putting it, but she really seemed to be saying 'Bella's physically weak because she's human, not because she's female'. If I remember right, she was saying that she found Buffy-type heroines frustrating because they excluded ordinary girls who weren't like that; she wanted to tell a story in which you could be the heroine even if you were physically unremarkable.
Which is fair enough in itself. I think Bella comes across as unrealistic just as much as Buffy, but in different ways; as a power fantasy, Buffy is largely about active power - you decide what needs to happen and then you make it happen - while Bella is about passive power - you don't have to do much but you get what you want anyway. Different strokes, and I think that it's hard to claim that there are no feminist issues with a story that's all to do with the female character having passive power and the active power resting almost exclusively in male hands - and I can certainly hear Betty Friedan talking about the political implications of girls in the confined 50s being unable to identify with heroines who were too powerful because their own lives and socialisation required them to consider this something they couldn't be ... but when it comes to saying 'anti-human', to me it read mostly like she did something I do sometimes, which is overstate or oversimplify a point in the name of a good epigram. That often bites you on the bum, and I think it's happened with 'anti-human' a lot.
I agree wholeheartedly that Twilight is anti-human, and I think that is one of the reasons I react so strongly to it.
Back when I was an undergrad, I took a course on classical witchcraft, meaning that I studied how accusations of witchcraft worked in various societies before the middle ages. Long story short, classical witches (not modern paganism) were held up as a sort of negative image to contrast yourself against. This image varied from culture to culture, but it was always an ascribed status as opposed to an earned one. Vampirism was similar, and was sort of a negative Christ: undying as opposed to eternal life, preying on the blood of the innocent instead of shedding blood to protect it, etc. It makes me wonder at SMeyer's belief in her own god if she has created vampires that way. Yet she has her humans and her vampires act so much alike. There's virtually no contrast between the two. She wants her vampires to be better people, but they aren't. Just confused.
It makes me wonder at SMeyer's belief in her own god if she has created vampires that way. Yet she has her humans and her vampires act so much alike.
I don't think you can necessarily conclude that vampires are a negative Christ in her world, though; folk culture moves on. We always have boogeymen, but the form they take changes, and I think vampire-as-Other passed through a kind of acculturation: we begin with the vampire as foreigner, feudalist, anti-technology, sexual predator in Dracula, and then as sexuality gets more openly considered a good thing the sexuality gets foregrounded and the anti-self elements start to fade away, until we have Meyer treating 'vampire' as more or less an indication of 'ultimate alpha male.'
After all, if we're going to apply the Renaissance standard of witchcraft to Meyer, we'll also have to acknowledge that she's far from alone: 'Vampire Romance' is a whole subgenre with many authors and many readers. I don't think it's fair to question one individual's faith when that individual just happens to be an unusually successful example of a fairly common trend.
I think it says a lot more about cultural trends than about Meyer in particular. The progression from monster to anti-hero to covert-prestige hero is a fairly straightforward one that can often been seen in horror stories, for a simple reason: the more familiar something is, the less frightening it becomes. Vampires have been around for well over a century in pop culture, which in pop culture terms is an extremely long time; it's all but impossible that any concept could remain symbolic of the ultimate Other when it's become that widespread.
I just think that if you look at the surrounding culture, there's nothing particularly unusual about what Meyer's doing. We have different witch hunts now and the vampire has normalised.
I don't think you can necessarily conclude that vampires are a negative Christ in her world, though
Indeed, I think I've seen it argued (and very coherently so) that Edward = Joseph Smith and Carlisle = Jesus...
I expressed myself poorly right there, I apologize. I didn't mean to say that her faith was less than genuine, but that it felt odd to me that she had taken what was traditionally an evil figure and making it into an angelic/redeeming one. Even as vampires have become more popular, this still seems odd to me. Most vampire works that I'm familiar with (though I'm hardly familiar with all) seem to have the vampire brought up to a human level of morality, redeemed through the power of love for a human. It seems the reverse here. Angel, Blade, even Spike, come to being human as a state of grace instead of the other way around. Twilight as the reverse: Bella is redeemed by becoming a vampire. The evil vampires in Twilight all seem to be failures because they aren't Carlisle's children- not because they are evil.
I'm still fumbling around the edges of this idea, and I apologize for implying that her faith was less. I know that she has said she did not want to ruin her image of the vampires by doing any research, but I'm still stuck on this point. >_<
Ah, that's an interesting point. Though I have seen Meyer say that she refused to watch Buffy, Angel, etc. when she was writing the book and that she stayed away from vampire legends as much as possible because she wanted to do her own reinterpretation, so it's questionable how much she knew about traditional vampires.
The Twilight vampires are really almost more like angels (to me) except for the blood thirst thing.
I've been trying to understand why this story causes such a painful reaction to me. I saw the feminism fail, missed the race fail (but, um, her Mystical Native American Legends bugged me no end) and was bored to tears with Bella and Edward. When Kit brought up "anti-human" that got me thinking. Most vampire stories I like, am familiar with, seem to affirm being human. Blade, while he knew he needed the strength of being a vampire to continue his hunt, still valued his human half. Hellsing had Alucard saying "Only a man can kill a monster." Angel and Spike had souls and preferred to have those souls instead of reverting back to an amoral existence. While humans could be bastards, it was still better to have that choice of being one or not. Vampire Hunter D seems to have similar themes. The kindest character in Underworld is Michael and his humanity. (And I'm a bit annoyed I have no female examples, here.) If you take the Claymores as equivalent to dhampires, you have people who cling to their humanity as much as possible even if it is a losing proposition. Reading a story where the main character wants nothing to do with being alive, being human, makes me swear.
