Twilight

“Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain.”

Bella stares in the mirror and finds herself wanting. She’s too pale, withdrawn, and clumsy to be popular or have close friends. She doesn’t yet realize that she reaches unusual conclusions about the world because she thinks and feels more deeply than most people. Bella works hard to others; she believes, though, that it’s unlikely anyone else will bother to understand her.

“In a lot of ways, living with Charlie was like having my own place, and I found myself reveling in the aloneness instead of being lonely.”

Her father, Charlie, is the perfect housemate for Bella: He’s quiet, keeps a discreet eye on her, but mostly leaves her to herself. This gives Bella wide latitude to pursue her projects in a comfortable solitude appropriate to a bright, alienated teen. Therefore, she can think carefully and creatively about problems that arise in her daily life.

“If I was being honest with myself, I knew I was eager to get to school because I would see Edward Cullen. And that was very, very stupid.”

Already, Bella is enthralled by the mysterious Edward. Hers is a high-school crush with a boy she barely knows. She wants so much to find something that will save her from boredom, self-doubt, and loneliness that she imagines she may find it in Edward. She’s smart enough to know that her yearnings are foolish—someone that alluring isn’t necessarily someone worthwhile or even safe—but she doesn’t know how to switch off her feelings. The odds are against her, but the possibility of something wonderful pushes her forward, despite herself.

“In my dream it was very dark, and what dim light there was seemed to be radiating from Edward’s skin. I couldn’t see his face, just his back as he walked away from me, leaving me in the blackness. No matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t catch up to him; no matter how loud I called, he never turned.”

Already, Bella’s mind is reckoning with the phenomenon that is Edward. The darkness of her dream suggests the dreary boredom of Forks life, or perhaps the dangers she may now be facing, and that Edward glows with the energy that dispels gloom. He keeps walking away, as if he’s someone she’ll have trouble keeping up with or someone she believes is too good for her. Edward’s glow also foretells a surprising occurrence later in the story that involves his skin.

“I suspected that Jessica enjoyed my inexplicable popularity more than my actual company.”

Bella displays a sharp understanding of other kids. Though she still doubts herself and is surprised by the attention of Forks High boys—nothing like this happened back in Phoenix—she senses subtle differences in their interest in her and intuits the reasons. In the same way, she can read the motives of friends like Jessica. Bella is someone who hangs back, watches others, and learns.

“‘It would be more…prudent for you not to be my friend,’ he explained. ‘But I’m tired of trying to stay away from you, Bella.’ His eyes were gloriously intense as he uttered that last sentence, his voice smoldering. I couldn’t remember how to breathe. ‘Will you go with me to Seattle?’ he asked, still intense. I couldn’t speak yet, so I just nodded. He smiled briefly, and then his face became serious. ‘You really should stay away from me,’ he warned.”

Edward both invites Bella to be with him and warns her away. It’s a push-pull that begins to typify their budding relationship: Edward wants her but feels guilty about endangering her; Bella feels eager to be with him but is acutely aware that he may be more than she can handle. Where most teens might fret about whether they should date and face the attendant sexual risks, for Bella and Edward, the stakes are vastly higher: A mistake could cost her life.

“‘Will you do something for me this weekend?’ He turned to look me straight in the face, utilizing the full power of his burning gold eyes. I nodded helplessly.”

Edward and Bella tend to gaze longingly into each other’s eyes. Edward possesses a power over others that partly involves hypnotizing them, but somehow she does the same to him as well. Though each struggles to understand the other, it’s through the eyes that their rapidly intensifying feelings pour through clearly to one another.

“[…] when I thought of him, of his voice, his hypnotic eyes, the magnetic force of his personality, I wanted nothing more than to be with him right now. Even if…but I couldn’t think it. Not here, alone in the darkening forest. Not while the rain made it dim as twilight under the canopy […].”

As the truth hits her, Bella realizes that, yes, Edward is a vampire, and, yes, she yearns for him. Her epiphany happens in dimly lit woods; she stands at the edge of the twilight between her ordinary daytime world and the new, dangerous realm of Edward, who beckons to her beyond the darkness. She’s drawn to the alluring, charming beauty of a being whose voice, eyes, and personality are the weapons of a predator; she must fight to make sense of the signals he sends that promise love and safety but also threaten death.

“Making decisions was the painful part for me, the part I agonized over. But once the decision was made, I simply followed through—usually with relief that the choice was made. Sometimes the relief was tainted by despair, like my decision to come to Forks. But it was still better than wrestling with the alternatives.”

Bella displays her maturity as a thinker. Where many people might fret endlessly over a decision, she wrestles with a problem until the answer presents itself, and after that, she’s content to follow the path to which it points. She’s willing to set aside her fears and simply act. It’s a faith in herself that helps her overcome the bumps which, on any path, even the right one, may cause her to stumble.

“About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him—and I didn’t know how potent that part might be—that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”

This quote captures most of the book’s plot. What’s more, it shows that Bella understands Edward even better than he understands her. She knows what he is and accepts him: His ache to feed off her is closely connected to his love for her. She, meanwhile, has found her Romeo; unlike Juliet, though, she doesn’t think, “Wherefore art thou Edward?” because she has no regrets, come what may.

“I hesitated. ‘I can’t be sure—I don’t know how to read minds—but sometimes it seems like you’re trying to say goodbye when you’re saying something else.’”

