Uuuuggggghhhhhhh....
It's not by coincidence that whenever Edward shows up, I start to feel ill. Thankfully, this sad excuse for a climax is only six pages long, and in it, Meyer hams up the epic melodramatics and the saccharine language, enough to make a person diabetic. This is Meyer's attempt to portray the dreamy, half-aware consciousness of someone who is dying. Because it's so short, I will take everyone through it. You really need the full effect.
"Where I floated, under the dark water..."
Cliche count: 1
"...I heard the happiest sound my mind could conjure up -- as beautiful, as uplifting, as it was ghastly. It was another snarl; a deeper, wilder roar that rang with fury." (452)
So, Bella's drifting in a place between awareness and unconsciousness and Edward ::POOF:: is there. Instead of being constructive in helping Bella, he is raging and roaring about what's happened to her, because that is what men do when their true loves are in peril.
"...through the heavy water, I heard the sound of an angel calling my name, calling me to the only heaven I wanted."
Cliche count: 2
For the first two pages of the chapter, Edward is referred to only as "the angel," because Meyer thought that the depiction of GlitterMan-as-Savior was too subtle. We get more of Meyer's weird voyeuristic obsession with Bella's martyrdom when Carlisle, who is there also, announces all of Bella's injuries aloud.
"She's lost some blood, but the head wound isn't deep...Watch out for her leg, it's broken."
"Some ribs, too, I think." (453)
This was clearly one of Meyer's favorite chapters to write, with Bella, bleeding and broken after having sacrificed herself, with a slew of heroes crouched around her, admiring her selflessness and obsessing over her injuries, desperately trying to think of a way to save her. Bella herself does very little in the chapter aside from feel pain and whine.
"'Edward.' I tried to tell him, but my voice was so heavy and slow. I couldn't understand myself.
'Bella, you're going to be fine. Can you hear me, Bella? I love you.' [Cliche count: 4]
'Edward,' I tried again. My voice was a little clearer.
'Yes, I'm here.'
'It hurts,' I whimpered." (454)
Oh, and Alice is there too btw. Bella begins to feel a particularly sharp, burning pain in her hand, and her big heroic moment in the chapter is when she makes this known to the others. We're meant to understand this pain as that of vampire venom.
"'He [James] bit her.' Carlisle's voice was no longer calm, it was appalled. [Jesus H., that is an overt run-on sentence. Where the fuck is your editor?]
I heard Edward catch his breath in horror.
'Edward, you have to do it.' It was Alice's voice, close to my head. Cool fingers brushed at the wetness in my eyes." (454-5)
The "wetness." WETNESS. Just...where, where, WHERE IS YOUR EDITOR?? Who told you this was decent prose?
At first, I thought that Alice was referring to letting Bella become a vampire, though then Carlisle tells Edward that he's going to have to suck the venom out, because apparently you can do that. After the lengths the book has gone to describing Edward's thirst for Bella's blood, this is meant to be his greatest challenge. (It doesn't matter that Alice could do it, or better yet, Carlisle, who has trained himself to be immune to the temptation of human blood -- Edward HAS to do it, because Meyer demands it, because we MUST have this contrived conundrum.)
"I felt my consciousness slipping as the pain subsided. I was afraid to fall into the black waters again, afraid I would lose him in the darkness.
'Edward,' I tried to say, but I couldn't hear my voice. They could hear me.
'He's right here, Bella.'
'Stay, Edward, stay with me....'
'I will.' His voice was strained, but somehow triumphant."
In an instant, Edward's moment of temptation is over. He has succeeded, Bella is pain-free, and he is carrying her off as she falls asleep from exhaustion.
WHAT'S WORKING: I can feel how much the story is pushing me to admire and yearn for Edward's love and devotion. I am almost impressed. The desperate tone, the obvious manipulations, the clear self-indulgence of the whole event...I mean, I would be embarrassed, but Meyer is shameless in the way she writes about these characters. She loves them to the point of destroying them.