I agree with the vampires-as-angels, especially given that demons and angels could be considered the same species. The blood thirst exists as temptation towards evil, but it can be overcome without interacting with the human race. There's nothing redeeming about humanity. People are only food, camouflage, or a source of income.
Sorry, wanted to rant for a bit. Stopping now.
Sorry!
Most vampire stories I like, am familiar with, seem to affirm being human.
I'd tie this to another Noughties trend, actually: in a lot of pop culture, traditional villains started replacing traditional heroes. The extrovert frat boys started replacing the Final Girls; TV shows and book series about the Beautiful People On Campus became popular ... I'm too tired to remember other examples now, but basically rather a lot of Noughties pulp took forms that had traditionally validated the pure in heart and started using them to value the outwardly glamorous instead. Even things like 300 are about winners winning rather than losers winning; being a member of the inner clique started to be treated as desirable rather than a moral failing.
I'm taking no political sides on that, as you doubtless have nice and nasty people in any given group, but I think it did produce rather a lot of mass-market media that was artistically a little bit odd because it had taken the form from one set of values and the content from another.
And I think Twilight is an example of that. The Beautiful People On Campus retain the traditionally 'villainous' attribute of vampirism, but it's reduced to a kind of beauty with no genuine moral failings.
I should note that I'm not saying Meyer did any of this deliberately; I expect she'd be about as aware of pop culture trends as any average person would be - which is to say, you absorb by osmosis but can't necessarily place things precisely - and she may not have been reacting to anything in particular. But I think you can say, at least, that she and other writers in the Noughties participated in a kind of literary convergent evolution where characters whose privilege had previously been an obstacle for the underdogs to overcome started becoming characters whose privilege was a sign of higher status that the books/films didn't question.
If there's a traditional vampire motif there, it's not vampire as devil, it's vampire as aristocrat. Aristocracy became fashionable in the Noughties.
IMO this is yet another textual in-joke and a sign that Bella (who thinks she's entering Purgatory when she moves to Forks) walks onto the stage already "saved" unbeknownst even to hers
So she's like Buck and Chloe who are virginal despite having no in-text reason to be so because the audience wouldn't accept them otherwise? Interesting.
The book is also anti human in the sense that vampires represent people who are shiningly(and lets be honest, palely) perfect, free from gushy, mooshy, gross human bodily functions and the indignity of growing old and dying. Which ties into a lot of religious thought about how awesome it would be to transcend our messy human bodies, and how incredible it will be to die, and be free in heaven of all those things.
Jesus may have been a man in such a view, but he certainly wouldn't have an urge to do such an inescapably animalistic thing as mate. Jury is still out as to whether he ever farted.
And I thought I was in Dark territory - @Amarie/@Kit Whitfield/@bekabot, you've become an Unholy Triumvirate of Dark Storytelling. All I did was speculate that Forks is Stepford West, where everything is carefully scripted to make sure that the women have no power and the men can do anything they want. You, however, all suggest that the very land, context, and Fate Herself is set against Isabella Swan to ensure that not only can she not deviate from the path that has been laid out for her (and possibly foretold by Alice), but that the path itself is hidden from her eyes so that she can't even try to fight it if she wants to. What kind of grand conspiracy is at work in Forks that even the coincidences break against free will? What kind of Dark Gods did the ancestors of Forks sacrifice to to obtain this kind of power?
And how did they manage to call their errant daughter home after so much time in Arizona...?
Given the gender dynamics of this work, I very much suspect that Fate is a guy.
What kind of grand conspiracy is at work in Forks that even the coincidences break against free will? What kind of Dark Gods did the ancestors of Forks sacrifice to to obtain this kind of power?
That's a different way of reading. Saying that things happen the way they do because it's narratively or thematically necessary is looking at the book as a work of artifice; grand conspiracies in Forks are looking at it as if it's a historical document. But really all novels have things happen because they're narratively necessary; Twilight just stands out because it's not as skilled at celare artem as many other books, and because it's dealing with a set of values that are unusually difficult to square with its supposedly modern context and tone.
It's not really about a darker interpretation; it's just a different literary approach.
Similarly there is no Forks except when we are reading the book or remembering reading the book.
Well, there is ... but not the Forks of the Twilight books. I understand the real one is doing jolly well out of tourism these days. I just hope the Quileute people are getting their share. :-)
Unfortunately, it's my understanding that they are not. :(
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/opinion/08riley.html
I thought Silver Adept was saying, though please correct me if I'm wrong, that from a 100% in-text perspective that zie was using, authorial fiat LOOKS like Lovecraftian control. I may have misunderstood, but I thought we were just approaching the text from different directions.
That's what I thought too. But if we're going that rule then it's hardly fair to single Twilight out; every book is controlled by its author, after all!
--
For myself, I tend to do both in-text and out-text, but of course the problem with out text is the whole Death of the Author issue........
Well, the Author isn't officially Dead. The Death of the Author contention is just that, a contention. It's just one of a number of different literary approaches, or even one of a number of competing literary theories - and in academic terms, a pretty old one. The essay wasn't a coroner's report; it was a critical manifesto. In a pluralistic field - and if the arts aren't pluralistic, what fun is life? - many manifestos can co-exist.
