An Impassioned Plea for Better Fantasy Fiction and the Souls of Teenage Girls
Literature can provide a map to the human condition. This is especially important to teens who are trying to learn the complex rules for personal relationships. You cannot protect every impressionable mind from bad literature; censorship of one thing makes everything more vulnerable to censorship. Awareness of what makes a story good or bad can encourage young readers to have higher expectations for the books they read. Poorly written stories will be written, published, sold and read for as long as the market place will have them. The “Twilight” series by Stephanie Meyers is an example. “Twilight” fails its readers in three important ways: it fails as a fantastic story, in Edward it idolizes a sociopathic controlling personality and excuses his manipulative approach to relationships as romantic, and finally in Twilight’s protagonist Bella, Meyer irresponsibly creates a role model who, if she is not an example of a submissive powerless woman, she is a ritual sacrifice on the altar of teen sexual conquest and competition.
Is the way “Twilight” is written merely a reflection of the fantasy genre style? Do Fantasy writers privilege trope over substance so faithfully that this is what we should expect from fantasy fiction? Although J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has its problems, it provides believable human interactions. The characters may live in a supernatural world, but the problems they confront are normal human problems, and their reactions are real human reactions. Meyer’s “Twilight”, however, uses its supernatural world like spray paint over rust. On reading “Twilight” I discovered that the world Meyer created is a thin veneer, under that veneer is a stiff, poorly written romance novel complete with every horrific trope of the romance novel genre. Meyer waters down or completely does away with every balancing negative aspect of vampire lore. As a result, there are no vampires in “Twilight”. The “Twilight” books are not vampire stories; they are simply romance novels. Conversely, Rowling’s “Harry Potter” books are fully invested in the fantasy genre while providing believable characters struggling with problems that teenagers can identify with.
If you remove the vampire identities from “Twilight” the events that describe Bella and Edward’s relationship read like a corny teenage fantasy. From the first moment Bella and Edward see each other they are in love. The only thing that briefly keeps them apart is Edward as he battles with his desire to drink Bella’s blood. This hardship is soon conquered diminishing the meaning and power behind this corner stone of vampire lore. Bella and Edward have their lovers’ quarrels, but it is always just a big misunderstanding. The solution to each misunderstanding is that Edward loves Bella, or that’s how it might seem at first glance. On deeper examination this surface reading falls apart.
In writing teen romance it is not only the author’s responsibility to provide a realistic heroine that teens can identify with, but also to provide examples of empowering life choices. In Bella, Meyer fails to achieve any of these things. There is nothing valuable to be learned from Bella’s journey. Bella and Edward do not confront any realistic problems in the development of their relationship. Edward’s behavior ranges from unrealistic levels of attention and affection to classic controlling behavior. In the real world it would never be acceptable for someone to climb into a potential lover’s bedroom and without their knowledge, watch them sleep. In the “Harry Potter’ series Ron and Hermione’s relationship starts as a normal preadolescent friendship, confronts the challenges of jealousy and misunderstandings, and finally develops into a mature relationship. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger’s relationship as it occurs in the Harry Potter series is in stark contrast with Edward Cullen and Isabella Swan’s relationship as it is described in “Twilight”. I believe J.K. Rowling created in Ron and Hermione a realistic teen love affair where both people are believable and, fully developed human beings with as much respect for themselves as they have for each other. Bella and Edward’s relationship is not only hollow and stiff, but in the end is depicted as a relationship that no one would willingly submit to. Edward reads as a narcissistic sociopath, and Bella is at best a meat puppet and at worst an object of scorn and derision to her readers.
On examination, Edward’s relationship with Bella develops into a nightmare of controlling behavior. The only thing that keeps us from reading Edward as a psycho/sexual predator is that Bella welcomes his controlling behavior. Edward spies on Bella by reading her friend’s thoughts. Although Edward can’t for some reason read Bella’s thoughts he can read everyone else’s. He listens to Bella’s friend’s conversations to hear what Bella is saying about him. He watches her sleep. He is aware of everything she does and everywhere she goes by this eves dropping and surveillance. To complete the scary controlling boyfriend milieu Edward is a reckless driver.
“If you turn us into a Volvo pretzel around a tree trunk, you can probably just walk away.”
“Probably,” He sighed, and I watched with relief as the needle gradually drifted toward eighty. (Meyer p.182)
Edward is undead; he can’t die. Edward only endangers Bella with his reckless driving. This is narcissistic behavior. Edward only sees to his own needs, and at that moment he needs to drive fast. After he has slowed his car, he is still going way too fast. This scenario is typical of an abusive relationship. The abuser has his victim trapped in a car going fast enough so opening the door and jumping would be suicide. The abuser in in complete control, not necessarily of the car, but of his victim’s emotional response: fear. She will be afraid for as long as he wants her to be and if she finds any comfort from her fear it will be because he allowed it.
