Apparently the story of Twilight came to Stephenie Meyer in a dream. However, after finishing this veritable tombe of teenage angst and empty melodrama I have my suspicions that this dream was induced after Mrs Myer finished reading or watching Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. For anyone like me, who had the misfortune to read that awful book for A level English, the strong similarities with Bronte's novel are far from welcome ones.
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| Replace the soda can with a copy of Wuthering Heights and you'll understand how I feel |
Characters:
Bella/ Cathy
Edward/Heathcliff
Jacob/Linton
Jumble these names up a bit, give them sharp incisors and we have Twilight.
Bella/ Cathy
Our protagonist is Bella Swan who we can presume, since she is stuck between two guys, is the Cathy figure in Meyer's text. Unfortunately this is where the similarities between the two characters end. While Cathy is portrayed and actively demonstrates that she is a strong, wilful character (i.e. by making her own choices, selfish as they may seem) Bella on the other hand is happy to sit back in relative inferiority and let her over-protective vamp boyfriend make all her decisions (this is where feminism takes a beating).
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| Bella fulfilling her potential |
Edward/ Heathcliff
Strangely I liked the Heathcliff in Bronte's novel, although he seemed quite dangerous and animalistic, there seemed to be a kind of vulnerability about him. Come on! He was possibly abandoned by his family and so has no real roots except that is Cathy, so we can cut him a little slack when he gets finds that the love of his life, his 'soul mate' has married another. Alas Meyer's Edward has no such real depth, despite being similar to the 'monster-like' Heathcliff -simply because he is a monster, with him being a vamp and all- there is no real substance beneath the model-like looks (despite Meyer half-heartedly trying to throw in some cliche history of him coming from England) in the end he's more vanilla than Cathy's rich husband, Linton.
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| Even Alice is bored but to be fair she is used to talking rabbits. |
Jacob/ Linton
Hmmmm! Not much similarities here except their both second best so I feel sorry for them both. Jacob is clearly meant to be portrayed as a hot than hot werewolf and of course like all the attractive guys in Forks he inevitably fall for Bella because....? Honestly I don't know why he falls for her or why Edward does for that matter (except in Edward's case it's kinda explained through the fact that he likes her smell.....? Ok so that's not weird at all). Anway Jacob seems to genuinely like Bella and they have very normal albeit boring and awkward conversations where Jacob tries to make a move on Bella, she keeps knocking him back and he bounces back to her like an eager puppy determined to be loved.
Setting: The Moors/ Forks
The depressing rainy setting of Twilight's setting, Forks took me back to the depressing, rainy moors that Heathcliff and Cathy loved so much. Just thinking about it gives me chills- and not in a good way.
The Romance:
Cathy + Heathcliff
vs.
Bella + Edward
I never understood as to why Cathy and Heathcliff's romance was considered comparable to the greatest literary romances of all time (like Romeo and Juliet, Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, Margaret Hale and Mr Thornton and so on). Both Cathy and Heathcliff are incredibly selfish (see Cathy's stupid decision to marry Linton even though she declares Heathcliff as her soul mate), self-destructive (particularly Cathy who although has made her choice to marry Linton, so she can live comfortably, annoyingly continues to bitch and moan and simply won't lie in the bed she made, instead continuing to try and have both her lovers within reach), cruel (both Heathcliff and Cathy are mean to animals and the people around them) and finally they are downright annoying with their tragically forced tale of woe and heartbreak- these two take brooding to a whole new level.
Bella and Edward's relationship is equally self destructive and disturbing. Most of the story is Edward trying to tell Bella that they can't be together; mostly because if they do become a couple he'll lose control and end up biting her and sucking her dry because he's a vampire and she has nice smelling blood or something. Oooh I forgot to mention he can also read minds- yep he's Mystic Meg or something- however he cannot read Bella's mind (lucky for her as all he'd probably hear a variation of "OOOH Sparkly!"or "EEEK! I don't care if he kills me he's just so damn hot *drool*" Then her boring ass would get dropped before her drool touches the floor.Another thing which is equally disturbing and comparable to Wuthering Heights is the fact that Cathy's dead= while Edward is the undead and just as Cathy appears as a ghost and tries to get through the window of her bedroom= in turn Edward seems to creepily watch and enter Bella's room through her window. I'm going to assume that the window is the threshold to the supernatural world.
Anyway I'm going to end it here. If you have spotted any Wuthering Heights similarities I would love to hear about them so drop me a comment below. Thanks.
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