58 pages 1 hour read

Stephenie Meyer

New Moon

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2006

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Symbols & Motifs

Beach

Often when Bella visits Jacob in La Push, she heads down to the beach and walks the shoreline between the ocean and cliffs, sometimes sitting on the big, bleached driftwood log where she first sat with Jacob. Here, she learned that Edward is a vampire; she also realized here that Jacob has become a werewolf. As she paces, she tries to reconcile her love for these two people with her concerns about their behavior as mythical beings. It’s also here where she decides to jump from the cliffs into the water. The beach is where she does some of her most important thinking. The beach symbolizes her mind, the tall cliffs standing like great principles in her spirit that confront the roiling seas of her emotions.

Meadow

The lovely forest meadow where Edward took Bella on the day they first kissed haunts her after Edward leaves. She searches for it, sometimes with Jacob’s unwitting help, and finally locates it. The meadow symbolizes for her the essence of her love for Edward, but she discovers that the place holds no meaning without him. Her search is part of her attempt to hold onto items that remind her of Edward.

Not only does the meadow disappoint her, but it also nearly becomes the end of her when another vampire, Laurent, appears there and threatens to kill her.