Edward is not subtle about his desire to control Bella. He constantly assures her of her inability to keep herself safe. This infantilizes Bella and creates a controlling role for Edward that he can argue is for Bella’s own good. She is incapable of keeping herself away from harm, Edward must step in, but this is not the only evidence of Edward’s controlling. Edward’s motivation is made clear in this example of “controlling boyfriend double speak”:
“Bring on the shackles—I’m your prisoner” But his long hands formed manacles around my wrists as he spoke. He laughed his quiet musical laugh.” (Meyer 302)
Without the previous pages of controlling behavior this brief passage might not carry so much weight, but after 300 pages this is startling. Sadly, at this point in the story, Bella has long ago relinquished her autonomy and any shred of personality Meyer allowed her is caught in some weeds on the shoulder of a highway somewhere.
Early in the story we hear about school, Bella’s only source of identity or personality. This only depiction of Bella’s personal development is shallow and thinly conceived. Here Bella is given the syllabus for her English class, “I kept my eyes down on the reading list the teacher had given me. It was fairly basic: Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I’d already read everything. That was comforting… and boring.” (Meyer, 15) All we can learn from this brief passage is that Bella somehow has the ability to read sophisticated literature, and yet is bored by it. Meyer gives her character intelligence and scorn for it. She has read some of the world’s greatest literature and she is bored of it. It is interesting that Meyer even brings up these authors, much less dismiss them in such an offhand way, each of them is a far better reflection of the humanity than the story Meyer is trying to tell. By referring to them she invites an unfortunate comparison. But this is endemic of Bella’s personality in general. She meets everything in her life with the same ambivalent submission possibly because Meyer is writing her in short hand until she could get to the part with the vampire lover. Finally, when Edward is introduced, Bella’s reflections on her school work stop entirely. Now Bella’s personality consists of being in love with Edward and being clumsy.
Hermione from the Harry Potter series has one thing in common with Bella: she is an excellent student; there the similarity ends. Hermione acts like an eager intelligent student. She likes to read, she talks about books, her contributions to problems that the trio (Harry, Ron, and Hermione) must solve constantly call on things she has read and learned. It could be due to the fact that Hermione’s character was developed over the course of seven books from the age of eleven, but we know Hermione.
Readers who look to Hermione as a role model will be encouraged to read and study. Readers who look to Bella will not receive any such encouragement. Bella was not written with young adult developmental emulation in mind. She tells us she has read “Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner” but she doesn’t act like someone who has read those books. She fails to convince us that there is anything worthwhile in learning. There is nothing in Bella’s character worth emulating, but there is more than that. The words that Meyer uses to describe Bella are regularly negative. Perhaps something more sinister is going on.
I believe the way Bella was written encourages readers to write Bella out of the story in their imagination. Readers are encouraged to dislike Bella and imagine themselves with Edward. Edward is regularly described as angelic, perfect. He is inextricably drawn to Bella, despite her abundant faults, for reasons that are never explained. It is hard to understand what Edward sees in Bella, after all Bella does not even like Bella.
The language that Meyer uses to talk about Bella is negative. Even when she is describing physical characteristics that might in another context be considered positive, they are cast in a negative light. Here Bella reflects on her physical appearance, “Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine. I had always been slender, but soft somehow obviously not an athlete.” (Meyer 10) Just like her completed reading list, Bella’s physical attributes are assets that she takes for granted. Instead of empathizing with Bella, readers see a girl who has everything and complains about it. Within the first ten pages of the book Meyer is already fostering reader animosity toward Bella.
As Meyer describes Bella, she is a clumsy whiney child. Meyer relies on Bella’s clumsiness so strongly that it becomes a plot point. By half way through the book Bella would be dead twice if it weren’t for Edward. It makes you wonder how she lived up to the point where the story begins without Edward to save her. Bella’s helpless idiocy and the way she takes her advantages for granted makes her a distinctly unlikable character. This functions as a way for readers to imagine inserting themselves into the story. Who would want to imagine stealing the boyfriend of someone they liked? This method of engaging readers in the story has frightening drawbacks for teen readers.
Aggressive competitive behavior among teen girls gets a good deal of attention in the media currently in the form of bullying. Competitive sexual attitudes are natural to young girls exploring their newly felt urges to couple and procreate. At this age teens (both boys and girls) see potential sexual partners as objects, and objects can be stolen. It can be inferred that the older avid fans of “Twilight” most likely have an arrested socio/psychological development that has in the past frustrated their attempts at satisfying relationships. Arguably, Meyer’s depiction of Bella encourages a competitive attitude among young women. This may contribute to aggressive bullying that is already prevalent in adolescent girls. Meyer’s includes such sentiments as: “She had a beautiful figure, the kind that made every girl in the room take a hit to her self-esteem just by being in the same room.” (Meyer 18) If “every girl’s” self-esteem is really that fragile it is no wonder they are so violently aggressive toward each other. Bella’s negative portrayal is like the bleating of an injured deer to a pack of hungry wolves.
Readers are drawn to stories about the supernatural especially if they feel lost. Within the escapism that these stories provide, the reader may also be looking for an answer to the challenges social interaction presents. In order to avoid the evils of censorship we must admit that the author has no responsibility to provide their reader with any particular standard of quality. This makes awareness of the difference all the more important. Raising the expectations for YA fantasy fiction with young readers not only provides young people with the tools to live emotionally healthy lives, but strengthens the YA fantasy genre as a whole.