Case in point: Edward suffers from the same character problems as Bella, which are that his characteristics change to suit whatever situation Meyer places him in. The climactic chapter demonstrates this most clearly, as Meyer wants us to see Edward as a hero, because he so effortlessly stops drinking Bella's blood. Remember how he went on and on about how it's his own personal brand of heroine? And yet he averted the problem so easily? Well, he must be a swell guy, right? To be able to do everything easily makes someone perfect, isn't that true?
In Meyer's eyes, and in the eyes of many of her readers, this makes Edward that much more desirable, though I think this is also attributed to a one-dimensional understanding of people. In the same vein of self-hatred=humility and martyrdom=automatic good person, in Twiland, doing something effortlessly means that you naturally deserve praise for it.
Please. Show me an instance in which Edward is actively sacrificing something, in which I can see and believe the pain and effort that he undergoes to fulfill some act (this doesn't mean just seeing him mope and complain about it after the fact). THEN maybe I'll consider him a valiant character. Until then, these moments merely scream to me that he is a lifeless, half-baked idea, which Meyer manipulates to suit her fantasy.
I don't think I'm the only one who felt let down by the climax. The movie version of this scene acknowledges and sort of tries to remedy the problem Meyer creates, with Edward contributing to Bella's unconsciousness, due to his drinking more than what is required, and with Carlisle saying things like, "Okay, stop now. You're killing her." These things actively DEMONSTRATE the difficulty of the act, and could have been observed from Bella's ailing viewpoint, if only Meyer wasn't so blinded by lust for her angel-man creation.
There's another problem, however, that the movie doesn't address, and this is a problem that I think is more influential in whether people love or hate this book. Never, never have I read a young adult book in which the NARRATOR AND PROTAGONIST does SO LITTLE at the novel's climax.
In fact, it's very rare to find novels of any genre, on any reading level, with protagonists that lay on their back while the major crisis falls into the hands of someone else. I found myself wondering: why is this Bella's story and not Edward's? Bella has spent the entire novel taking no consequential actions, and when she finally does, it is an action that places her in danger, which somebody else is required to fix? She does not get to decide whether or not she becomes a vampire. She does not get to decide whether or not Edward stops drinking her blood. She doesn't even get to decide what happens to James, which takes place out of scene, involving characters that we barely know. In a writing workshop, narrators that do nothing and are moved around like chess pieces are generally the kiss of death for stories.
Not in the case of Twilight! Young fans lap up Bella's predicament, everything, from her spoiled princess attitude to her passivity to her completely out-of-character martyrdom. I think it's more than just girls selfishly wanting everything to revolve around them, or that they want to do nothing in order to get everything. Really, it's about being desired, and the belief you would be worthy enough to be seen as a martyr, to have everyone crowd around, desperately trying to save your life, to even -- EVEN! -- have someone as powerful and magnificent as Edward see you as so important, and to make decisions for you, while you yourself wither pitifully from your most recent bout of self-sacrifice.
This is, of course, an opinion. I haven't really researched it. I think that a deeper analysis of fan reactions to Bella's doormat behavior would be in order, but I might save that for next week.
As a disclaimer, I want to add that some stories do work with a narrator who is not the protagonist. The most famous of these is probably The Great Gatsby, with Jay Gatsby as the protagonist and Nick Carraway "observing." Similarly, the narrator of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine is not the Time Traveller himself, but rather a visitor listening to to Time Traveller's story. Novels like these are often using the observer as a microscope to study a particular society or environment. Gatsby's story is a tragic one; Nick is there to relay it, and to make a larger observation about class relations in the 20s. Bella is not filling any such functional purpose like that for Edward. Bella and Edward are only present to be in love with each other, and the story doesn't tell us anything bigger than that.
And here is some vaguely-related literary humor:
(C) This woman, whom I heart: Hark! A Vagrant-
-
-
Next week is another Bella-in-the-hospital chapter, where we will get the full run-down of what happened and probably hear more about the horrific injuries Bella sustained, because she is a selfless person who is worthy of praise. And if you do not think so, you are a jealous whore. JEALOUS WHORE.
Wish me luck,
Jenchilla
No comments:
Post a Comment