You can do a Death-of-the-Author style analysis, of course - it's basically the line anyone takes when they decide to deal exclusively with effect and rule out any consideration of cause - but it doesn't mean that no one can bring the author up. Distinguished critics like John Carey write whole books taking a biographical-historical viewpoint towards an author's work.
In a way, the whole reason the Death of the Author was written was because there's such a natural tendency in people to consider authorial intentions as crucial to understanding the work. Death of the Author is a suitably dramatic and extreme way of saying, basically, 'You know that they we feel we ought to do? Well, we don't actually have to.'
And in those terms, it's also a highly political piece. Consider Barthes' conclusion:
Classic criticism has never paid any attention to the reader; for it, the writer is the only person in literature. We are now beginning to let ourselves be fooled no longer by the arrogant antiphrastical recriminations of good society in favour of the very thing it sets aside, ignores, smothers, or destroys; we know that to give writing its future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.
Death of the Author is an act of rebellion against an orthodoxy; establishing it as a new orthodoxy is doing its rebellious spirit no justice.
(It's also worthwhile, in my opinion, to question its terms. If one excludes Barthes as the author of Death of the Author, then yes, it's easier to treat it as an orthodoxy. But if one doesn't consider the author dead, I, for one, have a slightly raised eyebrow about what the author of Death of the Author was trying to accomplish. A massively influential critic, and the critical school he influenced has encouraged a kind of academia where critics often try to appropriate the status of artists. If the author's dead, then one doesn't have to honour their shade and can gather kudos as ye may. But since Barthes doesn't seem to be calling for his own critical death in considering this essay, I have to say I find it a little disingenuous. There is, to say the least, a lot for critics to gain in terms of status if authors can be dismissed so thoroughly.)
Which is a roundabout way of saying that just because Roland Barthes said the Author was Dead, we don't have to take his word for it. He was playing academics, and that's not how academics is played: academics duel as much as they collaborate, and we're quite free to challenge him if we choose. And even if we don't feel up to pens at dawn, there's a comfortable middle ground between saying nothing except 'The author says this' and never mentioning the author at all, and a reasonable amount of common sense can navigate it fairly well.
Further to Kit (and yes, this is a flourishing and dynamic area of academic controversy).....there is a fairly strong stench of elitism about much of the "author is dead" literature. The authors is placed over there (in the corner gathering dust,) the readers "the common unwashed folk" bring their naive readings to the text and then the mighty critic weighs in.
I personally prefer a more Hallsina approach -- one that credits both authors and readers with more "more complicated than that." The approach I have used in my own work is very much out of the dominant / negotiated / oppositional theory of reader response. Take for example the way in which gays and lesbians have been able to "reread" movies from the 30s and 40s so as to make room for themselves in the text. Such readings do not make the argument that the screenwriters/producers always consciously chose to make films that could be received ambiguously (although we have evidence that some, in particular instances, did.) Oppositional / negotiated readings can easily acknowledge that the author probably intended one particular thing, because that author was embedded in their particular cultural moment the effect of that intent varies by the cultural moment of the reader and that the reader can choose to interpret the text in a way that the reader knows goes against the intent of the author.
So, I have every reason to believe that James Fenimore Cooper intended Last of the Mohicans to be read in a particular way. I can chose to read Mohicans as Cooper wrote it, I can chose to read it with a consciousness of Cooper cultural moment and I can choose to read it from the cultural moment of different filmed adaptations over the years. None of those choices require that the "author be dead."
I would argue, however, that is acting as if "the author is dead" I miss a wealth of what the author was attempting to do. I can enjoy The Trojan Women but to read/see that play not knowing that it was written and produced during the Peloponnesian War after the Athenian capture of the island of Melos is to deny myself a chance to have a conversation with Euripedes.
That's what I thought too. But if we're going that rule then it's hardly fair to single Twilight out; every book is controlled by its author, after all!
I think you're overgeneralizing somewhat. On the other hand, there's nothing in what I'm about to say that you don't already know, so at the end of this post you're probably no more likely to think you're overgeneralizing than you are right now. Anyway, from my perspective it seems like that's going beyond what Silver was talking about.
Every book has an author, but not every book has an author noticeably pushing the characters around.
A lot of works take a more ars adeo latet arte sua approach so that the work of the author is hidden behind the work itself. While it is often true that things happen because the narrative requires it or because the author wanted it that way, and even when things go in ways the author didn't expect the author is still in control because they can choose what of what they think goes on the page, it is also often true that there are perfectly convincing in universe explanations for the way things are.
Character X may do Y because that was X's function in the narrative, but often times in a well crafted book the reason that X did Y can be explained without ever looking to out of story explanations. The answer to, "Why did X do Y?" can be given just by looking at the story, the setting, the characters, and in general the things that we would use to evaluate cause and effect if the story were a a description of actual events rather than a work of fiction. (Of course authors do play a sizable role in non-fiction too, but hopefully everyone knows what I mean.)
It's only when the most convincing explanations are all of the form, "The author was trying to..." that it really becomes a case of seeming like Lovecraftian control because we can't come up with equally convincing reasons that don't involve an outside higher power railroading the characters.
So would it be fair to characterize this as the Miracle Max approach, where there's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead?
I'm feeling like I've radically misunderstood the Dead Author Manifesto. I thought it was more about introducing material after that fact: Bradbury doesn't get to definitively declare what Fahrenheit 451 is, Rowling doesn't get to unilaterally define Dumbledore's orientation in outside interviews, etc. I thought that stuff could be considered, but it was about closing canon off: what's in the text is in the text, and what the author claims is worth considering, but ultimately not definitive without textual support.
