61 pages 2 hours read

Twilight

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2005

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Symbols & Motifs

Baseball

The Cullens like to play baseball. The sound is thunderous when they bat the ball, so they play during thunderstorms on a meadow high in the Olympic Mountains. Far from humans, the sound of their game is hidden behind cracks of lightning. Because they can run much faster than people, the baseball diamond is very large; sometimes, runners and fielders collide, the sound of their marbled bodies striking one another like boulders crashing together. Bella attends a game and notices the playful enthusiasm of the Cullens. The event humanizes the vampires, making them seem accessible to Bella and to the reader.

Blood

Looming in the background of Bella and Edward’s relationship is blood—her blood, which entices Edward. The more he loves her, the more he wants to drink her blood. Bella, meanwhile, has a trait rare among humans: She can smell blood’s rusty, salty aroma, and it nauseates her. When the vampire James attacks her, her scalp gets sliced open, and her blood pours down. Dr. Cullen stitches her back up while Edward sucks James’s poison from her hand. Edward manages to resist the temptation to finish her off; he thereby passes the toughest test of his relationship with Bella—protecting her despite extreme temptation. Blood is the central reason vampires are dangerous; it also symbolizes Bella’s heart and soul, the attributes Edward truly craves.

Cullen House

Deep in the forest, as in a fairy tale, stands the three-story home of the Cullen vampires. The building is old but well maintained, much of its interior designed in a modern style with floor-to-ceiling living-room windows that look out on a lawn edged with tall trees. Coven leader Dr. Cullen has an upstairs office filled with books and old paintings; Alice’s quarters contain a huge bathroom where she likes to dress Bella in finery; Edward’s room contains a large sofa and a wall of music CDs. The downstairs rooms, done in white-on-white, are elegant and peaceful; the house bespeaks tasteful wealth and comfort. It’s a place Bella loves, a symbol of the loving, if unusual, family that she adopts.

Forks High School

Bella must attend Forks High School, a prospect she dreads because she’ll be an object of curiosity and possible rejection as an outsider. The school students and staff are friendly, though, and her fears subside. The curriculum is the standard-American variety, but the surprising interest Bella receives from several boys is unusual, as she never received such interest at her school in Phoenix. Most unsettling, though, is the attention from Edward; it’s in biology class that they meet under tense circumstances. At the end of the book, after they’ve found their way into a relationship, they attend the Prom in the school gym. The high school is the setting against which most of Bella’s relationships are established; its pleasant neutrality makes it a quiet background against which her social life plays out.

La Push

Bella and her school chums visit the beach at La Push on the west coast of the Olympic Peninsula, not far from Forks. La Push is the small-town home to the Quileute Nation of Native Americans. Among them are Billy Black, a tribal elder and close friend of Bella’s father Charlie, and Billy’s son Jacob, who tells Bella haunting stories of the Quileute’s history and its battles with vampires. The town is the center of local opposition to the Cullens; it figures more prominently in the sequels to Twilight.

Port Angeles

About 60 miles northeast of Forks on the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula is the coastal town of Port Angeles. Once a center of logging, today, it attracts artisans and tourists. Bella, Jessica, and Angela visit to shop for dresses at the town’s big department store. Bella goes for a walk there, gets lost in a warehouse area, and is nearly assaulted by a group of men before escaping with Edward. The incident brings her and Edward closer together when they sit at a restaurant and begin to find out more about each other. 

Swan House

Bella moves to Forks and lives in her father’s house. It’s a two-story building, and her bedroom—unchanged since she lived there as a young child—gives her a sense of solitude and safety. Neither of Bella’s parents is very good at cooking, and Bella has long since learned that she must prepare food herself if she wants to eat properly. Several of the book’s scenes occur in the kitchen, as Bella cooks, talks, or thinks. Bella often spends time alone at the house while her father is away at work; when he’s home, he’s quiet. Thus, the modest, peaceful house evokes a feeling of solidity; it’s a “home base” for Bella, an escape from her intimidating, confusing, and sometimes dangerous social world.

Truck

Bella’s car is a truck, a 1960s red Chevy pickup transferred to the Swans from Billy Black of the nearby Quileute Nation. It’s Charlie Swan’s welcome-home gift to his daughter so she can get to school and around town safely. The truck is built from an older, heavier type of steel construction; in an accident, it will cause much more damage than it receives. This suits Bella, a clumsy girl who uses the truck as a kind of shield as she drives through town. The vehicle also symbolizes her father’s sturdy devotion to Bella. 

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