Re-Reading “Twilight”: Reinterpreting Gender, Sacrifice, and Agency

Growing up, watching or reading Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight was a religious experience for many teenage girls: whether this divine encounter took the form of rapt, unwavering attention as Taylor Lautner shredded yet another shirt into non-existence or silence interrupted only by the sound of pages turning as we pored over Bella’s latest adventure was immaterial. What was indisputable was that there was something about the idea of a mortal woman, average in every way, being deserving of everlasting love and everlasting life from a man who, by all accounts, should have been out of her league. That notion  sparked our teenage obsession. Why wouldn’t it? It was Christ’s story, a perennial bestseller itself, but repackaged so that it might capture the attention of a secular audience. 

Edward Cullen, with his unearthly beauty and sparkling, pale skin, assumed the iconography of the modern-day savior figure, a veritable fountain of all-encompassing and unselfish love, while Bella, a rather unremarkable teenager, fell quite perfectly into the role of Man: yearning for a transcendental love that would provide her with the meaning and permanence missing from her fleeting and unbearably human life. 

Now, in my 20s, one of the first things I noticed while re-reading the Twilight Saga this summer was how easily and often Bella is relegated to the role of caregiver, the role traditionally prescribed to women in conservative religious settings. This is particularly noticeable in her interactions with her father, Charlie, who is written to be completely incompetent in the realm of the household despite having lived alone for years prior to Bella’s move back to Forks, a small town in Washington. Upon her arrival in Forks, Bella is expected to have dinner on the table for Charlie in advance of his return from work and often seems to rush home from her appointments or meetings with friends to fulfill this duty. Granted, this labor is something that she assigns herself after the discovery of her father’s lack of talent in the kitchen. However, there are times when Charlie’s incompetence in domestic tasks, traditionally a woman’s domain, seems rather unbelievable for a man his age, who, as previously mentioned, has spent quite a bit of time living on his own.

 In Twilight: Eclipse, for example, he sticks a jar of pasta sauce, metal lid still attached, in the microwave, forcing Bella to intervene and correct his mistake by taking over the preparation of the store-bought pasta. While no alarm bells rang reading this at thirteen, I am more skeptical at twenty-five, especially now that the term “learned incompetence” has gained in popularity. While, Charlie is a fictional character, I wonder if some of his more bumbling characteristics have been forced upon him by Meyer in order to press Bella into the role of the Angel in The House, an archetype of a woman in Victorian literature that was submissive, self-sacrificing and whose primary role was to serve the man of the house: in this case, Charlie. 

While Bella is never quite made to play this same domestic role with her two potential love interests, Edward and Jacob, her inferiority and lack of agency in these relationships emphasize that she is subject to the whims of the men who surround her. A great example of this would be when Jacob, in an attempt to persuade Bella to be with him instead of Edward, kisses Bella against her will in Eclipse. As she is unable to “escape” due to Jacob’s superior strength, she “let[s] her hands drop to [her] side[s], and shut[s] down.” She punches him after he releases her, but due to his greater physicality, breaks her hand on his face. As Bella recounts this story to Charlie, instead of being outraged that his daughter’s agency had been ignored and downright violated, he congratulates Jacob on this breach of trust, cementing the idea that Bella’s autonomy and will is less important than the approval of the men around her. 

Meyer not only excuses the violation of and violence against women in this instance but does so repeatedly throughout the Twilight Saga, perhaps most notably in the case of Emily and Sam. Emily, Sam’s fiancee, is described in New Moon as being horribly scarred from “hairline to chin by three thick, red lines, livid in color though they were long healed.” It is then revealed that Sam inflicted these scars when he “lost control of his temper.” In a world without werewolves and vampires, this would be a clear case of domestic violence. Yet within the world that Meyer has so carefully crafted, Sam is forgiven because he is a werewolf and thus cannot control the explosive nature of his moods. He is simply sorry, as someone drunk might be repentant for the damage they cause in a fit of intoxicated rage. For Meyer, that seems to be enough to redeem him: Sam’s supernaturality mitigates his responsibility, reinforcing harmful narratives that excuse violent behavior. To truly be repentant, after all, one must acknowledge the harm caused and make a genuine effort to change. But through the wonderful effect of the supernatural, Sam is allowed to forgo all accountability for his actions as he simply “can’t help it,” and he and Emily are described as having a wonderfully loving relationship that Bella herself aspires to. As a teenage girl reading Twilight for the first time, I admired Sam and Emily’s relationship too—it seemed so beautiful to me, a relationship that could endure everything and anything. As an adult, I think there is nothing so sweet as a boundary, raised just in the nick of time.  

In Breaking Dawn, the final installment of the Twilight Saga, Meyer cunningly (though less than subtly) inserts her thoughts on abortion. Though Bella had previously accepted that life as a vampire would mean one free of children, upon the discovery of her unlikely pregnancy, she becomes determined to keep her unborn child despite the serious health risks. 

Bella experiences rapid physical deterioration and the possibility of her own death and is willing to endure this despite arguments for her to consider her own health. In a particular argument with Jacob, she states emphatically that she “won’t kill” the baby. Her decision to prioritize the life of her baby over her own reflects a pro-life ideology that ranks the preservation of an unborn fetus over the potential impact on a mother. 

During her pregnancy, Bella is described as a “martyr,” having a “distorted body” with her “bones jabbing against the skin of her face.” The externalization of her physical pain at the expense of the unborn child, coupled with her willingness to sacrifice herself without any thought for her previous goals or relationships outside of her impending motherhood, frames Bella as a saint and pushes forth the narrative that “true” motherhood involves a willingness to suffer for the child and that any other choice, even ones that would increase Bella’s chances of survival, would be wrong. 

Meyer reinforces the idea that a mother’s primary duty is to her unborn child, regardless of her own dreams, well-being, or safety. Bella’s sudden and unyielding devotion to her unexpected pregnancy is not only out of character for her, as she had previously expressed complete indifference to children, but it idealizes her sacrifice in a way that leaves little room for alternative viewpoints. Ultimately, Meyer frames Bella’s choice to continue her pregnancy as a testament to the wonders of motherhood, choosing to villainize women who might choose to prioritize their own health. 

Beneath the supernatural romance that frames Twilight, Meyer has carefully imbued the tale with her own conservative values on gender, relationships, and reproductive rights. The romanticization of self-sacrifice, submission, and traditional caregiving roles reinforces a narrow and prescriptive perspective on womanhood and Bella’s journey—from a reserved but independent young woman to a wife and mother willing to die for her child—offers readers a model of femininity based on the virtues of compliance, martyrdom, and unquestioning devotion. While these are certainly values that could be admirable in any person, re-encountering Twilight as an adult made me question why it is that women are bound to be so dutiful, even in a world of fantasy. Why have the proverbial shackles of our everyday lives followed us even into the realm of the imaginary? Edward does not seem to be troubled by the practicalities of how he will provide for his family, and Jacob does not worry about the implications being a high-school dropout might have on his earning potential. Meanwhile, the women of Twilight are still faced with the implicit threat to their own bodies and the weight of traditional gender roles inflicted upon them.