I'm feeling like I've radically misunderstood the Dead Author Manifesto. I thought it was more about introducing material after that fact
Not initially (or indeed in much of my reading.) To use an example -- many people said of Lord of the Rings that it was (on some level) ABOUT World War One. And Tolkien said, "no, my experiences in the war brought verisimilitude and reality to parts of the writing, but that was not what it was ABOUT" (and then usually went on to discuss Catholic concepts of theology.) Other people who, quite literally, tell Tolkien that HE WAS WRONG. They didn't say that his own experiences were colouring his writing or that the psychological impact of the war overshadowed his work.
They told him that he was WRONG and that he had no more "authority" over the text that the casual reader who had decided what it was "really about."
It's only when the most convincing explanations are all of the form, "The author was trying to..." that it really becomes a case of seeming like Lovecraftian control because we can't come up with equally convincing reasons that don't involve an outside higher power railroading the characters.
Oh, I quite agree that some authors conceal the strings better than others. I was just saying that it doesn't seem Lovecraftian to me because I'm coming at it from a different reading tradition, and hence that saying I and others 'suggest that the very land, context, and Fate Herself is set against Isabella Swan' wasn't correct; saying that I suggested that was to say that I, at least, was interpreting it from a completely different reading perspective than the one I was actually employing.
Basically it struck me that Silver Adept's post was saying 'So you're saying X!'; I was saying, 'No I wasn't.'
--
I'm feeling like I've radically misunderstood the Dead Author Manifesto. I thought it was more about introducing material after that fact: Bradbury doesn't get to definitively declare what Fahrenheit 451 is, Rowling doesn't get to unilaterally define Dumbledore's orientation in outside interviews, etc. I thought that stuff could be considered, but it was about closing canon off: what's in the text is in the text, and what the author claims is worth considering, but ultimately not definitive without textual support.
Well, nothing personal, but that is a radical misunderstanding. 'The Death of the Author' is the title of an essay written by Roland Barthes in 1967 which you can read here:
http://www.deathoftheauthor.com/
It's not a statement that authorial intentions have to be supported by text; it's an argument that academic study shouldn't revolve around them. And it's got nothing to do with authors not being entitled to make comments on their work; that's just 'Drop dead, author,' which is something else.
Those positions all have in common a desire to 'demote' the author and rather an air of competing with the author for prestige, but that's about it.
Reminder to self: Think through your throwaway lines. I thought it would have come across as more of a laugh line that things were so stacked against Bella because of the functionality of the characters discussed upthread in addition to the commentary about Twilight Forks being a place with a specific philosophical agenda - the absurdity of it all would force someone to conclude a Lovecraftian sort of existence if they were trying to figure out how to make it all work inside the world created.
That didn't work. It did get nice postings in response, but that's kind of like saying "Sure, you set the main course on fire, but it turns out you made a nice flambe dessert in the end."
No novel is free from authorial fiat, certainly, but there are ways of hiding that fiat so that it looks like a proper application of Chekov's Gun, or that the protagonist is interacting with a situation that's already present to achieve their desired result - sometimes by skill, sometimes by luck, sometimes by magic. The discussion upthread and in response to my poorly conceived line is that Twilight looks more like the worst of the Moral Substitute sorts of novel - cardboard characters with marionette strings being pulled in the direction they need to go, and situations crafted specifically so that the character always stays on the rails of virtue without ever having a choice to stop, reverse, or change course. Looking at it from outside, we say, "Ack. Clumsy writing and not a great set of values to be espousing."
So yeah, I was trying, and not succeeding all that well, to speculate how all of those things that we've talked about from the outside perspective would look like from the inside perspective, and what kind of apparatus it would take to have in place to ensure that everyone arrived at their appointed place at the appointed time and did what the narrative required of them, characterization be damned. That, and get a laugh at the thought of "Ia! Ia! Carlisle f'htagn!"
They told him that he was WRONG and that he had no more "authority" over the text that the casual reader who had decided what it was "really about."
I'd say that both Tolkien and Barthes were victims of an oversimplification there! The trouble is, 'The Death of the Author' is a snappy title that makes a good soundbite - which means it can be easily picked up on and used to support more or less anything the user wants it to mean. It's kind of a victim of its own success: it's much easier to remember the phrase 'death of the author' than the ins and outs of Barthesian theory...
Barthes was more or less arguing that in considering the text, one shouldn't consider the author at all, whether what they said was supported by the text or not.
So, in a wonderful meta-moment Kit is giving weight to Barthes authorial intentions even though in a similar circumstance Barth (were he true to his own logic) would not.
So yeah, I was trying, and not succeeding all that well, to speculate how all of those things that we've talked about from the outside perspective would look like from the inside perspective, and what kind of apparatus it would take to have in place to ensure that everyone arrived at their appointed place at the appointed time and did what the narrative required of them, characterization be damned.
Well, fine ... except that the whole point of the posts you were responding to was the assertion that certain problems in the text needed to be addressed from an outside perspective. Pulling it back to an inside perspective when the whole conversation started with people saying, 'Well, Ana's question can't really be answered from an inside perspective...'
Well, others might not mind, but it did feel a bit like you were saying that the inside perspective must always have the last word and the outside perspective isn't entirely welcome. :-(
So, in a wonderful meta-moment Kit is giving weight to Barthes authorial intentions even though in a similar circumstance Barth (were he true to his own logic) would not.
