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Popular Culture Review
I kept my eyes on his, watched as the excitement in them
faded and gentled.
{Twilight 282-83)
Bella’s reference to her blood as it boils under her skin and bums in her
lips, a vaginal symbol, alludes to her sexual desire. Bella’s use of “wild”
conveys her passion as raw and untamed. Edward’s response, turning to
“unresponsive stone,” cools Bella’s desire and defers the sexual moment. Bella
notes this by saying that she “watched as the excitement [...] faded and
gentled.” Edward and Bella’s sexual desire is restrained; for Edward, this
restraint illustrates his self-control whereas for Bella, it represses her sexuality.
For Bella, it is difficult for her to understand why someone as “perfect” as
Edward would love her. She tells Edward: “I’m absolutely ordinary—well,
except for bad things like all the near-death experiences and being so clumsy
that I’m almost disabled” {Twilight 210). Bella devalues herself, highlighting a
physically negative attribute—clumsiness—as her only distinctive quality.
Debra Gimlin explains the relationship between the physical body and the
internal self in her book Body Work, stating that, “the body is fundamental to the
self because it serves to indicate who an individual is internally, what habits the
person has, and even what social value the person merits” (3). Unlike Buffy,
Bella is internally “disabled”, needing romantic relationships to give her value.
When Bella is not involved in a relationship, she loses self-value; as a result,
Bella devalues her physical body by engaging in risky behavior. For instance, in
New Moon, after Edward leaves her, Bella decides “to be as reckless as” she can
“possibly manage in Forks” (147). She finds that as she engages in risky
behaviors, she hears Edward’s voice warning and berating her. Although she is
physically endangering herself, she is so amazed by the “sheer beauty” that she
decides she can’t “allow [her] memory to lose it, no matter the price” (186). This
price she is willing to pay is her own life, as her final risky act is jumping off of
a cliff into the water below:
I knew that this was the stupidest, most reckless thing I had
done yet. The thought made me smile. The pain was
already easing, as if my body knew that Edward’s
voice was just seconds away [...]
‘Don’t do this,’ he pleaded.
You wanted me to be human, I reminded him. Well, watch
me...you won 7 stay with me any other way [...]
I didn’t want to fight anymore. And it wasn’t the
lightheadedness, or the cold, or the failure of my
arms as the muscles gave out in exhaustion, that
made me content to stay where I was. I was almost