Her words again display Bella’s complex mind as it struggles with self-doubt. She at once captures the subtle message hidden inside Edward’s words and, at the same time, hints at the powerful emotions, including doubt and worry, that such messages generate in her. Of course, she knows Edward’s feelings are in turmoil, but she can’t quite accept that this proves the intensity of his desire for her. It’s not that he doesn’t want her, but that he doesn’t want to want her, and she can’t yet separate that struggle from her insecurity.

“It must be a hard thing, to be a father; living in fear that your daughter would meet a boy she liked, but also having to worry if she didn’t.”

Still in high school and already involved in a romance way beyond the capabilities of most adults, Bella has one foot on the dock of childhood and another on the boat of adulthood, and the boat is pulling away. She also must hide her real activities from her father without causing him to worry that she’s too lonely.

“[…] since I’d come to Forks, it really seemed like my life was about him.”

With nothing compelling about Forks to absorb her, Edward becomes her entire world. It’s not healthy, and she knows it, but it gives meaning to a life otherwise trapped in the drabness of the small, beclouded town. It might be better to have a great passion than to drift sadly through one’s days, but it’s also a risky way to live, especially when the passion involves a vampire.

“His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday’s hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface. He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn’t sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.”

The author once dreamed of a vampire with scintillating skin who lies in a meadow; her book is built around that dream. It symbolizes at once the forbidden and the desirable in the form of a being of great beauty who must hide his powers. The story radiates outward from the idea that extraordinary beauty might also be extraordinarily dangerous.

“He lifted his glorious, agonized eyes to mine. ‘You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever.’”

Edward confesses his love for Bella. He’s never felt this way before, not in the hundred years of his existence. His feelings for her are balanced by his intense desire, as a vampire, to consume her blood. The agony of this struggle, reflected in his tortured eyes, expresses the intensity of his devotion to her. His willingness to reveal to her secrets of his life that no other human knows also signals the extent of his devotion to her.

“‘And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…,’ he murmured. I looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word. ‘What a stupid lamb,’ I sighed. ‘What a sick, masochistic lion’ [he said].”

Bella and Edward confess their feelings for each other despite the dangers. Bella has long since decided to be with him, and though he worries almost constantly, Edward keeps choosing to be with her. Their relationship promises to be painful, but neither can imagine life without the other.

“I’m new at this; you’re resurrecting the human in me, and everything feels stronger because it’s fresh.”

Edward describes the rush of feelings—love, jealousy, guilt, worry—that he’s had since he fell for Bella. This is new territory; like her, he must struggle with intense, though unfamiliar, emotions. His old certainties have come tumbling down, and he’s trying to climb out of the ruins and into the sunlight of a relationship without hurting her or himself.

“[…] I want you to be safe. And yet, I want to be with you. The two desires are impossible to reconcile.…”

Succinctly, Edward sums up his dilemma. His love for her and his normal good intentions make war against his powerful instincts. Though much more confident that he can resist harming Bella, Edward still believes he’s too dangerous a companion for her. Edward also is a worrier, and his concerns circulate in his mind continuously.

“I occupied myself with memorizing the room; the striped pattern of the couches, tan, peach, cream, dull gold, and tan again. Sometimes I stared at the abstract prints, randomly finding pictures in the shapes, like I’d found pictures in the clouds as a child. I traced a blue hand, a woman combing her hair, a cat stretching.”

Bella hides in a hotel from the tracker-vampire James. The passage illustrates Bella’s restless fear with an elaborate description of her mind’s activity as it searches, not so much for patterns in the wall hangings, but for something, anything, to distract her from the agony of not knowing if her newfound family is safe.

“Immortality must grant endless patience.”

Still unused to the ways of vampires, Bella remarks on how they can sit still for hours, appearing even more like marble statues than they normally do. Bella notices more than the differences; she can see how those differences change behavior and alter perspectives. It’s yet another sign of her ability to accept and adapt to traits that might cause others to flee in confusion.

“‘Afraid of a needle,’ he muttered to himself under his breath, shaking his head. ‘Oh, a sadistic vampire, intent on torturing her to death, sure, no problem, she runs off to meet him. An IV, on the other hand…’”

Edward once again is astonished at Bella’s surprising mind. He jokes about it with her, but he understands she’s willing to sacrifice herself for him. In a way, it’s he who must live up to her standards rather than the other way around. Though physically weak compared to the Cullens, Bella turns out to be, in some ways, the strongest member of her newfound family.

“‘Twilight, again,’ he murmured. ‘Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end.’”

Edward’s comment brings the story full circle and gives meaning to the book’s title: Even the most beautiful experiences can’t last forever. Beneath his and Bella’s devotion lies the uncertainty of how much time they have to be together. Given her frail humanity, the ongoing dangers posed by most vampires, and her accident-prone nature, Bella’s life can’t be measured in much more than decades, far less than the centuries available to a vampire. Edward must struggle with this awareness, even as he dedicates himself to the distinctly finite Bella.

“I wished there was some way to explain how very uninterested I was in a normal human life.”

While Edward tries to convince Bella that life with him remains too dangerous for her, Bella decides that the solution is for her to become a vampire, too. Edward has decidedly mixed feelings about being a vampire, and he’s not about to take away her human life experience to satisfy her yearning to be like him. It would require something vastly more serious to change his mind.