Well, as I say, when a critic or reader starts saying 'We must consider nobody's perspective except the critic or reader's!' ... I get a little cynical. :-p
As you can probably tell, I am not now and have never been a Barthesian.
As you can probably tell, I am not now and have never been a Barthesian.
However you do give him more respect than Harold Bloom ever gave Shakespeare (can you tell that this is a raw nerve as far as I am concerned?)
I'm a little hazy on the whole Bloom-Shakespeare thing - catch me up? :-)
It's only when the most convincing explanations are all of the form, "The author was trying to..." that it really becomes a case of seeming like Lovecraftian control because we can't come up with equally convincing reasons that don't involve an outside higher power railroading the characters.
This was my understanding of SA, too, yes, and I think it was a tie-in to our "Because Jasper" in-joke. ;)
I'm a little hazy on the whole Bloom-Shakespeare thing - catch me up?
There has actually been quite a kerfuffle between Bloom and people who study/perform Shakespeare -- Bloom stated (can't find it, may have been in a symposium) that not only had King Lear never been stage properly (as per Bloom's judgement) but that Bloom's mental vision of how it should be staged would be better (in terms of fully exploring the meaning of the play) than Shakespeare's.
In the world of Shakespearean criticism there is a sharp cleft between those who feel that Shakespeare must be approached not only as a brilliant writer but as a brilliant writer who wrote within the grounded realities of the theatre of his day and those who feel that any acknowledgement of the context and conditions of the theatre are irrelevant. Or that if they are relevant they undermine the true brilliance of the plays.
Aside -- we actually know a lot about how Shakespeare wrote. He as a successful theatre operator. He wrote some parts knowing that particular actors would be playing them and was quite aware of the range of those actors and the ways that audiences responded to them.
Semi-OT. I was looking through my Harold Bloom books (and my heaven's does the man clearly think that he is just that much smarter than anyone else ever) and I noticed near on the shelf the last book I literally threw across the room it so angered me....Shadowplay by Clare Asquith.
This was my understanding of SA, too, yes, and I think it was a tie-in to our "Because Jasper" in-joke. ;)
Well, yes, but like I said, from my point of view it felt a bit like saying 'Stop answering the question in a way I don't like, I want to get back to the joking!' Different strokes.
--
Bloom stated (can't find it, may have been in a symposium) that not only had King Lear never been stage properly (as per Bloom's judgement) but that Bloom's mental vision of how it should be staged would be better (in terms of fully exploring the meaning of the play) than Shakespeare's.
Hm. Did he mean nobody had staged it properly in any play he himself had seen, or did he mean no one had staged it properly ever throughout history? Because if the latter, well, that's a pretty big speculation. How did he think it should be staged?
As to the cleft - care to fall into the middle with me? I think knowing the conditions the plays were written for is interesting and informative, and I also think that one can read, stage and watch them from a modern perspective without knowing the historical context. Surely it depends on what it's relevant to; 'relevant' is not an absolute scale.
(This may interest you: when I was an undergraduate I attended a lecture by Mark Rylance about running the Globe. He said he was mostly interested in Shakespeare as something heard, but he also talked about old and new audiences. He told a story about how in Shakespeare's day, there was an evening where some men in the groundling section stopped the play and demanded that the cast instead perform a different one - I think it was Tamburlaine. And so the cast obeyed rather than get beaten up. At the end of the play, the disrupters said, 'Great! Do it again!' So the cast did it again. The gang then demanded the last act of The Merry Wives of Windsor, got up on the stage and started joining in, before deciding they'd had enough theatricals for one night, wandered off to a bull-baiting, descended into the pit once the bull was down, carved off some beef for dinner and went home.
So Rylance was rather pleased when a bunch of drunken townies came into the standing section of the Globe shouting about the cast being 'Wankers!', only to hang around, lean on the stage, look around the theatre with interest and enjoy at least some bits of the play. He felt it was appropriate and very much in the spirit of the Globe.)
Well, nothing personal, but that is a radical misunderstanding. 'The Death of the Author' is the title of an essay written by Roland Barthes in 1967 which you can read here:
No offense. That's what happens sometimes when you pick things up on the internet. I'll go and read. Thanks.
I'm deeply fond of the Patrick Stewart adaptation of "King Lear": "King of Texas".
On the subject of Lear interpretations, I'd recommend Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres to anyone, because it's fantastic.
On the subject of not-strictly-playbook adaptations, the Ian McKellen film of Richard III is pretty darn good too.
On the subject of not-strictly-playbook adaptations, the Ian McKellen film of Richard III is pretty darn good too.
And he gets a special gold prize for being able to use "my kingdom for a horse" in a way that works in a modern adaptation.
"So she's like Buck and Chloe who are virginal despite having no in-text reason to be so because the audience wouldn't accept them otherwise?"
Yes. Plus, there are lots of things in the Twilight books (this is another trait the Twilight books share with the Left Behind series) which do have textual support but which are never allowed to come off, for what I think to be the same reason. That's the other side of the coin. Bella's love for Jacob is an example of what I mean. Bella likes/loves Jacob where she addiction/loves Edward; a person could say, without too much exaggeration, that Bella loves Jacob but needs Edward. There's no textual reason why Bella can't figure out that her yearning for Edward is a lot like a junkie's yearning for his fix, and that this I-gotta-get-well compulsion is doing is covering up her feelings for Jacob, which are of a slightly* healthier nature. Bella could just as easily end up with Jacob as with Edward, except that Such Is Not Her Fate. (Jacob's packmates don't object and Bella's Dad would be relieved.) But that resolution is precluded, foreclosed, for reasons which are not present in the text but which nevertheless exist outside the text: S. Meyer is angling after a specific readership, portions of which she does not wish to shock. Such is my belief, at any rate.
