Bella Swan, meet Winne Foster.

First, I'd like to say that there is a point to this, and secondly, I do not mean to offend anyone.

Tuck Everlasting. Twilight. Both books have several characteristics in common. For one, both books revolve around a young, female character who falls in love with an "immortal." But why is this connection important? What does this have to do with my overall analysis of Twilight? It's simple. The characters of Bella and Winne can be easily juxtaposed through a feminist lens. Bella and Winne come from complete opposite sides of the spectrum. Although I will talk about both of them, I will primary be focusing on Bella seeing as how I just completed Twilight.

Although I have never read the book, Tuck Everlasting, I have seen the movie and I researched the main difference between the movie and the book. In the book, Winne Foster falls in love with Jesse Tuck. Jesse and his family stumbled upon a fountain of youth. Jesse, who is eternally seventeen, promises to Marry Winne. Due to circumstance, the Tucks have to flee. Jesse gives Winne water from the fountain to drink. However, she decides not to drink the water and thus, does not become an immortal like Jesse and his family. She lives a full life and dies at the age of 78. I'm sorry if I ruined the book.

Here's a link for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuck_Everlasting_%282002_film%29

Both Bella Swan and Winne Foster are connected by love. Bella would do anything to be with Edward, and if you continue the series, you'll see she succeeds. Winne obviously takes a different route. While she knows that Jesse loves her and even wants to marry her, she decides that living, even if it's for 50 or 60 more years, is more beneficial. Anyway, this rant is a little off topic.

I guess where I'm trying to go with this is that I feel like Winne was able to make choices and dictate her own life, whereas Bella lacks control. It's ironic that Bella, a female character, seems to lack control over her very life at times. The reason? Stephanie Meyer and her explanation of feminism.

Stephanie Meyer, on her fabulous website gives her amazing definition of feminism. Meyer writes when asked if Bella is considered an anti-feminist heroine, "In my own opinion (key word), the foundation of feminism is this: being able to choose... One of the weird things about modern feminism is that some feminists seem to be putting their own limits on women's choices. That feels backward to me. It's as if you can't choose a family on your own terms and still be considered a strong woman. How is that empowering? Are there rules about if, when, and how we love or marry and if, when, and how we have kids? Are there jobs we can and can't have in order to be a "real" feminist? To me, those limitations seem anti-feminist in basic principle."

First, I believe that if a women wants to get married, she should get married. If she wants to be a housewives, fine. There's nothing wrong with starting a family. However, when a character is so one dimensional the element of choice goes out the window. I get it, Bella is soooo in love. It's her first hearts/flowers/hugs/kisses love. I get it, but what I don't get is how completely spineless she is at times. I honestly believe if Edward told her to jump off a cliff, she'd do it. Oh wait, she does. That's right, Miss Swan resorts to cliff-diving in New Moon so she can hear Edward's voice because she just cannot bear to go on without that sweet sensual voice accommodated by his breathe that annihilates her.

I'm not going to lie. Going into this book, I already disliked it. At first, I mainly disliked it because Stephanie Meyer ruined vampires, but once I started peeling back the layers and looked at the text, I realized a terrible message is being sent through the text. I guess it could be argued that I'm looking too deeply at the text, but honestly, who wants anyone to tell them what to do? Edward emotionally and physically abuses Bella throughout Twilight, and from what I've found, the other books as well. Although the abuse at times is minimal, it still infuriates me.

Edward tells to her to get in the car. She gets in the car.
Edward gets her food and tells her to eat. She eats.
Edward says he's going to drive, even though it freaks her out. She lets it go.
Edward says that she has to go away and lie to her father. She does.
Edward constantly tries to scare her away. She remains unfazed.

There are more, but there is one that really got under my skin. It's in the last "we're in high school so we totally have to have a prom chapter." I literally threw my book and didn't touch it for two days. I was so aggravated by this point. I kept finding myself going, "Really? Is this really happening?" Because I honestly couldn't fathom the idea of going to a dance pretty much right after about dying. However, I could tell I was almost near the end of the book so I tried to let it go. Well, that didn't happen. Instead, Meyer made herself the biggest fool of all.

Edward took Bella's phone. Then, Edward answered Bella's phone, once again dictating her life.

Edward says to Tyler regarding Bella not being at her house on prom night, "I'm sorry if there's been some kind of miscommunication, but Bella is unavailable tonight... To be perfectly honest, she'll be unavailable every night, as far as anyone besides myself is concerned. No offense. And I'm sorry about your evening."

Bella adds that Edward didn't sound sorry at all. And then the unthinkable happens! For once, I got excited. I thought that FINALLY she was going to yell at him for bossing her around, but spines don't grow overnight. Instead, she cried and was angry because he had taken her to prom. She was also angry that, along with her reset battle wound (her leg in a cast), that she was wearing a stiletto heel.

I feel like I've covered this the best I can. I just feel like the character of Bella doesn't have the ability to make an intelligent choice. She's willing to give up her human life to be with Edward for forever when they haven't even know each other that long. It's obvious that Bella is unable to thinking rationally. Although, it's not like she's really going to have to give up that much. She can still go out in the sunshine and all...

To me, Feminism is all about strength, and with this strength a person is able to make decisions that will benefit them for the long-haul. A person is to pursue their hopes and dreams, and have the ability to explore all of their options.

Winne chose life over immortality. She thought about it. I can't help but feel as if Bella is just jumping into her decisions (when she has decisions) without thinking with a level head.

"I do love a good barbeque"- DayBreakers

Soooooooooo. This is my blog. My name is Caitlin and currently I am a junior. I'm majoring in Psychology and Creative Writing. Now that the corny everyday type of intro is out of the way, let me say that I love LOVE love vampires. When I found out that the class was going to revolve around vampires, I was so excited. All of my friends love vampires. I'm not obsessed or anything, but as of late, most new entertainment is somehow involved with vampires. Just look at some of the newer shows on TV. There's True Blood on HBO, The Gates on ABC, and The Vampire Diaries on the CW. Although I only watch one of those shows *cough* True Blood *cough*, it seems like there's a show for everyone. My mother loves the show The Gates, and The Vampire Diaries seems to aim itself at young girls. Vamps are in.

With all of this being said though, there has been a great injustice to the vampire world, but I'll get into that later. Here's a little spoiler though.


Edward Cullen meets Buffy Summers