Yeah, this isn’t a post I thought I’d ever write either. I’ve been saving it for a week when I’m too busy to sit down and write something better. It turns out this is that week, so here you go. It’s also fitting in that when this goes up I’ll be driving through Utah, home of the Mormons.
Honestly, this is a thought I’ve had time and time again while binge-reading the Twilight series as a guilty pleasure. This time, the thought was brought about by a quote from the novel, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, by Hank Green. I’ve also written a review of his first two novels which you can check out here: link
The Quote is this:
“But at the same time, it was hard to argue about tax policy and health care or even get up and go to work when nothing felt important the way Carl had. People’s identities, their sources of meaning, had been banged up even before Carl, but now a lot of folks were just lost.”
Hank Green, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
Here, Green is talking about how the discovery of alien life (Carl) has made everything else in the world appear lackluster. Once people knew there was more to life than just us humans, our own problems and issues seemed less important by comparison.
Now imagine this, but with vampires.
That’s where my train of thought went, anyway. It has always bothered me that the general consensus is New Moon is the worst Twilight Saga novel, largely in part because Bella is depressed for half of it. She has nightmares, she cuts off all her friends, she engages in reckless behavior, she refuses to talk to anyone about her situation (mostly because she can’t), and then she latches onto Jacob in a way that is emotionally unfair to him.
Clearly Bella was very distraught by Edward leaving her and this sent her into a downward spiral. I don’t think anyone can argue she wasn’t depressed, but I haven’t seen an argument that rightfully discusses all the factors she must have been dealing with. She doesn’t lose her mind just because she loved Edward and Edward left her, it’s because she found out vampires exist, and then they just… Disappeared.
I’m going to qualify my argument by saying I understand Stephanie Meyers was writing a romance novel for teens. This is why Bella’s period of depression is framed as heartbreak, but I personally disagree with this. We know Bella to be as rational and intelligent as a seventeen-year-old can be. While her depression is framed through the lens of a broken-hearted teen, I think her character deserves a bit more credit for how she handled the introduction and disappearance of an entirely knew species.
Imagine you’ve found out something you never thought possible happened, and then it disappeared, and there was no way for you to ever forget about it. If I was walking down the street and Superman flew by and waved, and then I never saw him again, I would think about that moment for the rest of my life. I might even obsessively search sightings, start a support group of conspiracy theorists who also believe Superman is real, and eventually plaster my room with comic book strips.
Bella didn’t just see a random, one-time fantastical event. She engaged with vampires. She befriended them. She learned the impossible was real and lived it for months. Unhealthy attachment aside, when they left, it wasn’t just Edward breaking up with her. It was Bella finding out she could no longer be a part of a world she knew existed.
Personally, I wish Meyers had capitalized on this angle rather than show Bella moping around for months because of heartbreak, but I guess that’s more relatable for teenagers. I understand the dislike for Bella’s attitude because we aren’t presented with the argument that Bella has lost access to the fantastic. She’s only supposed to care about Edward, not that Edward is a vampire, and as a reader we only see what she cares about.
There is a brief part where Meyers touches on the fact that Bella has lost another world. When Bella stumbles around the forest looking for the clearing, it’s because she wants to prove to herself that it all was real. Of course, she’s thinking more about her relationship with Edward than the existence of vampires, but after finding the Cullen’s house completely bereft of life, she needs to know her memories are real. This is the most understandable action Bella takes during this time period.
After experiencing something so consequential, life would feel monotonous. The movie actually does a pretty good job at capturing this feeling as Bella is sitting in front of her window while the seasons pass outside. That’s how you would feel if your reality had completely changed, only to go back to the way it was before. Nothing would seem to be as important. You would feel small and inconsequential and depressed, just as Bella feels.
The nightmares and reckless behavior also make a lot more sense when filtered through the lens of “I don’t know what life is anymore”, as does Bella latching onto Jacob so harshly. Of course, we’re meant to believe that’s because of the weird imprinting thing, but let’s ignore that for now.
Jacob is Edward’s foil. He is everything human and alive while Edward is everything inhuman and, well, dead. We don’t find out he’s a werewolf until later, so for the period of Bella’s depression, he still counts as human. He draws Bella back into her normal life and reminds her there is still hope for her. Her connection with Jacob is so opposite from her connection with the vampires (not just Edward) that it acts as an anchor keeping her from completely losing herself. Even though it’s unfair to Jacob (at the time, anyway), who sees her attachment as affection rather than a need, it’s understandable in the context of someone who’s completely lost in their own life.
While it could’ve been framed in a much more complex light, I will defend Bella’s angsty, depressive spiral until the day I stop rereading these books. I think it would be very hard for anyone to appropriately handle a life-changing experience such as finding out vampires, werewolves, wizards, or leprechauns are real only to then return to a completely normal life. Applying this to a teenager makes Bella’s complete lack of interest in life even more understandable. Teenagers are already apathetic enough, they don’t need a reason to shun their own existence.
I’m aware this is not one of my more profound pieces, if any could be called that, but it was on my mind. Stop giving Bella such a bad rap, guys.
The Lit Wiz