*but not very much
Kit, your interpretation of the age difference between Teams is really interesting. I hadn't heard of that age gap before. I did once talk to my sister's friend and her mother about Twilight, while waiting to pick up my sister from their house. The mother was in fact Team Edward and the daughter (my sister's friend) Team Jacob. I'm not sure why, but for some reason it came across slightly differently to me -- it seemed like my sister's friend empathized more with Jacob in the way that teenagers often empathize with slightly more flawed characters that the text isn't wholly fair to, while the mother was more of a romance novel fan to begin with, and seemed more comfortable with the idea of wanting a perfect heroic savior.* Since it was a ten-minute conversation at most, though, I think your interpretation is more sophisticated and probably closer to what they were really trying to get across.
I also agree that there's been a trend of villains becoming heroes in the Aughts (as some of my college friends like to call them), though I think this is mostly the normal cycle of people getting bored with having the same villains in every teenage romance or horror story and thinking it would be fresh and new to do a story where those people were the heroes. I'm not sure if, e.g., the role of good-looking popular kid used to be a protagonist role in movies (although I think it did?), but if so, people have mostly forgotten it. On the other hand, I have heard that Gossip Girl and similar books took the general underdog new kid vs. popular good-looking kids trope and flipped it in favor of glamor and shallowness, so maybe there is more to that trend than just "Why is this girl *always* the villain?"
*This is something that just occurred to me. I, at least, very consistently got the message while growing up that "There is no such thing as a perfect romantic savior", from the books I read to the TV shows I watched to talking to my parents about romance. When I read Twilight, I spent the whole time thinking "I wish she'd get together with Jacob" just because I had this reflexive dislike to the *idea* of Edward, and to the idea that Edward was something I should want. I wonder if other people have had this reaction?
bekabot: I totally agree on Bella's disabilities and social problems being crafted to make her act in accordance with strict hyper-conservative principles (although, she does dance eventually, doesn't she? But I guess technically her feet are on top of Edward's and he's doing the actual dancing, soooo, technically she doesn't dance?). I always wondered if it weren't going a step further, as a way to justify those strict principles: "You shouldn't date the local boys, because they're all jerks who aren't like you anyway; you shouldn't go to the movies, I mean, gosh, the cinema is so far away, and who knows what could happen to you there; you shouldn't go dancing, what if you fall over and make a fool out of yourself", and so on. Though I do wonder if it's also S. Meyer writing her own internalized ideas about what happens to girls who do those things, not as a warning, exactly, but just as straightforward cause-and-effect situation. Somehow that's even creepier to me.
On the other hand, I have heard that Gossip Girl and similar books took the general underdog new kid vs. popular good-looking kids trope and flipped it in favor of glamor and shallowness, so maybe there is more to that trend than just "Why is this girl *always* the villain?"
My penn'orth? It ties in to the era of celebrity-worship and reality TV. Put the two together and fame started to be presented as admirable in itself, and also attainable for ordinary people. Meanwhile the 1% were hard-selling the idea of wealth being likewise attainable in the same energetic way they always do when social mobility and equality are on the ropes, because if they can't sell a fantasy, the people might start to organise. Added up, everyone was on the economic outside, which meant that outsiderdom wasn't an appealing fantasy the way it is in eras of security and conformity. Pop culture validated aristocracy with the implicit, and untrue, promise that it was a fantasy that might just come true.
@Kit Whitfield and others: I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. (I also know intent isn't magic.) Is there some way that I can signpost or improve my writing so that I don't come across as discounting what other people are saying? I'd rather not be offensive to the brilliant minds here, intentionally or not.
*tiptoes in from studying and waves at everyone from the college shadows*
Hey there, everyone! Great discussion going on and you're all making interesting and amaznig points (as well as ones that my brain-dead self can't follow...don't some people call Tolkkien (sp?) the older C.S Lewis, or something...?)
Kit, could you PLEASE walk through the computer, sit with me, and talk for HOURS over a cup of tea? Gracious, I see that I have so much to learn! I really am a Baby Blogger, LOL! :D
And Silver, I love you!! Darkest Sketches for the win!!! :D
don't some people call Tolkkien (sp?) the older C.S Lewis, or something...?)
Tolkien and Lewis were basically friends and contemporaries and colleagues. Tolkien was 6 years older and lived 10 years longer than Lewis.
Their writing lives (publishing fiction that is) overlapped very tightly. Both served in the trenches in World War One. Tolkien was born and always remained a Catholic. He was influential in Lewis' conversion to Christianity but less so that Lewis chose to join the Church of England.
@Amerie -- Lewis and Tolkien, along with several other Oxford writers (best known were Owen Barfield and Charles Williams) were members of the Inklings, a sort of loosely collaborative writing group*.
Diana Pavlic Glyer has a very interesting book on their mutual influence on each other's writings and thoughts, but it's a bit academic. Humphrey Carpenter's book is probably more accessible, if flawed in places.
---
*I've mentioned before how much I love Williams's fantasies, now sadly o.p. But *real* Inkling hipsters can discourse on Barfield's poetic theories and their anthropological and theological implications at the crack of a port bottle.
