Gothic Ambiguity In Stephanie Meyer's Twilight

In the novel series Twilight written by author Stephanie Meyer, it is undeniable to notice the romance between the two main characters, Bella and Edward. Stephanie Meyers the author portrays Bella as a helpless damsel in distress throughout majority of the plot in the novels with Edward her vampire lover coming to her rescue. Bella never seems encouraged to seek female independence from Edward and reinforces the idea of female helplessness without a man being present. Twilight characterizes women through abuse, male dependency, and the presumed inability to successfully function on their own, thus negating the role of the modern, independent woman.

Twenty-first century female-authored US vampire romances such as the film Twilight, it differed

His extreme dominance of his female partner is characterized as ideal masculinity. The vampire therefore becomes the hero, not the villain, due to his attempts to suppress his dangerous sexuality; moreover, this is based on the exaltation of his wealthy white privilege. Bella's narrative of passionate love as the most central narrative of life, justifying any weakness of character, positions Edward as her Byronic hero, glamorizing women's love for abusive men.5 The irresistible allure of the vampire's beauty and privilege also problematically depicts his white skin and his elite world as justifying her subordination to his

Yet whereas Rowling’s immediate target audience is children, Meyer’s is adolescent girls, and although both authors simultaneously appeal to adults, the difference in implied reader has had significant repercussions for form, content, and consumer response alike. Far more than “Harry Potter,” the “Twilight” saga speaks overtly to issues of sexuality and female desire, a focus that helps to account both for the popularity of Meyer’s series and for the disdain that it excites in certain segments of the reading public. Thus Meyer’s recalibration of the vampire trope, in which the monster of appetite is now the model of self control, has excited considerable comment in reviews and blogs, while the saga’s vigorous, and divided, fan communities reveal new contours in our understanding of how fandom works and its consequences for media production and reception. The chapters that follow will examine these points in greater detail, but it may be useful here to lay out some concerns that undergird them. The “Twilight” Phenomenon and Genre Because Meyer is working with a combination of low-status genres— the vampire tale, the romance, the female coming-of-age story— the political aspects of the saga’s genre are both prominent and inextricable from gender. Detractors accuse Meyer of misunderstanding genre, lacking