I've got a theory -- no, it doesn't involve bunnies -- about how you can put Barfield, Tolkien, Lewis and Williams on a grid corresponding with the canonical Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John respectively). I tried expounding upon it one night to a couple of Tolkien scholars of my acquaintance and they ended up literally on the floor giggling helplessly. Of course, this was at a Burns Night celebration, so there may have been a wee drop of the needful involved...
you can put Barfield, Tolkien, Lewis and Williams on a grid corresponding with the canonical Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John respectively).
THAT, I would love to read.
Is there some way that I can signpost or improve my writing so that I don't come across as discounting what other people are saying? I'd rather not be offensive to the brilliant minds here, intentionally or not.
:-)
It's a fairly simple thing, but you could make sure you're making I-statements rather than you-statements. Saying that other people have suggested or discovered something that's contra to what they're actually saying is a bit frustrating; saying, 'Since I'm reading this from the inside perspective I can't help but see this as...' or something similar might work a lot better.
@Amarie - have a cuppa: http://www.king-link.com/2pic/06.jpeg
it seemed like my sister's friend empathized more with Jacob in the way that teenagers often empathize with slightly more flawed characters that the text isn't wholly fair to, while the mother was more of a romance novel fan to begin with, and seemed more comfortable with the idea of wanting a perfect heroic savior.
This may be another element, actually: mothers, being older, are more experienced readers. If they're experienced genre readers they'll be well acclimatised to genre conventions and practiced in separating what works as a fantasy from what works as an aspiration. Adult women have mostly formed their characters and settled who they are; they've got habits established to keep fantasies within bounds. Edward's obviously a fantasy, but if you keep him within the fantasy box - if you objectify him, in fact - he's under the reader's control, and pretty much harmless.
Girls, on the other hand, are still in the process of figuring out who they are. Books offer the opportunity to try on other identities, and girls often take that opportunity with passionate enthusiasm, 'being' different protagonists to see if it helps them move towards a sense of self. If you're 'being' Bella rather than just enjoying borrowing her stuff, Jacob is probably a better bet.
So if there's a division between older and younger readers - which clearly isn't an absolute one - another factor might be that a grown woman is looking for an escape from her responsibilities and a young woman is looking for a way to explore her identity. The stakes are higher for the young woman, and with the stakes high, Edward's a doubtful proposition: he's all about having your identity determined by someone else rather than having to work it out in an adult way as Bella would have to with Jacob.
Patrick Stewart's also done a wonderful Stalinesque MacBeth.
Did not know that! Thank you. *adds to the list*
A million years ago when I read the books, I was Team Jacob. Partly because I just didn't like Edward at all, but also because I appriciated Jacob's trying to actually develop Bella as a person (which he does quite a bit in book 2.) My version of a hero is not the man who "leaves for my own good" (let me decide, please, where my own good lies) - it's the guy who says "you seem sad, did you want to learn how to ride a motocycle?"
I also have two responses to other comments, but I cannot find the comments I'm responding to - I'm sorry, my computer is not playing well with internets.
Firstly, YES to the idea that Twilight is a world made for religious folks of the evangelical persausion to feel non-threatened by. Even non-Bella people fell victim to this trap. I don't remember the teenagers talking about drinking in the books - which I thought made up a lot of the high school experience, especially in small towns with no movie theatre. Let alone anyone doing any illegal drugs. No one overtly discusses sex (except Bella, in regards to how Bella and Edward aren't having it). I was willing to accept Bella as straight-edge in high school (in my high school years, I had the gang come over to my place for chips, pop and a Jane Austen marathron) but I was surprised that the rest of her school seemed so well-behaved as well. But it makes sense if you consider it as designed not to shock.
And - trigger warning for rape -
I was reading the comment about rape in the Twilight-verse, and I wondered if part of this is the desire to keep the books light. And aquintence rape is a scary prospect to consider. Rape by a friend is terrifying. So in Twilight-verse, you don't need to worry about them. Because as long as you don't walk alone in an alley in the Big City, or start conversations with the sketchy looking men, you're safe. I know this is absolutely the worst way to think about rape ever, but I see it in the books.
At Everyone:
Thanks for the Tolkien/Lewis lesson! :D
And thanks, Kit, for the tea! *sips like Judi Dench* ^ ^
Looking at the "likes/loves Jacob vs addicted/loves Edward" line of thinking...
SPOILER WARNING: Hunger Games trilogy
It reminds me a lot of Katniss and her love triangle. I was really disappointed by her choice to be with Peeta in the end, not because I don't think they'll do well together, but because it was ultimately not much of a choice at all: she had to be with him because, as the text explicitly points out, she needs him to survive. It wasn't a strong, healthy woman choosing her own course in life; it was a broken, exhausted, PTSD-suffering warrior making yet another battle decision in the war for her own survival. If the Games had never happened, she wouldn't have been broken down; she would have probably lived the rest of her life happily with Gale, never quite realizing the true depths of the atrocities that are out there lurking.
In the same way, if the Cullens had never lived in Forks, Bella might have found her way to Jacob; if Edward had never returned in New Moon, she'd surely have been with Jacob. She'd have the ability to choose to be with him, as he's much healthier for her and genuinely cares about her. Instead, Edward's mere presence forces her to choose him through authorial fiat -- or perhaps not. After all, he mentions how he's attractive to her because it's an evolutionary advantage for him to lure his prey in to his jaws; maybe, since his powers are mental-based, he exerts a relentless siren-call upon her that removes all choice from the matter. After all, she can't bear to live without him; if you can't be without something, choosing to have it is no more a choice than choosing to breathe oxygen instead of carbon dioxide.
(Aside: I don't mean to say that Hunger Games is badly written; the ending matched the message of the book perfectly. I just don't like it in the sense that it made me sad and I want my favorite book characters to have happy endings because I adore them. Intellectually I very much appreciated the ending for what it was.)
Huh. I could never see Katniss happy with Gale at all... I agree with Will that Gale is nega-Katniss.
I don't see how she could have been happy with Gale in any case, but especially not since she didn't want children, and didn't want to risk them being born into what is essentially slavery. Huh.
Er, not that I mean everyone should see Gale that way. But I do.
Er, not that I mean everyone should see Gale that way. But I do.
I, at least, also respond to Perfect Romantic Saviors by fleeing! (In real life, as well as in romances. They always send up giant red flags in my head, as I try to figure out what's actually going on.) Although I do like romance novels, I mostly like the ones where two people are very attracted to each other, and fail to get together until the end because of misunderstandings, and villains being evil, and preferably at least one scene with a runaway horse. Novels where the hero is perfect, and the heroine is visibly not and must therefore overcome herself to be with him, are just frustrating.
It reminds me a lot of Katniss and her love triangle. I was really disappointed by her choice to be with Peeta in the end, not because I don't think they'll do well together, but because it was ultimately not much of a choice at all: she had to be with him because, as the text explicitly points out, she needs him to survive. It wasn't a strong, healthy woman choosing her own course in life; it was a broken, exhausted, PTSD-suffering warrior making yet another battle decision in the war for her own survival. If the Games had never happened, she wouldn't have been broken down; she would have probably lived the rest of her life happily with Gale, never quite realizing the true depths of the atrocities that are out there lurking.
My latest blog post is about the Hunger Games, so I'd be fascinated if you wanted to check it out and share your thoughts.
I didn't see a love triangle at all. I mean, I get that Gale was a nominal romantic rival, but Katniss never feels anything toward him or acts romantically toward him until it seems like the only way to keep from losing him. That is a survival tactic. I see Gale as, like Ana quoted, Nega-Katniss, all of Katniss' skills and none of her empathy, with his life following the path that hers could have if she felt rage on the level he did instead of having a tendency (skill? gift? weakness? flaw?) to empathise (not sympathise) with those people who appear to be her enemies.
For all those years that they were friends, Katniss tuned out his raging against the Capitol and the world. Gale is angry and has always been angry - Katniss just wanted to get by and protect people close to her, and eventually it became clear that the only way to protect the people she cared about would be to actively confront their oppressors. Gale wanted vengeance.
If the Games had never happened, Gale and Katniss might well have settled down, but only because they could see no other options. I fail to see how 'we're not really a good match but it's better than the few alternatives inside our cage' is a happier ending than 'we helped achieve something great for everyone and, although it cost us nearly everything we had, we still held onto each other'.
I, at least, also respond to Perfect Romantic Saviors by fleeing! (In real life, as well as in romances. They always send up giant red flags in my head, as I try to figure out what's actually going on.) Although I do like romance novels, I mostly like the ones where two people are very attracted to each other, and fail to get together until the end because of misunderstandings, and villains being evil, and preferably at least one scene with a runaway horse. Novels where the hero is perfect, and the heroine is visibly not and must therefore overcome herself to be with him, are just frustrating.
I also think (oooh, can we have a Hunger Games discussion? I'd love that) that there was no way Gale/Katniss could have a happy ending. My feelings about Gale were solidified in the opening f Book 2: Peeta apologizes for being a jerk about Katniss' having to pretend to love him; Gale is a jerk persistently about Katniss doing what she had to in order to survive even though they'd never had a relationship beyond "friends". *headdesk forever*
I thought THG was really the best way to have a love triangle if one ABSOLUTELY MUST. 'Course, I can't stand love triangles, so there's that.
I hadn't actually noticed so much that Gale does the Entitled Default Boyfriend thing there, possibly because I kind of took it for granted that when he was around there were going to be Love Triangle Tropes in play. That's even more disappointing.
Since I liked Peeta more from the start, I was somewhat more off-put by the way he made decisions with a significant impact on Katniss, with goals highly relevant to Katniss, without conferring with her - starting from his idea to play up his crush as an epic love story and continuing on every time he made a decision that was targeted at keeping her alive and using her ignorance to do it. In the long run, the justification (that Katniss is a terrible actor) probably holds water, but I'm skeptical on the idea that he had already worked that out completely within the first few days of them actually talking. Few interpersonal things are so skeevy to me as I'm Doing This For Your Own Good, regardless of the way it plays out.
Of course, by the middle of the second book, there are three people all running concurrent Doing This For Your Own Good schemes on each other, at which point it kind of became less skeevy and more grimly hilarious.
I am similarly of the opinion that love triangles are vastly less necessary than their prominence suggests. I do think that, for the age range and for the kind of story being told, a romance arc was a good thing for THG, although I wonder if there was a better way of playing it out (without losing Nega-Katniss, of course).*
---
*On the subject of obligatory romance subplots being shoehorned into so many stories, I continue to like the analogy someone presented (paraphrasing): 'Imagine if, in every movie, whether a heist thriller or a quiet mystery or an adventure or finding-yourself-in-the-arts, there was required to be a subplot involving half the cast preparing for the regional line-dancing tournament, and the final scenes had to include their victory and receipt of the line-dancing trophy.'
Post a Comment